Fair trade, my guiding principle - Raj Bandara

'Making people happy a pleasant task' :

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

Although fair trade and good governance are taught by various institutions today it was practised in the past under different names such as norms and values in trade and business.

Managing Director, Sugathadasa Bandara and Sons (Pvt) Ltd, Raj Bandara learnt this from his late father, Sugathadasa Bandara through manufacturing valuable trophies, plaques and awards.

He told Daily News Business that making people proud and happy through his business had been his pleasant task over the years.

Raj Bandara was born to a family of four children. He hails from Pilimatalawa, a village popularly known for art and craft.

His father moved to Colombo with the family as he worked for a company related to art and craft work and later started his own business. "My father set up this business in 1945 even before I was born at a small shop in Keyzer Street, Pettah.

Later he had a small workshop at home in Nugegoda and operated from there.

Initially it was making rubber seals and engraving name boards and later he developed into other areas," he said.

Self-taught

"I am the third child in the family. I studied at Ananda Shastralaya, Kotte and I used to work with my father after school every day as a young boy. I did not follow any courses or training outside but I spent a lot of time watching and helping my father in his work. My father had about five workers at the time.

After his father passed away 15 years ago, he took over the business and later his brothers, Anura and Ranjith also joined as directors of the Company. "We all have the talent of creating novel products of this nature and we all spend more time with our workers in the factory.

Attractive trophies

At this point we changed the company's name to Sugathadasa Bandara and Sons (Pvt) Ltd, replacing Sugathadasa Bandara and Company. As a mark of respect to our father we continue to maintain this name," he said. Today Raj Bandara has thirty people employed in his company at the new three-storied building in Nugegoda which is full of attractive trophies, ornaments, and engraved gift items. The company has an annual turnover of approximately Rs. 40 million. Asked about the secret behind his success he said, "My father always advised me to give the best service to our clients without giving priority to money. We are very happy when people are satisfied with our products.

We did not depend on bank loans and did not go for large scale expansions. It was a gradual progress with a small profit margin and we are steady in our business. Even the current recession has not affected us much and there is only a small drop in our sales, he said.

Executing orders

Our clients had a great deal of confidence in us because we delivered the goods on time. This type of trophies are always ordered for special occasions to be presented to a deserving person and hence on time delivery is very important. At times we work overtime to execute our orders as promised even at short notice.

Asked about the barriers, he said that there were no barriers as such but at times some people ask for samples on the pretext that they are going to place an order but copy it and manufacture it elsewhere.

Bandara's future plan is to take this valuable business to the third generation and he is grooming his son and brothers who are doing higher studies to take over the business in the future.