Brand ‘ABHIYAN REGENCY’, a joint venture of Brand Abhiyan and Regency, is ready to launch in Decorative Veneer trade with a vision to offer quality products at reasonable price and
take this product to the unexplored territory and to untouched dealers. The brand is manufactured at Ahmedabad based Abhiyan Panel India LLP, owned by much experienced Trio Mr. Hasmukh Patel, Mr. Manish Goel and Mr. Lalit Agarwal. The Ply Reporter talked to all three promoters together - who are seasoned players in wood panel industry, about their company infrastructure, products and market strategy.
Ahmedabad from anywhere in the country is very easy. Also with a fully functional airport, Ahmedabad can be reached easily from all the major cities of India. Also our close proximity to Kandla Port makes us very easy to import good quality veneers from anywhere across the world.
Q & A With Mr. Hasmukh Patel
Q. You have huge experience in plywood industry! Now you have entered into Decorative Veneers segment. What kind of infrastructure do you have for manufacturing?
A. We have state-of-the-art infrastructure, spread over an area of 8.75 acres supported with in-house testing laboratory and with all modern, highly advanced machineries required to manufacture quality veneers.
Q. Do you see any location advantage of your plant?
A. Yes, definitely! Owing to the fact that we are located at the geographical centre of India, accessibility to Ahmedabad from anywhere in the country is very easy. Also with a fully functional airport, Ahmedabad can be reached easily from all the major cities of India. Also our close proximity to Kandla Port makes us very easy to import good quality veneers from anywhere across the world.
Q. What are the important factors on quality that is different from others in this segment?
A. Decorative Veneer is wood in its best form and hence, our focus has always been on making good quality products. The factors which differentiate us from others are as follows:
a) Use only Gurjan Base Ply
b) Thickness of Veneer/Flitchers 0.6mm
c) Add Surface Agent
d) Range of species above 250
Q & A With Mr. Manish Patel
Q. You have been in manufacturing in Yamuna Nagar and now since last 5 years it’s Ahmedabad. What is the basic difference in both the places?
A. Our units in Yamuna Nagar and Ahmedabad cater to different market segments and use different kinds of raw materials. Our Yamuna Nagar unit is concentrated on mass production of plywood and block boards and uses domestic plantation timber which is easily available in North India. The main targeted customers for Yamuna Nagar are the economy and medium segment customers. Our Ahmedabad unit focuses on valueadded and premium products like decorative veneers, Gurjan based plywood, pine wood based flush doors and block boards, the raw materials of which are mostly import based.
Q. What kind of product range and species are you producing with?
A. In addition to regularly available species, our focus is on manufacturing exotic and exclusive range of decorative veneers with Therm, Metallic, Dyed, Blaze treatments, and also Stone Veneers. We are sourcing our materials from across the globe covering all the major continents like Asia, Africa, America and Europe.
Q. What are the key characteristics of your product?
A. To begin with, we are introducing more than 250 species and variants, which are updated regularly that have been hand-picked and imported from across the globe. We have entire range of variants ranging from Rustic to Natural, Metallic, Dyed, Therm, Engineered, Blazed and Stone Veneers. Our product range is unique in terms of – Thickness, Grading and Smoothness.
Q. Why one should buy your Veneers?
A. There are number reasons for customers to buy our product:
1. Made with state-of-the-art infrastructure with location advantage for transportation.
2. 3.2 mm calibrated Gurjan base ply
3. AAA grade Veneer with 0.6mm plus thickness
4. Highly experienced production team with more than 15 years experience in veneer manufacturing
5. FSC, Green Building and ISI Certified product
6. More than 250 species from around the world
Q & A With Mr. Lalit Agarwal
Q. What is the thought behind for a very successful Wood Panel Distributor as you (Green Valley Marketing, Mumbai) who has good presence and goodwill built over 2 decades, has entered into manufacturing?
A. Without having own manufacturing unit, we successfully established Regency Ply Brand in parts of western India. With having strong network of dedicated Dealers, Architects, Contractors and Carpenters we felt a strong desire to market a new product among them. But this time, we desired to spread our marketing network to other parts which is far away from our marketing domain, and for that we felt having own manufacturing unit is a vital factor.
Q. Why did you choose to be part of a project in decorative veneer instead of plywood or any other commodity product?
A. As far as Plywood marketing is concerned, we have already established brand value in the market. We are fortunate that we are getting materials from the factories which are best in qualities and services. We felt that, at this stage, having our own manufacturing unit is not going to make much difference now, as our dealers or Customers hardly bother whether we manufacture our own or outsource it somewhere else. That’s why we were looking for a product which is untouched by us so far.
Q. Why/ what is the motivation behind opting for Ahmedabad based unit?
A. As far as Decorative Veneer manufacturing Industry is concerned, Gujarat evokes quality product. Gujarat and its neighboring state Maharashtra by themselves have big market for quality Decorative Veneer. Industrial environment is suitable and Ahmedabad is well connected with my home Mumbai.
Q. What is your view about the present market and the response you received for your new brand?
A. With Sluggish demand for a long time, Decorative Veneer demand is picking up very fast. This may be because new interest evoked among Architects and Interior Decorators, may be because of introduction of new varieties of Veneers. Our production has started hardly 2 months back. Till now, our regular Plywood dealers and Architects have placed their orders and they appreciated our quality very much. But the real test will be when it will be ventured among the new dealers, who are not associated with us in past.
Q. What are the steps you would be taking up to market your products?
A. We are committed to market our product with lot of branding and promotion activities in spite of the fact that Showroom Culture does not permit much space for that. We plan to give good support to our dealers or distributors to promote our products among Interior Decorators, Architects and Project Sales.