Century Plyboards (India), among the leaders in plywood, decorative veneers and laminates' manufacture, is planning to tap Africa for possible location of a captive plantation project.
The proposal is now under discussion at the top rungs of the management and will be taken up at the board level subsequently. “At present, the company depends mostly on imports for meeting its sourcing requirements but also buys domestically. A captive plantation is being looked upon as a means of insulating the company from fluctuations in price and supplies,” a company official told The Hindu. It is also planning to engage a person to carry out a survey work in Ethiopia
The Rs. 8,000-crore market is dominated by unorganised sector players who command nearly 80 per cent share. Century is the market leader in the organised segment accounting for about 50 per cent of the share. The other major players in this market are Greenply, Duroply, Kitply, Mayur and Archid.
With a repositioning of the brand from a utility item to a lifestyle-statement, the company said that it was reaping rich gains and was hoping to close this fiscal with a sales growth of 22 per cent over the last year when the figure stood at about 15 per cent. “We needed to associate with youth as people buy homes when they are much younger.”
The company embarked on this strategy in end-2008 by associating with youth icons like Shah Rukh Khan and also by bringing young blood into the sales team. “We recruited from the Tier-II management institutes and we also brought on people from companies like Asian and Berger almost doubling the sales team.”
