ADVERTORIAL

TradeCard invests in Sri Lanka

Rising costs are pushing companies to look beyond China and India as their source for goods. Sri Lanka, with a growing infrastructure and expanding resources in industries like apparel and footwear, poses a significant opportunity. Companies like TradeCard, based in New York, are investing in staff and resources in Sri Lanka to tap into this emerging talent pool to better service customers throughout Asia.

TradeCard is a cloud based platform that connects brands, retailers and trading partners around the world, including companies like Guess, Levi Strauss and Co., MAS and Brandix. Sri Lanka was a perfect fit for TradeCard for several reasons.

TradeCard has found a wealth of talent to support areas of its business. From a technology perspective, TradeCard first began leveraging local talent by partnering with Sri Lanka based Sabre Technologies a fully owned subsidiary of MAS Holdings to develop its products. TradeCard soon established a formal presence of 70 full time employees.

The growth of Sri Lanka's apparel business was another attraction. More of TradeCard's customers are seeking a low cost alternative to source from and as interest grows in Sri Lanka, TradeCard has been able to hire local staff to engage with new and existing customers and help them get started doing business in the region.

"What I find amazing about Sri Lanka is the huge talent pool of well-educated, loyal people," said TradeCard Inc PSO and Technical Support Asia, Vice President Richard Tan. "It is truly worthwhile for companies like us to invest in staff here as we continue to break down offshoring barriers of geography, isolation and history. We have a great team with great attitudes who are working hard to make offshoring work."

Sri Lanka's geographic location made it an ideal place to add customer support facilities. TradeCard created a support centre here that provides assistance to customers in Asia - a key to TradeCard's ability to provide 24 hour customer support to its customers in 68 countries. As more of TradeCard's large brand and retail customers seek suppliers in the "next low cost hot spot," its presence in Sri Lanka allows TradeCard to bring more regional suppliers onto its system rapidly and to help connect buyers and suppliers.

TradeCard plans to continue its growth in Sri Lanka by expanding its marketing, product development and support staff. A prime goal continues to be finding and adding new talent. The company plans to add 20 new hires in its Sri Lanka office by the end of July.

"Our presence in Sri Lanka has grown and evolved into a significant part of our operations for product development, customer support and new business generation," said TradeCard, Inc. President Guy Rey-Herme "We're focused on hiring smart, talented people and providing the necessary training and tools to help them develop and contribute to our New York City team.

We see Sri Lanka as a vast pool of talent that still remains relatively untapped by global and multi-national companies for the most part.

At TradeCard, we consider ourselves a step ahead with a well-established operation in Sri Lanka that already delivers a significant contribution to our business," he said.

Brrr Wenna Swiss Yanna:

First four winners to Switzerland

The first draw of the refreshing Brrr Wenna Swiss Yanna promotion from Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka Limited, was held recently with the first four winners being rewarded at a reception held at the Coca-Cola factory in Biyagama. The promotion commenced on June 1 and will run until July 31 with 16 winners jetting off to Switzerland for a fully paid vacation courtesy of Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka Limited.

To participate in this exciting initiative, consumers need to purchase a bottle of Coca-Cola, Fanta Orange, Fanta Portello, Fanta Cream Soda or Sprite, 175 ml, 300ml or 500ml returnable glass bottles (RGB), with special green coloured promotional crowns and look for an instant cash prize, free drink or a nine digit unique code under the bottle's crown.

The consumers with a nine digit pin number then need to SMS 'Brrr' followed by the nine digit unique code to 2580 from their mobile phones to win a full expense paid couple trip to Switzerland. The winners will be chosen through a computer generated draw. Ensuring that all consumers get an opportunity to participate in this initiative, the promotion is not restricted to a single mobile service provider.

Mentos Double Fresh Candy launched

Perfetti Van Melle Lanka Pvt Ltd launched the Mentos Double Fresh, an innovative double layered candy specially designed for the Sri Lanka market. The product has two distinct dark and white layers, with licorice and menthol flavours, and offers unique breath-freshening and throat- soothing properties.

Perfetti Van Melle (PVM) is one of the world's largest sugar confectionery groups and has headquarters in Italy and the Netherlands.

The Sri Lanka based subsidiary set up manufacturing operations in 2007 and has acquired a country-wide consumer franchise with their popular candy and chewing gum brands including Mentos, Alpenliebe, Center Fresh and Center Fruit.

Sales and Marketing Manager of the company, Anindya Chakrabarty, explained that Sri Lanka has an established market for breath-freshening and throat-soothing products, and the new Mentos Double Fresh represents a relevant and compelling innovation to meet consumer needs head-on.

The product is already available at leading retail outlets. The launch is being supported with intensive advertising on television.

Explaining the company's strategy in Sri Lanka, Chairman and Vice President and COO of the geographic region, Stefano Pelle PVM Lanka said "We are committed to bringing innovation and international quality at affordable prices to Sri Lanka. Our business here has started well with global best-selling brands such as Mentos, Center Fresh and Alpenliebe.

I am pleased to say that Sri Lanka is the first market in the world where we are launching Mentos Double Fresh, and this launch is the result of extensive consumer knowledge and insight which we have been able to gain."

PVM Lanka is a BOI company and is the result of substantial and continuing foreign direct investment. "We are encouraged by our results so far and look forward to continuing to invest in this market", said Pelle.

3WGE paints colourful future

A unique concept was evident at the 3WGE stall when the Future Minds Exhibition was opened to the public recently at the BMICH. Instead of a usual stereo type stall that most participants present themselves with, 3WGE a leading overseas education consultant presented itself with an "out of the box" creative idea at the Future Minds Exhibition. 3WGE is renowned to come up with unique concepts whenever they participate at exhibitions thus not only creating interest among students but also projecting their values and culture. Last year 3WGE won the best international stall award at the Edex 2010 Exhibition.

The marketing concept of 3WGE for 2011 is titled "Paint your future" and it was developed in-house by the members of the 3WGE team which included the production of art works and actual painting. "Paint your future" - Theme was launched at the Future Minds exhibition 2011. It was a great success as the company received a very positive feed back from fellow competitors and students. The staff not only attracted many complements but also attracted many potential students as well.

The team took on a participatory approach and role rather than striving to sell foreign universities to the general public. The young and energetic 3WGE Team with their "work clothes", wearing T shirts that looked like they had come straight after working in an art studio presented the universities and institutes that they represent with much enthusiasm and professionalism. The stall was splashed with blobs of paint all over and appeared as if actual paint work was taking place there.

It was quite clear at the exhibition that 3WGE had the interests of the student at heart. They not only represented the 25 plus universities in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore but also wore another hat- that is to represent the students. Commenting on the stall concept a representative of 3WGE said "Paint your future is all about working closely with the students and helping them to construct their own future and career. It is all about making their future as colourful as possible" She further stated that 3WGE helps the students to select a degree or undergraduate programme of their choice, a country and university most suited for the programme and finally assists them to get the visa for the selected country and places them in that university.

" We have to work very hard together with the students and their parents and virtually put them on a plane to get to their great seat of learning across the ocean" Well that sounds like 3WGE is actually living up to the promise - Painting the future of students who wish to study overseas.

3WGE office is situated at Bambalapitiya Drive Colombo 4.

NDB Leasing, Sathosa Motors enter partnership

NDB Bank in partnership with Sathosa Motors have entered into a unique agreement to offer Isuzu Trucks at a discounted rate to all NDB leasing customers.

A Rs 50,000 discount on the value of the truck would be given along with a guarantee up to two year among their numerous models available. In addition, a 100,000 km warranty would be provided on the engine.

Additionally, up to six services would be done free at the fully equipped modern service centres at Vauxhall Street, Colombo 2 and Nuge Road, Peliyagoda.

Customers will have to pay only for the materials used during the service.

NDB Leasing will also offer a free credit card to all customers who obtain a lease facility through this promotion. This special offer is valid from July 1 to August 31, 2011 and available through all NDB Bank branches islandwide, Sathosa Motors outlets in Colombo, Jaffna and Ampara.

Customers can pay from low as Rs. 1,985 per month with taxes for every 100,000 rupee obtained while the lease could go on to as much as six years. Sathosa Motors has succeeded in establishing its reputation in the commercial truck segment with its brand of Isuzu commercial, heavy-duty and light-duty vehicles and pick-up trucks.

The Isuzu brand has always been one that commands strong consumer loyalty whilst also enjoying the position as market leader in the local truck market.

Isuzu is filling a significant role as a manufacturer of commercial vehicles, light commercial vehicles and diesel engines from Japan. Sathosa Motors is the sole-agent for Isuzu trucks in Sri Lanka.

Further details of the vehicles available at Sathosa Motors could be obtained from their website, www.sathosamotorsplc.com

Oracle installs 1,000th Exadata Database machine

More than 1,000 Oracle Exadata Database machines are installed at customer sites globally, Oracle said.

Customers have implemented Oracle Exadata Database machines in 67 countries across 23 industries to power demanding database applications.

The pre-engineered, pre-tested Oracle Exadata systems are helping customers address their IT and business challenges head-on by achieving extreme performance of packaged and custom OLTP applications through the use of Oracle Exadata Smart Flash Cache; Extreme data warehousing performance through offloading intensive query processing to scalable intelligent storage servers using Oracle Exadata Smart Scan; 10x to 15x storage savings by reducing the size of tables or databases using Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression; substantial cost savings by consolidating workloads and servers onto a single Oracle Exadata Database machine; simplified database administration and performance tuning; and, faster time to market for new database applications and services.

Oracle Exadata is the only engineered system that supports enterprise OLTP business applications such as Oracle E-Buisness Suite, Oracle’s Siebel CRM, and Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications. Featuring Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software, Oracle Exadata provides the software, servers, storage and networking for all database requirements.Oracle Exadata Database Machine is available in four configurations: the Oracle Exadata X2-2 quarter-rack, half-rack and full-rack, and the Oracle Exadata X2-8 full-rack systems.

“Customers are turning to Oracle Exadata for a multitude of reasons,” said Oracle Database Server Technologies senior vice president, Andrew Mendelsohn, “Extreme performance, consolidation, cost savings, enhanced scalability, single vendor support are amongst the broad range of factors that play a part in the selection of Oracle Exadata. Beyond the numbers, Oracle Exadata plays a vital role in helping customers transform their businesses through improved decision-making via real-time intelligence, speeding new products and services to market, he said.

CIFL microfinance in groundbreaking approaches

Central Investments and Finance Company (CIFL), in its 45 year reputation is focusing on return to sustainable microfinancing with innovative products that help deserving communities grow.

Last year CIFL introduced Danavaruna, a state-of-the-art holistic microfinance product that is taking rural communities mostly in a storm. In the introductory stages, it targeted already socially mobilized communities that were either under its own conventional type microfinance programmes or those under other such endeavours but left with greater hopes of improvements to their social standards and continue remaining in pursuit thereof. The existences of such communities are so abundant that the numbers of inquiries that pour in for CIFL assistance by the day are quite phenomenal. The most striking factors that prompt Danavaruna to take on such communities are their awareness of the needs for development but without direction and of course the loss of their savings as well as other community funds, either in toto or short of sufficiency for continuance.

Deraniyagala experience is to be taken as a model for Signature Projects in other communities. CIFL is keenly examining such proposals to provide for their implementation since not only intra-community but also inter-community benefits among different Danavaruna Societies are envisaged at this stage. Being somewhat of a social responsibility endeavour, the Company has already canvassed successfully, sponsorships for Danavaruna Signature Projects, from committed peers who have consented, even to meet their costs.

It is heartening to record that at least one has pledged to sponsor two such projects that would ensure ‘reasonable price’ to producers and purchasers alike (upholding Fair-price Policy).

More inter-community relationships are expected to be promoted thus replicating Signature Project concept for medium-term benefits of every possible Danavaruna society. At this stage, through self-instilled values and discipline, community products ensure quality standards, never to cause problems for entire Danavaruna landscape.

Danavaruna has spread in 11 districts with foundations laid in 4 more, inclusive of the North and East. In fact, Danavaruna has tremendous opportunity for newly opening up communities in that they are being progressively growing as exponents of self-help enterprising. The Programme is designed to accommodate such challenges, building strength and confidence as the growth evolves.

The innovative approach however and the need for modulations for sustaining cost effectiveness, use considerable resources that too entail substantial investments, which are immediate constraints for a regulated finance company acting responsibly. The beneficiary faithfulness however, makes the CIFL endeavour pleasurable, inspiring and above all, cost effective.

Thus the Company has been able to introduce a still more need-based product into its Microfinancing by the brand name Shathaka.

The features of the new product are that it caters to the needs of urgency of a stable customer base, protecting them from exploiters in emergencies, providing to them as a second loan or leaving them opportunity of a second loan and repayment in 100 days (that has given the brand name), all on simplest of documentation.

The initial acceptance of Shathaka has been extremely heartening, also its progress. However, elaboration of its success is left for some time in future as the Product is still fresh in its service, since its launched on the 4th June 2011.