How do you see the present state of the woodworking industry in South East Asia?

Venkataramana Gorti: I believe that the woodworking industry in SEA is on an upward trajectory. This is predominantly driven by increasing demand across the segments and in countries like India its not only driven by Demand increase but also other factors like more e-commerce players coming-in, India being explored big way as a Very good alternative to China, the Industry moving towards getting more organised, corporates getting into the manufacturing space. Also the India government has identified Woodworking industry as one of the key focus industries and although some of the initiatives got delayed due to the Pandemic, things will start pickingup from this year and we will see a pretty goodb traction moving forward. The other factor is also that we can see a clear trend in change in the aspirations where exports being explored as very good business opportunities since the past 12 months.

Overall I would say that the woodworking industry is in the right space and pace now to accelerate and growth.

You have recently introduced Tapio in India. How far do you think that the Indian woodworking industry is ready for Tapio, the open ecosystem of the industry?

Venkataramana Gorti: You might be surprised to know that the Indian market has been looking for this kind of business solution for some years now and Tapio coming-in is a big boon for this industry. There is clearly a great opportunity in the market for businesses to work on improving the efficiencies, OEE, Costs and most importantly eliminate all the “NVA’s (non-value added activities” to become more profitable and be a good competent global player. Here is where Tapio with its Open ecosystem is able to real-time help and “connect all the dots” and help businesses grow and be more profitable. We are aiming at big customer base embarrassing Tapio from this year onwards.

How far digitisation is possible in the Indian market.

Venkataramana Gorti: I would say that “Going Digital” is the only way forward for us in this industry. Pandemic has just accelerated this need even more. If we want to be profitable, have good sustainable growth it is imperative that there are tools available to take real-time decisions, be proactive and avoid MUDA across the Value-stream of the business. This can be achieved only by Digitisation. We have to have business solutions to integrate right from a customer requirement in a showroom/ecom platform to the designs, manufacturing inputs, raw materials etc supply chain, aid the technicians on the shopfloor to work in a optimal way, the machines to have the best of the OEE’s etc and this can be ONLY possible through Digitisation.

So, to summarise I would say Digitisation is the way forward and it has a huge potential.

What are the marketing strategies going forward in 2022?

Venkataramana Gorti: I would say that the customers have started exploring more & more the partners who have a proven trackrecord on the entire Life-cycle of the products as well as the TCO (total cost of ownership). Also there is a clear shift to having a “single window partner” who can provide entire business solution maybe in consulting, machinery, softwares, after sales support, technological investments being made to support the customers. Everyone will have to align their marketing and sales strategies to these changing times. This shift in the customer approach will definitely challenge the industry players who have predominantly been more focused on being the Cheaper option at the time of selling a product.