The Next Print: How True Colors is Designing its Future

R&D receives the due focus with around 2% of turnover. “That may sound small, but we have a dedicated R&D team of 13–14 people across our verticals — fabrics, inks, papers, and machines. We also have a well-equipped lab for testing fabrics, dyes, and colours. 

For papers and fabrics, our labs continue developing better formulations, coatings, and processes. We keep investing in incremental improvements, even if the spend is just 2% of turnover.’

Plus, the mission is also to enhance “our own printing of fabric from 3 million per meters per month, increase paper production from 20 million meters per month, and expand energy sustainability with solar."

Ask him to expand on the future of digital printing in India, he asserts: “When we started in 2013, digital textile printing in India was hardly 200 million meters, mostly for T-shirts and mugs. Today it is around 1.8 billion meters. By 2030, we expect it to reach 5–7 billion meters. Out of the 2,200–2,500 crore meters of fabric printed annually in India, more and more is shifting from conventional to digital, and “and we will be up there as leading this shift.”

Sanjay elaborates: Compared to conventional printing, digital uses 57% less electricity. In conventional, large amounts of glue are used in paste, which creates its own environmental issues.  The biggest saving is in water. Conventional printing consumes 60–70% more water — about 4 litres per meter. In digital, we can print with around 1.5 litres per meter. Overall, when you combine electricity, water, and chemicals, carbon emissions are reduced by nearly 90%. In total, digital reduces waste by 70–80%.

The advantages are clear: shorter lead times, on-demand sampling, lower water usage, less pollution, and flexibility in designs. Fast fashion is also driving digital — brands now want 10,000 meters in 100 different designs rather than 100,000 meters in one design. That is only possible with digital.

The free-flowing conversation in between switches to people and processes. CoFounder Satish Panchani who is responsible for workflow management, execution, and business development, ensuring the integration of various processes within the organisation, confesses that in the early days everything — from machine installation, printing, servicing customers, importing paper — was handled by the four of them. As work expanded, they started adding people. “Up to 25–30 people, everything could still be managed directly: you give an instruction, the other executes. It was very people-driven. The turning point came when he heard a diamond businessman speak at an event. “’My biggest responsibility is to have no responsibility’. That stayed with me. The idea was clear: if you are free from day-to-day operations, only then can you think about the company’s growth. From that day we started consciously working on becoming a system-driven company.”

Translating that into practice entailed listing down every activity that was done in a day. “Suppose there were 15–20 tasks. We identified seven that could be delegated. Initially, we made the mistake of delegating and then forgetting. As the team grew to 100+, that didn’t work — without follow-up, tasks would not get completed. So we created reporting structures and feedback loops: who reports to whom, how, and what gets reviewed daily.

“Processes became our way of solving problems. For example, in printing we set up live Google Sheets to track every customer requirement. Earlier, coordinators handling multiple clients would jot things in notebooks or rely on memory, and 20% would get missed. Now, every call or request is logged into the sheet. Delays can happen, but nothing is forgotten.

“Similarly, in production we introduced trackers. Sales could immediately see the status of any order — which stage it was at, why it was delayed, even who handled it. In the paper division, we can trace a problematic roll right down to which raw material supplier, which lot, which coating line, which operator, and which shift it came from. The philosophy became simple: every problem is converted into a process.”

When it comes to people management, Satish advocates the policy of keeping people by design, not by policy. “Our very first employee, Mehulbhai, joined as a printing master and is still with us. Our second hire, a designer, now leads a 60-member design team. When we hired 20 designers, 18 are still with us.”

The focus is also on women. “When we created coordinator roles, we consciously trained women back in 2017. Some of them have stayed with us through marriage, motherhood. We provide around a year of maternity leave with full pay. For us, culture is not just words. Many people who join True Colors make it their last job, because they find growth, security, and an environment that values them.

“People often say business is not family, but I won’t deny that over time a strong bond has formed. When someone gives you 12 years of their life, that bond is real. For me as CEO, my role is just different — but I see myself as an employee like everyone else. Respect flows both ways.”

True Colors continues to build on its strengths, prototyping a project literally under cover, is looking to diversify its portfolio to an altogether new yet connected field. By closing every loop — from machine to material — this young enterprise has emerged as a seamless thread running through India’s digital printing landscape.