Duroply Market Research: Mapping a Premium Plywood Market from Scratch

Lolugu joined Duroply's marketing research team with a broad mandate: strengthen the company's presence in the premium plywood segment across Vijayawada and Guntur. Leadership had a good product portfolio but no clear view of where the biggest opportunities existed. The questions on the table were which projects to prioritize, who influenced brand selection, and why customers were choosing competitor brands.

Rather than starting with field visits, Lolugu first converted the business problem into research questions. He identified five core questions: which projects had the highest demand, who influenced purchase decisions, which brands dominated premium projects, what factors drove brand selection, and whether pricing was actually the primary issue.

Designing the Research Framework

He divided the project into four workstreams: project mapping, stakeholder mapping, competitor analysis, and opportunity assessment. Before going into the field, he gathered secondary data from builder websites, real estate portals, Google Maps, and dealer references to build an initial project list.

He then physically visited construction sites across Vijayawada and Guntur, collecting information on construction stage, project size, number of villas, builder profiles, architects involved, and dealers supplying materials. At each site, he focused on understanding how purchase decisions were actually made, not just recording names.

Primary Interviews and Pattern Recognition

After mapping projects, Lolugu conducted interviews with over 30 architects, interior designers, dealers, and contractors. His conversations focused on which brands they recommended, why, and what factors drove those recommendations: price, quality, service, brand reputation, dealer relationships, and availability.

He documented every field visit in a structured Excel database with columns for project name, builder, location, estimated demand, stakeholders, preferred brands, opportunity level, and observations. This allowed him to compare projects objectively and identify patterns across the dataset.

The Finding That Changed the Conversation

The original assumption inside the business was that pricing was the primary reason Duroply was losing premium projects. Lolugu's interviews told a different story. A relatively small share of projects represented a disproportionately large share of premium plywood demand. More importantly, architects' recommendations, dealer relationships, brand trust, product availability, and service consistency were influencing purchase decisions more than price in many premium projects.

One interview captured it directly: stakeholders acknowledged Duroply's product quality was strong, but Century Ply's market visibility and dealer engagement gave it a structural advantage.

Recommendations

Rather than recommending broad price reductions, Lolugu proposed a targeted strategy. He recommended sales prioritization focused on the top projects by demand, relationship-building with architects and interior designers who heavily influenced decisions, dealer-specific promotional schemes where competitive pressure was strongest, and strengthened brand visibility in premium segments. The output shifted the leadership conversation from how to cut prices to where to compete on value versus price.