CEAT Kelani Holdings won double honours at the National Business Excellence Awards 2024 presented by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL).
A manufacturer of pneumatic tyres, CEAT Kelani won the National Business Excellence Award (NBEA) in the ‘Manufacturing – Other’ category and was the winner of the Criteria Award for Excellence in Local Market Reach, in recognition of the company’s success in responding to the challenging conditions that prevailed in the period assessed for these awards.
This was the fifth occasion that CEAT Kelani Holdings was recognised by the NCCSL for Business Excellence.
The latest awards recognise how, in a period of significant challenge for industry and business, where most companies focused on cutting costs and retaining market shares, CEAT Kelani Holdings took a remarkably different approach – one of increasing capacity, improving product quality and introducing new products, while investing in sustainability initiatives.
CEAT Kelani Managing Director Ravi Dadlani said that this was dictated by two factors, the opportunities created by the restrictions in the import of certain categories and sizes of tyres as part of the government’s efforts to conserve foreign exchange, and the company’s belief that it was its duty to step up and cater to the needs of the market, ensuring that economic activity and public transport were not affected by a shortage of tyres.
“As a result of this approach, CEAT Kelani used a period in which the size of the market shrank due to the economic downturn, to raise the bar on multiple fronts, to deliver better products and improve processes and to gear itself forthe economic recovery that would follow,” he said.
Among the highlights of the period assessed for the National Business Excellence Awards for CEAT was a series of investments to rapidly expand production of passenger car radials (PCRs), where CEAT Kelani increase production by 172,000 radial tyres, introduce new technological advancements that significantly improved product quality, and launch the first locally-manufactured 17-inch tyres for SUVs.
With these investments, the company also embarked on a brand premiumisation initiative that resulted in new retail concepts being rolled out across its dealer network.
Another notable aspect of CEAT Kelani’s operations during this period was an investment of Rs 476 million in a High Tension (HT) metering roof-top photovoltaic panel solar power plant as part of the company’s efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of its manufacturing operations at its Kelaniya complex. The 2.4 MW solar power plant installed on the factory roof now offsets about 21 percent of its consumption of electricity from the national grid.
