ADVERTORIAL

EWIS completes 24 years

EWIS celebrated its 24th anniversary recently.

This success of ours is attributed to our customers who had great faith in us EWIS Group Chairman/CEO Sanjeewa Wickramanayake said.

We stand proud of being ranked Gold in the Corporate Accountability Index 2010 presented by STING Consultants and LMD. While thanking our valued customers, we like to state that we intend providing them with many eco-friendly options and ICT solutions in the future which will support their vision of being sustainable entitities in the Country. I am also at this moment ever grateful to the committed employees of EWIS, who made my vision a reality, he said.

EWIS is geared towards an eco-friendly initiative; Green is a shade of blue. This initiative is in place with the vision of directing the local ICT sector towards an eco-friendly platform with many eco-friendly options made available. On that ground, we want to seek greener shades in our, corporate blue, he said.

Ethics and CSR will be an important topic in the EWIS corporate agenda. EWIS is also the only ICT company in the country to affiliate with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), which reflects just how seriously it takes its ethics and social responsibility.

Our best practices mirrored the tenets embedded in the UNGC and it seemed to us a natural corollary to affiliate with a global code of best practices that has been embraced by world-class corporates,” Wickramanayake said.

E-Praja Kirana, the CSR initiative of EWIS is born out of a desire to provide rich employment opportunities in rural areas so that brain drain is eliminated at the grass roots level, discouraging village youth to move to the city and then leave the Country’s shores. My aim is to take IT to the villages; outsource IT expertise from villages. By enhancing ICT infrastructure in rural areas, local youth will be empowered to live and work in familiar environments, Wickramanayake said.

Already EWIS has outsource employees from around the Country who are now involved in many significant projects.

Heritance Tea Factory wins at Asia Pacific Property Awards

The results of the Asia Pacific Property Awards 2010 in association with Bloomberg Television have been revealed and the Heritance Tea Factory is among the winners.

Successful entrants were announced at a high profile gala dinner held at the Langham Hotel in Hong Kong on April 16 and the Heritance Tea Factory was presented with an award in the category of Best Hotel, Construction and Design. The event is part of the International Property Awards, a competition dedicated to identifying the best real estate professionals across the globe.

Later this year, the highest scoring winners from the Asia Pacific Property Awards will compete against other winning companies from Europe, the UK, Europe and Africa, the Americas and Arabia to find the ultimate World’s Best in each category.

Last year, the Asia Pacific region scooped seven World’s Best awards - two more than the year before.

Aitken Spence Hotels Managing Director Malin Hapugoda said, “Heritance Tea Factory is the result of the successful development of an abandoned tea factory into an eco-friendly world class hotel and we are delighted that the recently re-branded Heritance Tea Factory has won this prestigious accolade.”

To serve customers even better :

AVIVA NDB Wealth Planners get laptops

AVIVA NDB Insurance, has commenced empowering their Wealth Planners by equipping them with laptops. This will keep them abreast of rapidly advancing technology and enable the Wealth Planners to serve customers with greater speed and efficiency.

With the aid of a laptop, Wealth Planners would be able to instantly design the financial solution that meets the unique needs of a customer, using technology to strengthen their business relationships, enhancing their service beyond customer expectations.

AVIVA NDB Wealth Planners are trained to meet both Life and General insurance needs of customers and the laptops will help them to handle the entire spectrum of insurance solutions an individual is likely to require.

Using the specially developed user-friendly software installed in their laptops, AVIVA NDB Wealth Planners can instantly analyze and identify the financial planning requirements of a customer, immediately propose multiple solutions that fulfill those needs and design a customized insurance plan to help customers to get the maximum benefit.

Explaining the advantages to both the Wealth Planner and the customer, Managing Director Shah Rouf said, “With the aid of a laptop, Wealth Planners are also able to maintain up-to-date profiles of their clients. This facilitates a closer and more effective business relationship that significantly helps to make customers feel special.”

Ceylon Continental Exotic theme night

Colombo’s exotic dining options will be spiced up further up when the resurgent Ceylon Continental launches a theme night dinner promotion from May 6, to provide gourmets with piquant new menus that the hotel says will spark fresh interest in five star dining.

Running from Thursday to Saturday every week at three of the finest restaurants and at the pool side of the country’s first five star property, these theme nights will offer an enticing range of Arabic, Sri Lankan, Indian and Western dishes in an ambience enhanced by the proximity of the Indian Ocean and the warmth of the hotel’s hospitality.

ODEL opens in Maharagama

ODEL opened their 12th store at Maharagama on April 21.

“Maharagama is one of the most bustling suburbs of Colombo and an evolving shopping hub,” ODEL founder and CEO Otara Gunewardene said.

“The ODEL store at Maharagama will elevate the shopping experience to a new level for the people of this area, and will also serve several important nearby towns such as Pannipitiya, Kottawa and Homagama”, she said.

She said ODEL plans to open several new stores in 2010.

The four levels of shopping at the new store accommodate ODEL’s Ladies section on the ground and first floors, a Gents section on the second floor, and a Children’s section on the third floor, complete with a play area for children. The ground floor also hosts the hotdog outlet ‘Dawg House.’

A basement car park is supplemented by parking bays in front of the building, and parking on the lane alongside.

ODEL offered shoppers at the Maharagama store a five percent discount on purchases during the new outlet’s first week.

The new store will be kept open for business seven days a week from 10.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m.