Elephant House first runner-up at CIMA Business Case Awards

Friday, 7 December 2012 00:17 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A case study on strategic management in the competitive environment written under the subject of ‘Winning the Battle of Being Relevant: The Elephant House story’, submitted by a three member team from Ceylon Cold Stores PLC (CCS), was adjudged first runner-up at the recently concluded Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Business Case Awards 2012.

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The CIMA Business Case Awards 2012 is a competition open solely to local corporates, wherein up to three employees residing in Sri Lanka present a business case related to a real-life, and successful turnaround situation within the organisation in question. The Elephant House Ice Cream turnaround case reflected how CCS strategically managed its competitive environment in the ice cream business by staying relevant to the consumer and outperforming the competition. It also discussed how the brand re-vitalisation and re-launch, which was implemented in 2009, contributed to the turnaround of the ice cream business.

The significance of this story was how a 150-year old local company, with a 75-year old ice cream brand, a household name in Sri Lanka, found the courage to strategically re-position itself, not only in its consumer approach but also across operations to bring in a multitude of efficiencies that led to a complete turnaround of the brand and the category over a short period of time.

Jit Gunaratne, President – Consumer Foods Sector John Keells Holdings said, “It has been an interesting journey for us at Elephant House and we are excited about what we have achieved. We had a vision to make sure that our journey continues on its success path, we stuck to basics, we got our supply chain right, improved efficiencies and fine-tuned our marketing and sales strategies.

“We also made sure that all our people were aligned to our vision. Participating in the CIMA business case awards has been a tremendous experience for us in terms of sharing our knowledge and learning from what others have done as well.”

Team leader Daminda Gamlath, Sector Financial Controller for CCS said: “It was a great learning experience and a huge opportunity we received to showcase the Elephant House story. It is a very old heritage brand known amongst all in Sri Lanka. But very few know about the change the company and brand went through to stay ahead of the rest, and to be closer to its core consumer. “The recognition received from CIMA and the corporate community is definitely overwhelming and will certainly go a long way for this company and for us individually. We are indeed privileged to have been a part of this competition and the achievement received.”

The team comprised of Daminda Gamlath, who led the team, Surani Sahabandu, Head of Sales and Marketing for Elephant House Ice Cream, and Divanke Fernando, Assistant Manager – Management Accounting, CCS. The Elephant House Ice Cream turnaround case was evaluated by a distinguished panel that comprised Malinga Arasakulartne, Dr. Travis Perera, Manel Jayasinghe, Dr. Arul Sivaganathan and Prof. Uditha Liyanage.