By Nitin Shah*
As the director of a middle-sized lamination outfit, I have witnessed an array of ups and downs in the industry over the past few decades. No doubt, the Indian economy made its transition through the post-liberalization era and encountered new challenges and at times upheavals, the latest being the pandemic-enforced lockdowns. I would like to dwell at length on the current and future prospects that the lamination industry in India will undergo.
Having spent decades in the lamination industry, I would like to focus on the changes I witnessed in this tenure at the onset.
In the initial years, there was less variety and more standardized material in the market. Just like in the case of private and government cars falling under the Fiat or Ambassador category, our lamination industry too had a few standardized textures and designs that were common for various purposes of use. With the passage of time, the industry has witnessed unrestrained expansion in the variety of designs and textures that are available in the market. At the same time, clients who are exposed to a lot more information and display models over the online platforms have become choosy and demanding as compared to the previous decades.
Also read: Travel: Visa facilities should be expedited
Even as I choose to describe our growth and expansion in various phases, I also wish to shed light on how the lamination industry fared during the lockdown period. Survival during that phase was very difficult for all of us in the industry.
One of the major reasons is that in the absence of a reliable and cost-effective supply chain, the manufacturing units are faced with a high degree of uncertainty that augurs very bad for our laminate market, as in the case of other manufacturing sectors too. It was a virtual standstill period for most of us. We had to take a quick call on retention, survival and handling of our labour force. Some tough decisions were made out of compulsion. However, we did manage through those tough times making sure that minimum inconvenience was caused despite a total stoppage in our revenues.
Besides, the pricing yielded by the available supply chains was highly volatile in nature, making it impossible for us to cater at competitive rates in the market. The challenging times are now a bit of a thing of the past. We are still recovering and looking to do fine as in the past decade.
Coming to the challenges faced by the lamination industry in the post-Covid era, it’s a mixed bag of prospects, opportunities and threats. Though having recovered from a prolonged phase of standstill, we are still grappling hard to overcome problems that are posed by the non-availability of a stable and reliable supply chain and being able to exercise control on the pricing situation that arises in the manufacturing process. Talking about supply chain, it’s to do more with what we call run time. The run time is the gap between the day of placing an order and the day the material is delivered to us. In essence, the run time taken for receipt of our major raw materials is uncomfortably long.
Consequently, we have to ensure that we are stocked with a high level of inventory to maintain a reasonable runtime for delivering our finished laminates to our clients. This does cause stress on the working capital and at times usher uncertainty on how well we can respond to a fluctuating demand factor.
Blissfully, however, we are by and large, unaffected by disruptive technologies and labour problems in our industry. On both counts, we are far more comfortable than other industries as neither is our industry labour intensive nor is it much technology driven. Living in a global village, we do have to be alert to changes and new developments taking place in different parts of the world. However, our requirements not being as complex or tech-savvy in nature, we are assured of a stable environment in what is rapidly turning out to be a buyer’s market increasingly. With manufacturing processes well in place and getting standardized, the near future, too, presents a comfortable vision.
Going ahead, the Indian market for laminates is cruising comfortably and can expect robust growth in the years to come. Our domestic market for laminates has quickly expanded over the decades with an increased number of untapped markets including the tier 2 and tier 3 cities that are currently in the development and growth phase. With a huge domestic market that promises to keep expanding we do have enough buffer funds for supporting our export endeavours to overseas destinations that have a relatively fluctuating kind of demand pattern. On the whole, the future looks very bright and promising. We look forward to diversifying our client base in the near future to not only secure a more sustainable growth model but also work towards an enhanced global presence.
*Mumbai-based Nitin Shah belongs to the lamination industry and is a director of a company.
