Wooden Elementz

With the recent launch of Elementz, Uniply intends to cater to the growing demand for veneers & wooden floorings matched with modern trends in interior designing and quality expectations. On the sidelines of the event which was held at New Delhi, our correspondent Adeetya Sriram engaged in a tete-a-tete with BL Bengani, Chairman and MD, Uniply to know about the company’s present and future plans.

Adeetya Sriram(AS): What is the purpose of setting up this boutique? Is it the first retail venture?

BL Bengani(BB): See, this is our first boutique in India. As we realised that we must satisfy our customers and dealers, we thought of getting close with the people and assure them in a way that they understand what we are dealing in is totally trustworthy. Hence this boutique was borne where they can clearly see how the offered products look like. Mind you, I would not like to call this a retail venture; this is more of a studio where the dealers can get hands-on experience of a wide variety of products.

AS: Why did you choose Kirti Nagar as the location,?

BB: Primarily, because it has the marble & timber market nearby which makes it convenient for the dealers. Secondly, this location fell properly in our planned budget. Well, this is just the beginning, once we know how the growth and demand of our products work; we will definitely look at other possibilities in the near future.

AS: Why are you calling it a boutique?

BB: As I just said, we treat this as a studio because the person interested gets the actual look and feel of the wooden products here.

AS: Tell us about your manufacturing process and how exactly the design process of the veneer goes through?

BB: We import our ply from countries like U.S, Europe, Brazil and Africa etc. And then we pre-press them after which the baking/boiling of the ply is done, so as to take out the starch & micro-organisms out of the wood. Then the wood goes through slicing which flattens the wood into thick sheets and lastly bud splicing is done. All this happens at our plant that is located in Chennai. After the process, we test them in different conditions before the products can be available in the market.

AS: Tell us something about your products?

BB: We deal in marine plywood which is water proof, and we are the only one who is providing this type of plywood in the country. Our products have a C certification and are FCS certified, and we provide termite-proof not termite resistant, ply with the advantage that it is long lasting. We launched these veneers in Feb’10, and the growth we have attained through these comes to about 20% of the total turnover i.e 90cr for the current fiscal year.

AS: Are your products available through distributors or you have your own stores?

BB: We do have the middle link of distributors and at the same time, we also have two stores of our own.

AS: What are your future plans? Do you want to add more outlets?

BB: We plan to have our own plant for splicing, located at Chennai itself, with which, we aim to reduce our cost to a considerable size. At the moment, our production capacity is about 50,000 cubic meters, which we plan to increase to atleast 70,000 cubic meters, if not more. And after analysing the demand that veneers attains, we will be launching about 10 more studios within the next fiscal year throughout the country. And, looking at the current market situation in the northern side, it seems healthy.

AS: When you say your process includes baking/boiling of the ply, how does the emission situation fair?

BB: Well, emissions are definitely there, but at a level, which is hardly dangerous to the environment.  We re-cycle the smoke through our chimneys that ensures safe emanation.