Stomach upset

By Akhry Ameer

"No matter who the consumer is, there is disorder, confusion and disorientation in food selection, preparation and consumption".

This was revealed by Phoenix Advertising at the launch presentation of the Ogilvy Asia Pacific Food Study, an in-depth research study on Asian food habits and attitudes conducted by its group principals Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific.

At the regional level the research conducted across 21 cities in 14 countries has found that, with dramatic increase in living standards and the upliftment of the quality of life, food however, has suffered a set back even with a greater variety. Consumers feel less healthy, cooking is becoming a lost art, lack of faith in modern foods and the family meal occasion is breaking down are some of the key findings of this study. Quantitatively only 3% of Sri Lankans believe that modern food has authentic taste while, 76% feel that the government is failing to act on food safety and a high 82% still believe that the 'family that eats together stays together'.

Presenting the Sri Lankan perspective Andrew Samuel, General Manager and Director Planning of Phoenix Ogilvy and Mather added, "The final takeout of the Sri Lanka study is that consumers are facing the dilemma of brands against integrity".

The ritual involvement and elaborate preparation Sri Lankan foods go through is deeply rooted in the family values that, brands coming up with short cut preparation methods may not work.

'Nevertheless, food solutions addressing the issues of time pressure, choice paralysis and health risk, being faced by the consumer is more likely to succeed. Some of the other implications of foods in Sri Lanka are the fear that food is breaking down cultural values, convenience food lack nutrition, fresh commodities are laden with chemicals and pesticides and that authentic cooking is fast becoming a lost art.

Understanding these findings, the study sets out that brands need to be more culturally relevant to succeed, as the evolving consumer segment will continue to value and reinvent the traditional local food culture and its identity. Therefore they need to ensure that the new technology being used is culturally relevant, traditional brands are made exciting by reinventing newer values while maintaining identity and that they speak to consumers with sensitivity. On a regional scale the brands need to give mothers a helping hand as mothers are in various states of crisis in the different countries and, as research indicates, the mothers' advice is the most trusted when it comes to healthy eating habits. The research has also given way to findings such as the decline in rice consumption and noodles becoming the next popular with a 300% growth over the last decade.

This comprehensive research has been carried out through a set plan of reconvened focus groups, food diaries, accompanied shopping trips, home visits and desk research in the 14 countries.

Ogilvy's aim of conducting this research was to seek a wider understanding and thereby provide different strategies of brand communication as opposed to the traditional formulae to its clients. Ogilvy & Mather is Asia Pacific's largest agency network with revenue of US$8.8billion in '99 from its 377 offices in 97 countries across the world. Phoenix Advertising represents the company in Sri Lanka.

FCL documentation facility at Ports

The Sri Lanka Ports Authority now offers a centralized one stop FCL documentation facility, irrespective of vessel berthing points, from an off port work centre at Canal Row in Fort.

This venture is the most singular significant facility afforded by the SLPA to the Import Trade, the Customs House and in particular to the Wharf Personnel the Association of Clearing and Forwarding Agents (ACFA) said.

This minimizes numerous visits to the Port and improve the lead-time taken in the delivery of containerized cargo.

The marathon running of the Customs House Agent and his Assistants within the port, to various vessel-berthing points, such as from SAGT at Jetty-Fort, one extreme point, to PETTAH/JCT - Mutwal, at the other extreme, to transact with SLPA at last it thus eliminated.

The benefits to the trade are numerous, for e.g. - savings on resources, time, travel, extended working hours, improved productivity, reduced lead-time etc.

However this operation will be complete only if the Customs Imports Documentation Centre - which now operates from within the Port premises - currently a high security zone - is also transferred to this Centre as a matter of a priority, the ACFA statement released to the media, stated.

The desired vision of a "CUSTOMS/SLPA ONE STOP DOCUMENTATION CENTRE" would pave as the "Gateway" to a fine start to all sectors. Industrialist in particular, who wait in their goods.

This will in turn improve their productivity thereby contributing towards the acceleration of economic growth.

The current practice of 'off port BOI passed documents' being verified by the customs from within port (PAMU), which is reprocessed by customs from this off port one stop centre again to finalise delivery documents, should be dispensed forthwith, the ACFA said.

The documents verification process by customs could be simplified and executed by them from this centre itself, thus avoid the hassle of running to and fro various divergent offices within and outside port to finalise delivery documents.

Concrete plans for construction

Indian cement maker Ambuja has cemented some concrete plans for the construction industry.

The Indian company's state of the art, customer services laboratory in Peliyagoda is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, officials told last week.

The lab in Peliyagoda is a completely free service for testing and training in construction industry with no strings attached, M. C. Ramakrishna said.

"This is not to be confused with an in-house laboratory for product testing which is a requirement for every cement factory," he said.

The Rs. 3.5 million lab mainly offers concrete mix design testing, concrete cubes, cement blocks and aggregate testing. The training facilities are equally solid with mix design classes, masons conferences, group discussion for petty contractors and technical lecture series.

"Already 200 masons conferences have been held in the last two years and the rapport is so firm with the masons we have spoken to that we get calls from all parts of the country informing us of a lack of material or some other construction issue, Technical Services Manager, engineer Jayantha Bandara said.

Meanwhile six technical lectures have been given towns outside Colombo.

Meanwhile the company is on a propaganda drive in the Western and Southern provinces through its 300 strong dealer network.

Ambuja Cement's packing plant in Galle has a capacity of 1/2 a million tons a month. Currently the plant produces about 20,000 tons a month.

The total cement consumption in Sri Lanka is estimated at about 2.5 million tons, of which the two local manufacturers produce - Puttalam Cement (Sanstha) about 60,000 tons and Tokyo Cement about 40,000 tons a month and annual growth is estimated at about 8% - 10%.

With three expressways to be commissioned soon (Colombo - Katunayake, Colombo - Matara and Colombo – Kandy) a boom for the cement industry is predicted.

Ambuja recently bought over 15% of top Indian cement manufacturer, Tata owned Associated Cement Company (ACC) which now makes them among the top three Indian cement makers together with ACC and Larson and Toubro (L&T). Ambuja operates from Gujarat and supplies to a distance of about 100 kilometres from its main plants, has its own ports and five ships for transportation.

The company already exports to Singapore and the Middle East and is in negotiations to export to Italy.

Re-union of Cathay

It was a unique occasion when all the former Country Managers of Cathay Pacific Airways who had been stationed in Colombo since the airline began operating into the country in 1993, met together in Colombo last week to mark yet another special occasion.

The event marked a milestone in the airline's operation into Colombo which saw Cathay upgrade the aircraft used on its three weekly flights between Colombo and Hon Kong via Bangkok, from an Airbus A330 to a Boeing 777-300. This change is significant since it confirms the confidence Cathay Pacific Airways has in its market in Sri Lanka, based on past performance in both the passenger and cargo segments which have shown a market increase this year. The additional capacity provided by the Boeing 777-300 will help the airline cater to the increase in load factors the news release said.

All past managers except for Michael Yuen who was unavoidably detained in Hong Kong and had to miss out on this reunion, were present.

Adrian Harley, the first manager to take over in 1993, his successor Clare Garside who was followed by Philippe Lacamp and the present manager Mark Sutch met and shared anecdotes, swapped memories and generally had an extremely lively meeting which included a round of golf over the weekend at the Royal Colombo Golf Club.

Cathay Pacific Airways introduced the Boeing 777-300 operation effective from November 1. James Finlay and Co., (Colombo) Limited are the general sales agents for Cathay Pacific Airways in Colombo.

PERKS from Ceylinco

Discounts of up to 25% from many leading Sri Lankan companies, and eligibility to benefit from a host of special offers await thousands of policy holders of Ceylinco Life, through an exciting new campaign by the company to add more value to its policies.

The company has announced that it is in the process of dispatching to all active policyholders a benefit card branded P.E.R.K.S. which will entail them to special benefit including discounts when they purchase a wide range of products and services from participating companies, a media release says.

Presentation of the P.E.R.K.S. card at these companies would make policyholders eligible to receive special discounts on diverse products and services such as home appliances, footwear, motor spares, office automation products, air tickets, hotel accommodation and hospitalization. The P.E.R.K.S. card will also enable policyholders to receive special concessionary rates of interest on housing loans.

Ceylinco Life's Director/General Manager R. Renganathan said the benefit card scheme "Adding value to your life" had been structured to bestow on policyholders four categories of benefits - personal perks, holiday perks, services perk and corporate perks. Ceylinco Life would progressively enlarge the number of companies providing these perks to increase the range of products and services covered, he said.

He said Ceylinco Life sales personnel from 68 branches islandwide would visit, policyholders over the next month to personally present them with their P.E.R.K.S. cards, and any active policyholder who does not receive a card within a month may contact the Ceylinco Life Centre in Colombo.

Ceylinco Life operation since 1988, recently reached a historic milestone when it insured its 500,000th life.

JKIIT offers online exams

John Keells Institute of Information Technology (Pvt) Ltd (JKIIT) has signed an agreement with Virtual University Enterprises (VUE) to conduct on-line professional certification examinations in Sri Lanka.

VUE is a part if the Assessment and Testing Service Division of National Computer Systems, Inc. (NCS), a global information services company a JKIIT press release said. It has testing centres in over 140 countries and operation centres in Minneapolis, U.S.A., Woerden, Netherlands, Sydney Australia and China.

This agreement has made JKIIT a part if the global network of VUE Authorized Testing Centres which provide electronic testing for IT-related exams sent directly by sponsors/vendors recognized worldwide the include. Microsoft, Novell, Linux, Informix, Siebel Systems, Ericsson, CompTIA.

Each of these sponsors/vendors offer a number of certification exams, designed to broaden skills, advance careers through internationally recognized expertise, enhance on-the-job performance, maintain a competitive edge as an IT professional and develop the competency standards in the IT industry

Any candidate could register for an exam through the Testing Centre at JKIIT or via VUE's web site www.vue.com sit for the exam at the Testing Centre on a preferred date and time and reschedule the test for another day one working day before it is tabled to begin.

An edge the VUE Testing Centre at JKIIT has is that an examinee could sit for an exam on the same day of registration, since the payment of fees is made directly to JKIIT. Certification will follow, after the status of the exam has been processed by its sponsor/vendor.

Even if a candidate has previously taken an exam, through another sponsor/vendor, the exam results will be available in VUE's database.

This prevents the duplication of registrations and results.

PCCL launches first Sri Lankan cement website

The PCCL group, manufacturers of 'Sanstha' cement launched their website recently. This website becomes the first within the Sri Lankan cement industry.

This comprehensive website at www.pccl.lk will be able to accept orders of cement online. The orders made by its distributors with the requested delivery dates will be linked to its supply chain. The website will also hold information on the group and its products from Puttalam Cement, Ruhunu Cement, Galle Cement and Lanka Quarries. Other features also include an education page where a detail graphic outline is given about the complete cement manufacturing process.

Future enhancements envisaged by the company are the choice on the language of operation to include Sinhala and Tamil, cement forums, an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page and online settlement of payments.

PCCL Group is part of the Holderbank Group, the world's largest cement company with a reach of over 70 countries. Its 'Sanstha' brand of cement is manufactured from local raw materials at its plant in Puttalam. The group has invested almost Rs. 2 billion to upgrade this plant and provides direct employment to over 1,200 people. The company currently has a market share of Rs. 4 billion in revenue per year.

Keells teams up with Avaya

Avaya, the former Enterprise Networks Group of Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) spun off from Lucent on 30 September 2000, a news release says.

Managing Director for ASEAN, Avaya Asia pacific, Tom Cheong says he sees good business potential in Sri Lanka for the new company. In particular, the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in the Sri Lankan economy will benefit from the end-to-end data, voice and connectivity products and solutions that Avaya has in its broad portfolio, the release adds.

Keells Business Systems, a subsidiary of John Keells Holidays has teamed up with Avaya as a business partner.

Avaya Asia Pacific's Sri Lankan distributor, Keells Business Systems Ltd, has already made good penetration into the market for some of Avaya's products and solutions. In May this year, Keells Business Systems provided MTN, Sri Lanka's largest GSM operator, a suite of Avaya definity products and call centre technology for its call centre site.

Among the equipment, solutions and applications that will help MTN make its 50 - agent call centre site the largest and most complete in Sri Lanka are Avaya's call centre with CMS, Definity G3si PABX, Definity Audix Voice Mail, Conversant Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). The MTN call centre site has been operational since May 2000.

Avaya worldwide has a diverse workforce of 30,000 employees serving about 2,800 Business Partners, Value Added Resellers and System Integrators. With more than 3,000 engineers in research and development, Avaya is poised to bring innovative products and solutions to enterprises globally.

Avaya has offices in 23 cities in Asia Pacific with over 800 employees. Headquartered in Singapore, Avaya Asia Pacific has in place R&D centres in Singapore, Japan and Australia; an Avaya Lab in Australia; executive briefing centres in Shanghai, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore; Centres of Excellence (COE) in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo; and Training Centres in Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Shanghai.

Avaya, formerly the enterprise Networks Group of Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J. USA, is provider of communications systems for enterprises, including businesses, government agencies and other organizations.

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