'Lanka should pay more attention for R&D'

H.D.H Senewiratne

Sri Lankan companies should pay more attention for research and development as Germany, as incremental innovation creates important positive product differentiation to enter global markets, said German Ambassador, Dr. Jürgen Morhard.

"German manufacturers are very close to their customers, especially their top customers. They are intimately aware of their customers' needs and have a robust after-sales service orientation, the reason for its success," Dr. Morhard said at the 9th National Business Excellence Award 2012. The event was organized by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL).

He said that with a return on sales that is often less than 10%, they have to make a strategic approach, looking to generate profits on long term, rather than seek a quick killing.

Dr ,Morhard who was the Chief Guest at the awards ceremony, said that German figures for job creation and export growth in recent years, was a winning formula that both was profitable and has wider benefits for society.

"Therefore, Sri Lanka too should follows that concept to achieve high growth in the export market," he said.

He also said that Benchmarking was a powerful management tool to evaluate and control performance, to learn, to motivate and of course, to improve performance.

"But it was also a cause to celebrate and to commemorate the outstanding collective accomplishments," the German Ambassador said. He also said that profit is as important to them as to any of their peers and competitors around the world. However, their continuing success shows just what a commitment to the long term and freedom from the demands of powerful external shareholders could achieve.

Therefore, research and development was the need of the hour to be differentiated and to benchmark export goods among other exports in other countries. Therefore, Sri Lanka's private sector had been the backbone of the economy and companies' have to adopt research and development to be different and innovate, which would help to win all economic woes in the future, he added.