NCCSL: Business Excellence Awards

The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) Business Excellence Awards will be raised to the level of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards in Europe, NCCSL's Immediate Past President Sunil Wijesinghe told the NCCSL Business Excellence Awards launch ceremony last week.

He said that the NCCSL Awards will be one of the best awards in the country recognising and rewarding corporate performance. The NBES is a comprehensive scheme that encompasses the widest activities of business organisations.

"Everything starts with excellence in leadership but leadership alone is not sufficient for corporate excellence. There has to be a good team, capacity building, excellence in performance management, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and local and global market reach. All these factors should lead to excellent business results," Wijesinghe said.

Japan was the first to launch an awards scheme to reward business quality. It created major interest in developing the quality of products and services in Japan. The others to follow suit were USA and Europe. Business excellence awards schemes are also conducted in Singapore and India.

Managing Director, Orange Electric, Kushan Kodituwakku said that the company hopes to acquire two entities from Belgium and the UK by the end of this year to expand its global footprint.

"Team building, balanced approach, following of 5S strategy and being passionate about products has paid dividends to the company which is a global player in electrical products," he said.

Orange Electric which has been in operation over the past 15 years, exports to over 20 destinations across the globe. Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia and the Maldives are some of the major export destinations of the company.

Kodituwakku said although the company is at the infancy stage of being a leading global brand, it is on track to achieve the feat.

"Our customer-oriented approach, transparency and adherence to ethical values have enabled the company to a become a household name today in electrical products.

Orange Electric which was the overall Gold Award winner last year recorded a turnover of Rs. 6.5 billion for the financial year 2014/15," Kodituwakku said.

President, NCCSL, Thilak Godamanna said that the NBEA will help position Sri Lanka as a destination for quality products and services. The awards encourages corporates to fine tune operations and excel in performance.

Many corporates have widened their global reach and have moved up the rung from small and medium scale enterprises to large-scale enterprises.