Hilmy Cader

CEO/MTI Consulting

Hiran H. Senewiratne

Sri Lanka’s corporate sector should think out of the box and take the challenge to penetrate international markets rather than concentrating on local operations, Chief Executive MTI Consulting (Global) Hilmy Cader said.

He said Sri Lanka being a developing country should thrive to enter the global markets. Therefore, small local companies should thrive to make headway to the huge global markets, which local companies have the capability and potential of doing.
 

To achieve rapid economic growth, the country has to have peace and political stability, which is essential.

He added that Sri Lanka is no different to any other country when it comes to selecting law makers to the legislature.

With the competition in the business world we actually develop strategy formulation for different companies in the corporate sector, Cader said.

Q: Your company is into international management Consultancy. What is the company’s present position in the international arena?

MTI Consulting is a fast growing international strategy consultancy with operations in UK, Dubai, Bahrain, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Our company has workers with leading multi-national and regional clients across 33 countries in five continents, offering the full bouquet of management and marketing consulting and research for any business entity.

In the Middle-East Region we have a strong presence in the financial services industry having worked with global companies like American Express, Citibank, and Standard Chartered to name a few.

MTI also has strong non-financial practice and have worked with Adidas, Al Ghurair, Aujan, Cargill, DuPont, Emirates, Fuji, ICI, Government of Pakistan, Triumph and Vodafone are some. We are handling major projects in certain countries like in Dubai..

Q: What is your main focus in your consultancy business?

Our focus is on the management consultancy solution business covering areas like corporate finance, technology, legal and governance, supply chain management, human resource management and branding.

We have been recognised as a niche or boutique Consultancy Company for international/global companies. We work with the largest privately owned company Cargill. We have a capable and qualified resource team to assist any global company in the world.

Q: Your company provides consultancy solutions for leading Sri Lankan corporate sector companies. What is lacking in those companies?

We worked with leading corporate sector entities and public sector entities in Sri Lanka.

We provide management consultancy solutions for Aitken Spence, John Keells, and Dialog, MAS Holdings, Hayleys, LOLC, DIMO, Hemas, New Zealand Milk, McLarens are some of them while the public sector entities are Central Bank, Colombo Stock Exchange, SriLankan Airlines, Export Development Board to have a few. But lacking in Sri Lankan companies in general is that they always depend on local operations rather than internationalisation.

Q: As a management consultant what is required of local companies to develop to be competitive in the business?

Today every single business organisation has to develop a learning culture as we live in a competitive world.

The reasons being that speed at which we learn are speed that you ought to apply higher than the competitor. The knowledge sharing among and within the organisation is very important.

Q:What type of business management models has the company used and how would it apply to organisations?

We use different types of strategic management models for our consultation work, which have been developed in house. Based on extensive experience the MTI 8S model has been successfully used in more than 25 countries.

Famed marketing guru Philip Kotler too recognised this model as an excellent model for strategic planning. We also use many business management models like Brad Biz to develop brands for companies.

We are also now developing another model called Re-structuring base on Re-strategising (RSRS) model, which is used by MTI clients in over 20 countries.

The MTI Way has enabled us to successfully manage 170 client specific projects across 37 product/service categories in 25 countries with a high level of Bottom-line impact from 1997 to 2003.

We use different methods like workshop methods, reporting method (entire consultancy) and most of time we get involved in the relevant management for their work.

Q: As your company is working with leading corporate sector companies, how successful are they? How do you evaluate it afterwards?

A: Since we have provided management consultant services for many local and global companies we could say that certain companies like Sri Lankan Airlines, LOLC, JKH and CIC are some success stories. Therefore we have our own performance management methodology to measure the quality of our work.

We have a competent and qualified team to do our assignments and I only formulate strategies and also the quality control side as well.

Some of our solutions are for organisations itself and some of them are on a one on one basis depending on the area we provide solutions on the management side.

Q:What do you advice local and up coming entrepreneurs?

All entrepreneurs should think out of the box to enter global markets. Small companies should make in roads and then think of going for new operations. Certain Sri Lankan companies have started in a small way now and they have become leading companies overseas.