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Passion for IT driven technology pays dividends :

Digital printing his forte

Dilhan Jayawardena

Many people with inborn talents and professional skills prefer to stand up on their own rather than working for somebody else.

Managing Director, Digital Print International (Pvt) Ltd, Dilhan Jayawardena started his career in the corporate sector and worked for several companies in marketing positions but did not have the job satisfaction until he became an entrepreneur.

He was interviewed by Daily News Business.

"I never got the opportunity to use my knowledge and talent fully in any of the places I worked and there was a huge gap always. When I realized that I cannot go beyond a certain position in that manner I decided to start a business of my own. I had a passion towards IT driven technology and I went in that direction", he said.

Manufacturing

Jayawardena, an old boy of Ananda College, Colombo is the youngest in the family of three children. After completing his Advanced Level Examination, he obtained a degree from a university in UK. His first job was at YKK Zippers as a Sales Executive and after some time he shifted to Clipsal and then to Haris Ceylon.

Manufacturing billboards, hoardings and dealer boards was the area he selected to start his own business. "I started at Kalubowila with an initial investment of a few lakhs of rupees in 2003 with three employees. At present I have 65 employees and have become one of the leading marcom solutions company providing integrated solutions to customers.

Difficulty

My company specializes in all kinds of fabrications such as manufacturing hoardings, MDF and hard wood fabrication, gondolas display units, furniture, pantry cupboards as well as offset and large format photo quality indoor and outdoor digital printing, he said.

Asked whether he had any difficulty at the beginning, he said, "Yes, I faced a big problem when I imported an expensive machine from Singapore. It was a brand new digital printing machine but it did not work.

Then I contacted the Singapore company and made a complaint. They did their best to repair it, changed parts but still it did not work. I had to suffer for three months as I had a lot of expectations about the business and when the machine did not work for three months I did not know what to do. I cried at times.

The company asked me to send the machine back but it was too expensive and I could not afford it. It set me thinking from the beginning and there was one point that I had not thought about. That was about the ink I used. I immediately called the Singapore company and asked them to try it.

I was right. The kind of ink that was used was not compatible with the machine in Sri Lankan weather due to low humidity and the ink had not strained through the tiny holes in the machine. The machine eventually worked after changing the ink. I will never forget this incident in my life, he said. That was the only problem I faced. "I had many personal contacts and entering the market was not difficult because I had the latest technology that many people did not have.

Success

Digital printing in progress - Picture by Sumanachandra Ariyawansa.

I have a Large Format Digital Printing machine which is very useful. I got the opportunity to export certain large format digital printing flexes taken by this machine," he said.

Asked what was behind, his success, he said " I did not take any loans to start the business and all the money that came from the business was reinvested to improve it. Today my monthly turnover is about Rs.15 million. I work very hard when there is work. I work day and night with my dedicated staff. Our priority is quality.

We are very concerned about this and that is my success, he said.

Talking about the current recession, he said that it has not impacted on his business but there is a delay in getting the money from his clients. Jayawardena's future plan is to diversify his business to other related areas and become the

No one fabrication company in Sri Lanka. His clients include Airtel, Tigo, DEMO, Unilever, Aitken Spence and many other reputed companies in the country.

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