The first 6 months of year 2017 established a long awaited sensibility among entire building material industry including wood based industries and trade that ‘one has to adopt working in organized manner under GST and tightening of loop holes in system that leave scope for Tax evasion’. January to July 2017, trade people tried to change their ways by organizing books and readying their firm for GST transition. The year made everyone realized that Capital in books is the only asset a company can count upon for growth in business.
The sentiments during first half of ‘2017 calendar year’ was to gather funds and banking resources to become a stable and growing player in markets. In 2017, The liquidity issues, labor payments, billing structure, needed working capital and narrowing gaps with immediate superior emerged as a big challenge to the unorganized segment of each product category be it plywood or doors or laminates. Hence around 70- 75 percent of the ply-lam industries made changes for doing reported business and prepared them to embrace the change. Decorative laminate producers too welcomed the ‘push for getting organized and cleansing’ efforts and conclusively the industry moved closer to formal working ways.
One can say that ‘second half of the calendar year i.e July to December 2017 was a period that forced many people back to old ways as very few did not stick to rules because they could not afford to and hence there is a temporary off track driving for a while but everyone knows that it is temporary. Year 2017 will be marked as a year when ‘desperate to be organized’ players took bold steps to increase reported business due to change in market dynamics due to Demonetisation and GST. The thinking ‘things will continue to go as it is’ changed and people are now changing, thanks to Government push in year 2017.