Sleek Boards India LLP, headed by industry veteran Mr. Nitin Vaze and ably steered by Mr. Amit Vaze, has recently completed 25 years of existence in marketing globally acclaimed wood panel boards across India and abroad. The father-son duo talk about their journey marked with quality consciousness, integrity and perseverance.
Modern Woodwork: Please elaborate on how Sleek Boards was started.
Mr. Nitin Vaze: Sleek Boards is my first business venture as an entrepreneur and an organic move backed with philosophy of enterprism with the proven performance and strong market reputation as the main pillar in turning around Novopan to a brand leader in pre-laminated boards business whilst heading the company’s marketing team.
The success encouraged a co-operative plant set up in Maharashtra producing world’s first thin board plant from bagasse to approach me with all India marketing assignment in India’s first cooperative-private partnership in the panel industry in 1997.
Sleek Boards was then formed to reflect the Sleek (thin) Boards marketed. Sleek Boards is a family-owned company and my wife Leena looks after the Finance and Accounting areas. My son Amit joined me after completing his CPA (USA) in 2018 to strengthen my marketing efforts. We have a good back-office team to provide all backend services to our customers with prompt and timely service since the past 25 years.
The success in the journey added many other global players in the wood panel industry like HeveaBoard Berhad from Malaysia, Star Particle Boards Mills Ltd. from Bangladesh, Sauerland Spanplatten from Germany, Kronospan from Romania, Hungary and Italy, SPB from Thailand, Athmer from Germany to name some of the leading associations.
MW: Can you state a few highlights in the journey of 25 years in India’s woodworking industry?
NV: First challenging assignment was of independent launch on All India basis of a globally unknown product i.e. bagasse-based thin particle board of 2.5 mm to 6 mm. Developing applications in order to generate the mass consumption successfully was the first milestone.
During the journey, we learnt that the door industry is using timber for filling the flush doors. Our opinion was (and is) that there are better things to use timber than using it to infill doors. We embarked on finding an eco-friendly solution and located low density jute particle boards from Bangladesh. This became an ideal product and several door manufacturers embraced the usage of eco-friendly option. The increasing demand conversion led to tie up with world’s largest door component producer Sauerland Spanplatten from Germany, who looking at our portfolio, passion and market penetration gave us not only India but another 12 countries in the Far East to market. We are proud to start the revolution in changing the mindset of door manufacturers and end consumers to accept Engineered Door-sets and surely can consider this to be the second milestone.
Third milestone will be the recent activity, when we were able to showcase to the entire Indian wood panel industry that High Quality Panels have a high volume market with the right partners sharing similar mindsets of not compromising on quality by facilitating India’s first break – bulk shipment of wood panels.
MW: How has the panel industry changed in these 25 years?
NV: We see an explosion of consumption in the panel trade but the usage of plywood still dominates the trade. In the past few years we see increasing use of engineered panels. We could have seen far more wider acceptance of the engineered panels if the quality produced by the domestic industry was at par to international standards. Urgent change is required in the basic understanding that quality should never be compromised as the short term gains are far lesser than the long term loss suffered by the Industry as a whole.
MW: Please share your views on the door industry and changes you feel are needed going forward.
NV: The doors produced in India are principally door blanks and semi-finished doors with heavy dependence on wood batons – a wasteful drain of natural resources. Unfortunately, even today, the importance of doors in India is just a panel to close the hole in the wall. With a lot of effort customers now are looking for pre hung doors and factory produced door sets. Yet the basic function of the door ‘Privacy of Sight and Privacy of Sound’ stays far away from most of the users and builders who are driven by price than the utility.
As it is said, when it comes to acoustics performance in a door, majority of doors in India offer a thin curtain with locks, nothing more than that.
The lack of knowledge, understanding and exposure of the end consumers is exploited by majority by pushing sub-par doors in performance aspects even today. Pasting a wonderful design décor as overlay cannot be the sole consideration and performance of a door has to be given equal, if not more, weightage.
Indian door industry has a long way to go to start using the real doors; but the good thing is that we are crawling in the right direction.
MW: How has your experience been in representing so many global giants of Wood Panel Industry since 1997?
We have enjoyed our partnership with suppliers who gave us free hand to develop markets and supported in all our endeavours. During the journey we also had suppliers who thought Indians could be less quality conscious and such suppliers were discontinued because our name and integrity is impeccable in the markets we deal and no way the trust of our customers can be compromised. We stopped dealing with such suppliers in larger interest of our customer base and to safeguard any possible claims they may encounter. We never accept any quality dilution from our suppliers as our customers deserve high quality products and nothing short of that will pass the Sleek Boards’ benchmark.
MW: With the new generation coming into the business couple of years back, how has Amit taken to the business? What new ideas is he bringing to the table?
NV: Amit has merged in the business after extensive training at factories in Germany and Romania. He is quite seized with the vast expanse of the market opportunities which are available for quality discerning customers. Post-Covid the challenges have risen multi-fold. It requires thinking out-of-the-box. I am happy and proud that Amit has successfully handled and brought India’s first break bulk particleboard and MDF shipment. Make in India for several other components with contract manufacturing is of major focus to provide customers the right quality but at an affordable price.
MW: As per your point of view, what is holding India back from becoming a global player in furniture industry?
NV: India has a vast export potential in the panel and furniture business. Government needs to address the pre-shipment costs at the ports which in some cases exceed even the ocean freights. Panel material is a low-cost commodity material and the rates are influenced by global demand and supply equation. Indian manufacturers also have to incorporate advanced systems in the manufacture for consistency in quality and emissions.
MW: An advice to our subscribers that you would like to share
NV: Think global and produce globally accepted quality and the global markets open up for you rather than fighting in the domestic industry and cutting corners on quality to compete on price. There is no end-depth level to quality dilution and each dilution attempt hurts the confidence put into the product at risk.
The Real Test
All Particle Boards and MDF from outside look the same but in reality are not the same. The real test of MDF is under the CNC even though it meets all the properties as per IS or EN standards yet the cutting quality differentiates itself. In the same way the real test of Particle Board is its load bearing property. It should not sag. This is the key while selecting the right panel product.
On Indian Furniture Industry
A lot needs to be done to upgrade the furniture manufacturing in India. World over healthy furniture is the trend using low formaldehyde emission boards. In India, unfortunately, neither the Government nor the industry is bothered about formaldehyde emissions. It is a proven fact that high concentration of emissions can trigger cancer. Most of continents world over allow only E1 (Engineered wood products classified as E do not emit more than 0.1 ppm of formaldehyde into the ambient air) or even lower emission level for production and use in furniture. Secondly, the furniture needs to be made only by boards meant for furniture like the European P2 (EN 312) standard for Particle Boards. The quality of Particle Boards and MDF produced domestically or imported needs to pass the basic mechanical properties for using in furniture.
”India has a vast export potential in the panel and furniture business, provided it gets support from the Government.”
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Mr. Nitin Vaze, CEO, Sleek Boards India LLP
Unfortunately the importance of doors in India is just a panel to close the hole in the wall.
