Archives

David Selvaratnam, an entrepreneur with a successful track record in the medical diagnostics and professional education fields has bought 18% of Samuel, Sons, which recently celebrated 80 years of operations in the country. Selvaratnam bought the shares on behalf of an undisclosed Australian investor who sees enormous potential for the company in the wake of the peace process and intends to maximise the company's presence in the north and south of the country.

The company has strengthened its management team with the arrival of Selvaratnam as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), M. Sivakumar as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chandana De Silva as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Sivakumar is CFO of a highly profitable group of companies in the print and packaging industry and De Silva was the former London based European CFO of one of the few success stories in the global data communications industry, Level 3 Communications Inc.

Selvaratnam has initiated a major restructuring program and is rapidly shedding the unproductive resources in the business. "The idea is to grow the business from a profitable base", said Selvaratnam. "As cashflows get stronger we will expand into new areas with synergies with the core businesses of civil, electrical and mechanical engineering. From a human resource perspective the company will have a small core of highly skilled people and a number of strategic alliances and partnerships. Through these means we hope to have the most competitive cost base in the industry".

"The key to success however will be our ability to change the culture of this organisation. We intend to create a vibrant culture with a young and dynamic team. We will introduce employee ownership at all levels and deploy the latest technology in our business processes. We will establish an environment where people learn from every project.

This requires a degree of humility throughout the organisation, to be able to acknowledge where things did not go right and to learn from that experience. This emphasis on learning will also encompass cross-functional training and development. Those of us who have worked for highly progressive companies overseas have seen the way this type of culture leads to achievement of new levels of performance.

Selvaratnam said he was very pleased that the company's key financial stakeholders had agreed to support them during this period of restructure and re-focus.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager