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Relevant Experience:

The consultant is required to have the following qualifications and experience: 

  • Master’s degree or higher, in mining or geology or mechanical engineering;
  • Minimum five to ten years of experience in marble and granite industry;
  • Sector understanding, Local Industry Knowledge and established business contacts;
  • Must have skills to record data, analyze it and draw conclusions
  • Possess excellent communication, interview and report writing skills

Background:

Marble and Granite is the sixth largest mineral extracted after coal, rock salt, lime stone and china clay in Pakistan. According to the industry estimates[1] nearly 1225 quarries and 3000 processors along with 30,000 workforce constitutes the sector. The marble processing units in Pakistan use manual and outdated techniques with locally fabricated equipment to cut and process the stone, limiting efficiency and accuracy. These results in inability to capture the fair value of products produced. The construction activity in Pakistan witnessed a boom in last fifteen years and as a result demands for dimensional stones such as marble and granite used in flooring, sanitation, outer walls has also increased. This demand is currently being met with local and imported stones by individual and institutional buyers. Marble product users are relying more and more on imported stones due to inefficiencies (e.g. quality and consistency) of marble processors to meet the local demand.

One of the objectives of USAID Firms Project is to develop dynamic, internationally competitive firms/enterprises/business units to accelerate sales, investment and job growth. A program is being designed to support the Marble and Granite sector of Pakistan with strategic objective of increasing marble processors’ efficiency and product quality with up-gradation of processing infrastructure, workforce development programme and increasing market linkages. Key beneficiaries will be marble tile and slab processors SMEs and mosaic manufacturers. These will generate additional revenues through a better quality product and penetration in local and regional export markets.

The purpose of this technical assistance is to provide short-term technical expertise to assess demand of marble products to establish an ideal portfolio for the USAID Firms Project beneficiaries following 80:20 rule (80% of the demand being met with 20% of the products) and analyze the supply gap to identify quality, consistency, availability and any other issues that the buyers and suppliers face in the purchase of local marble and granite.

Under this Scope of Work, the consultant shall (i) assist Demand Analysis Consultant in conducting  market research by interviewing institutional buyers of marble products consisting of construction companies, builders, architects, and exporters to analyze the local demand, (ii) develop/propose a product portfolio for project’s selected beneficiaries (iii) validate the findings of the market research with selected processors in north (Punjab and KP) and south (Sindh and Baluchistan) region to identify supply and demand gaps.

 

Job description:

Under this Scope of Work, the Consultant(s) shall use his/her education, experience, and specific understanding on the subject matter, to accomplish the following:

 

A.     Assist Demand Analysis Consultant in Market Need Assessment

                                                      i.    Prepare a questionnaire for assessing local demand with respect to color, size, pattern, trend, logistics, market, quality, supply etc.

                                                      ii.   Prepare market research methodology and approach alongwith timelines to conduct this assignment.

                                                      iii.  Conduct a market research to assess and analyze local demand of marble and granite products and interview following set of

                                             companies/organizations/people with minimum of;

a)      Five (5) Large construction companies, (which can be defined as with multiple commercial and residential projects completed or on-going and presence in international market,

b)      Twenty (20) Medium sized construction companies, (which can be defined as  atleast one commercial and residential completed project or on-going,

c)      Five (5) Architect firms with experience of designing large commercial and residential projects,

d)      Ten (10) Exporters with experience of exports to the Middle East and Europe.

e)      Director Projects / Head Architecture Department, NESPAK, CDA, RDA, LDA and any other government contractor,

Total sample size must not be less than 40 with equal representation to North Region (Punjab, KP, FATA) and South Region (Sind, Balochistan) 


B.     Interview 15 local processors to validate the findings of the market research and identify any similarities/differences in supply and demand patterns and trends

 

C.     Establish capacity gaps resulting in poor quality / inconsistencies for processing facilities using following criteria;

a)      Technological

b)      Workforce

c)   Organizational / Institutional

d)      Supply Chain


D.     Submission of Demand Supply Analysis Gap Report on the portfolio of most demanded marble products and their supply patterns, based on the findings, interviews. Demand will be assessed through market research on buyers and Supply will be assessed by interviewing atleast 15 processors identified by consultant and agreed by USAID Firms Project.

 

Deliverables

The substance of, findings on, and recommendations with respect to the above mentioned tasks shall be delivered by Consultant(s) in a written deliverable in the format presented to the Consultant by the Team Lead.

 

In addition, the following shall also be formal deliverables;

  1. Comprehensive PowerPoint Presentation (on findings, gaps and recommendations) to USAID Firms Value Chain Development team.
  2. A comprehensive report in MS Word format encompassing all relevant details and information gathered during the course of assignment.


NOTE: Applications can also be sent directly at [email protected] clearly mentioning the title of the consultancy in the subject line. Last date for submissions is May 19th, 2013.