Vidatha certificate - the path to success for micro level business

By Dr. Lalith Senaweera

Many people are launching their own business due to the government's positive approach in supporting micro level organisations. As a result many micro level, home-based industries are being set up in different parts of the country.

A number of government institutions also promote and encourage people to launch business ventures.

Micro level business enterprises face constraints such as adopting advanced technology, employing more skilled workers, increasing production capacity and expanding markets due to the small size of the organisations.

Jobs

Most of the micro level businesses are concentrated in the food, textile and apparel, paper products and footwear sectors. SMEs and micro level organisations create jobs with the least amount of capital and in remote areas which makes SMEs and micro level organisations attractive to policy makers.

However, micro level businesses face a number of issues such as lack of, financial support, low interest loans, collateral, problems in supply to government departments and agencies, procurement of raw materials at reasonable prices, issues related to product packaging, storage and display, insufficient facilities and lack of access to modern technology and problems of skilled labour.

These micro level businesses produce a limited number of intermediate products for larger industries and therefore, improvement of the quality of the products is vital for businesses to survive. Therefore, micro level businesses need to improve activities to have continuity in business.

In this context, it is important to develop mechanisms to assist micro level businesses to improve activities. One is to provide guidance to micro level businesses to improve the quality of products and services and help them to obtain third party certification without incurring more costs.

Supporting agencies

There are number of organisations assisting SMEs and micro level business such as various Ministries, the Export Development Board (EDB), the Industrial Development Board (IDB), the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI), Chambers and NGOs.

These organisations support SMEs and micro level business in various ways based on their mandates and expertise. The interventions of these organisations, SMEs and micro level businesses could improve activities. However, only the SLSI provides support to improve the quality of products and services.

Certification systems

There are different types of certification systems available, such as GMP, SLS mark, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 for organisations to provide confidence to customers. All the certification systems help business enterprises to improve operations, irrespective of the size of the organisation while paving the way to sustainability.

However, micro level business organisations find it difficult to follow certifications systems due to the constraints they face, specially infrastructure and non-availability of suitable staff.

Unless micro level business organisations are supported with an acceptable third party certification, it is difficult for the organisations to survive in the market, as today most of the buying organisations and consumers are concerned about such certificates.

This will not only help them to enter foreign markets but also support them to improve the quality of products. Considering this important fact, the SLSI has introduced a simple, faster and cost effective scheme for micro level business organisations.

Certification

The Vidatha Certification is a tailor-made scheme for micro level business organisations as it has been designed by taking into consideration all aspects of micro level organisations and therefore, these organisations can make good use of it.

Certification documents and the criteria have been simplified and made user-friendly to avoid the cumbersome document-filling process and provide information in an understandable manner.

The cost of certification has been reduced to a nominal fee to make it affordable as the Institution intends to support and develop micro level organisations.

The SLSI has teamed up with Vidatha centres which are found throughout the country, to make it a viable scheme. At present several micro level business organisations have submitted applications to obtain the certificate.

The benefits of certification: market acceptance, recognition, marketing tool, stepping stone for higher level certificates, helps streamline the business process and permission to give reference about the certification

The writer is the Director General of the Sri Lanka Standards Institute.