'I am passionate about being associated with one of the best discoveries of mankind'

A Venkat Annamalai and his team of 23 at Jeyam & Company are based in Chennai and held key positions in various paper trade bodies. During his 27 years of service in the industry, he has conducted eight short term courses on ‘Pulp and Paper’ for paper traders conducted by Seshasayee Paper and Boards.

17 Oct 2016 | By PrintWeek India

The paper turnaround in 2016
The top reason to me is price increase without corresponding increase in input cost followed by lower inventory of finished goods in comparison to the inventory of finished goods held by the mills in the corresponding period of the previous financial year. Finally, sale of closing stocks as on 31 March 2016 in the current financial year at revised prices.

Paper challenge
I think there are more than one challenge. On top of my list would be advance planning of orders to ensure availability of stocks for servicing the demands of the market. Any wrong projection would lead to higher inventory costs.

Apart from this I think longer lead time from domestic suppliers, dependency on imports to satisfy the local demand, longer transit time in the case of imports, fluctuating currency value add the challenge of higher inventory costs.

Key paper projects
Currently, ITC is revamping their paper machine and that would be one of the projects to watch out for.

Pain areas for a trader
Other than bad debts and longer credit periods, we face challenges of low margin, unhealthy competition, unhealthy business practices, higher overheads (salaries, godown, office rent, interest cost, local labour issues etc,) and availability of dependable staff.

Paper tigers in their comfort zone
All three, paper mills, paper traders and printers need to get out of their comfort zone!

Message for printers
It has to be financial discipline. This directly improves our cashflows and also gives them (printer/converter) a cost advantage.

Popularising paper
At my parent body, Madras Paper Merchants Association and at FPTA we have started this work as early as 2013. A committee in FPTA called Public Awareness Committee, which is spearheading the campaign.

Under FPTA’s campaign, many notebook convertors in Vijayawada, Sivakasi and other places have printed the facts in paper making on their wrappers to popularise it amongst school children. The tag line (in the stationery, invoices, envelopes etc) of many paper traders gives some facts about paper making to bring about awareness.

Jeyam & Company represents TNPL (unit 1), SPB (unit Tirunelveli), GVG group of mills, Venkata Durga Paper Mills, ITC (through associate company – Rose Flower Company Papers).

Tags : Jeyam & Company,Seshasayee Paper and Boards,ITC,Madras Paper Merchants Association,TNPL;