Bitumix Maintains Momentum With Diversifications
Ashoka Siriwardena,
Chairman/Managing Director,
Bitumix Pvt. Ltd.
Ashoka Siriwardena started his business journey in the Bitumen processing sector and throughout the time span of the past 18 years, he had established his position as a successful business leader in diversified interests such as Bitumen, Coconuts, Plant extracts and beverages.
He had faced the challenges of finding initial capital, setting up the first factory, finding staff and going into the market with first production. At the inception he had challenges of finding a place in the market competing with a multinationals who had all the technical background. However, Ashoka managed to develop and establish his position in five years to be the market leader which his company retains up to date.
He further expanded his business to exports of processed Bitumen products as a pioneering venture. Bitumix subsidiary Lanka Roadkem is
a leading importer of Bitumen to Sri Lanka. From the Bitumen field Ashoka has diversified his business horizons to a spectrum of other businesses on the theme ‘value adding local traditional material’ entirely for export markets. In line with those diversifications, Ashoka is
managing Wichy Plantation Co., Bevco Lanka, Apeiron Lanka and Lakessence International as the founder of these companies.
From childhood, I had the dream of
being my own boss and then running my
own business. With that background, I
noticed that even with the war situation
prevailing in the country at that time, I
still had the opportunity of getting into a
very specialized area, which is BITUMEN.
BITUMEN, is a very special kind of a
chemical, in the final phase of the crude oil
refining. Expressing his views to the BMD, –
Ashoka Siriwardena,Chairman/ Managing
Director, Bitumix Pvt. Ltd.explains how he
developed a successful business.
Following are the excerpts of the interview:
How did you start your business journey and create the name of your first business?
After becoming a graduate in physical science from the University of Peradeniya in 1981, I had the opportunity of joining Lankem Ceylon Ltd., which was the subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Group in Sri Lanka at that time. At Lankem, I got a very extensive exposure in the chemical manufacturing business and business administration and I still regard Lanken as my second university. After 13 years of service
with Lankem, I gained vast knowledge and hands on experience and later served in two other local business houses in general management positions.
With all that background, I decided to migrate to New Zealand with my family in 1996 where I had the opportunity of again working in the industrial sector.
With three years of overseas exposure, I decided to come back to Sri Lanka at the end of 1999 after gaining permanent residency in New Zealand with my family. I came back to Sri Lanka and considered getting employed or starting a business on my own.
From childhood, I had the dream of being my own boss and then running my own business. With that background, I noticed that even with the war situation prevailing in the country at that time, I still had the opportunity of getting into a very specialized area, which is BITUMEN. BITUMEN, is a very special kind of a chemical, in the final phase of the crude oil refining. When crude oil is refined and volatile
material extracted, the residue is Bitumen. In ordinary terms, it is tar. Bitumen (tar) has very special chemical and physical properties from which you can make lots of useful products. Bitumen is used as a binder in road construction and there are other applications like,
water proofing products, paints, sealants, primers, etc.
So, with that background, I decided to venture into manufacturing of Bitumen based products for road construction in 2000. I expanded into areas like manufacturing of civil engineering applications and industrial applications of Bitumen. Subsequently in 2007 Bitumix Exports was established as the pioneering exporter of processed Bitumen products.
My first company BITUMIX, is a clear definition of ‘mixes of Bitumen’. That’s my core business; Bitumen processing refers to blending, mixing,emulsifying, chemical processing, oxidizing etc. of different forms of Bitumen. As such BITUMIX signifies the name of the business.
How do you maintain the quality of products?
At the very beginning of the business, I began concentrating on four areas in whatever the focus we have with the customers. Those are Quality, Technology, Customer Service and Innovation; the four pillars of business
Quality in that aspect comes as a very prime requirement. After all, our Bitumen products go to the development of our motherland. And one reason why I came back to Sri Lanka was to give back my portion to Sri Lanka as a product of free education in Sri Lanka.
As such, I thought quality matters a lot in terms of offering this product to the customers and of course it is a technical product and in Sri Lanka we have certain strong quality controlling systems at that time. We are using American Standards for Testing Material(ASTM) and Bitumix is strictly following them.
I am happy to say that we have our own in-house quality control facilities for all incoming materials, processes, storage, our handling and even despatching up to the customers’ site.
Bitumix is the first company to achieve ISO 9000 quality system certification for Bitumen industry in Sri Lanka. So quality matters a lot to us. We have qualified staff, well equipped laboratories and we update our knowledge attending technical seminars. We also represent Sri Lanka in technical seminars in other countries. With all that background, we maintain quality of our products with utmost dedication and
commitment.
What were the challenges you faced in your journey so far?
There were challenges from the day I started the business and throughout the journey of 18 years. At the initial stage, I was only a tiny dot, just a drop in the ocean. I had the challenges of facing giants like Lankem. At that time they had all the technical background to fight out a small drop like me and they did so. I managed to survive. That was at the beginning. I also had the challenges of finding initial capital,
setting up the factory, finding staff and going into the market with my first lot. All those were challenges.
More than the theoretical stuff I was looking at the fundamentals, the best way of running this business, what were the requirements to go to the market and then serve the customers to meet their requirements. From the initial stage my focus was on quality, technology, customer service and innovation. Customer service mattered a lot. It was a big challenge to go to the market. I was competing at the very beginning on
the customer service, rather than the quality or other areas.
What is the requirement of the customer? Is it quality, on time delivery or price and I understood that factor and specially I created a concept called on time delivery, which is still being used by other competitors who came after me. Any construction company, when they do a road, they have to do lots of arrangements like hiring machinery, people, equipment, getting ready for the production and then even traffic arrangements with the police. All that matters a lot. So with that background if we can’t supply our Bitumen, which is the main ingredient in the road paving material, that is a disaster for them. So I identified that and faced that challenge by creating this ‘on time delivery’ scheme,
which had a strong appeal with customers and they sometimes gave me orders at higher prices purely because of our service.
When I had my factory at Kalagedihena in 2008, I faced a challenge, an environment issue. Some of the villagers went to the courts against our factory. I took it positively. When your business is growing within a village, you have this kind of problems, which is very common. I thought it was an opportunity for me to look for a safer location, especially in an industrial estate. I made representations to the Ministry of Industries. They supported me to start a brand new factory at Homagama Temple Burg Industrial Estate. I’m confident that I still have the best Bitumen factory and some of the foreigners who visited the factory said it was like a biscuit factory. That was the kind of housekeeping, cleanliness, and other facilities that we maintain.As such, there are challenges from the market side, from internal, Bitumen sourcing and I’m facing them very positively and my approach is based on fundamentals. That approach has really worked in sorting out some of the problems and it has done something good to the industry and even to the competitors.
How do you compete with both local and foreign players?
We expanded this business to Bitumix Exports in 2007 as a pioneering processed Bitumen exporter. I’m trying to benchmark my operations, business, relationship with customers, by providing quality products, giving the best customer service. Customer service is not just satisfying the customer but also the industry. I have been able to help the industry by providing educational programmes, lots of training programmes to the staff on CSR basis and the donation of a laboratory, exclusively for Bitumen research to the Moratuwa University. This initiation was instrumental in establishing a Bitumen Factory laboratory in Moratuwa University. Bitumix faces competition from many who are not the corporate type. Some of them lack quality and other ethics in the business. With our strong business foundation in the Bitumen field, Bitumix is maintaining an uncontested market leader position in this sector. Government funds not reaching to the projects on time
is also a major problem. As such, there is a huge delay in getting our payments from our customers. There is an overall drop in the business volume. I am trying to benchmark my operations, so that it will be an example to the others and get them to be on board in terms of quality and other services.
What are the diversifications of business from Bitumen?
Around 2010 we decided to diversify our business from Bitumen to other areas. Sri Lanka is blessed with many agricultural products and also natural products of supreme quality. Our tea, coconut, cinnamon, spices and many other herbal products are best in world quality standards. Our Gems, graphite and mineral sand are also of very high quality. But as a country our approach to value add to them and export needs more and more attention. I established business entities in Coconut kernel, Essential oil and herbal beverage fields. We have
three factories dedicated for such products with affiliations of foreign companies. The product range exceeds 150 and many of them are exported, earning foreign exchange. We are continuously looking for business expansion in these areas and maintain the growth momentum of Bitumix as a group of companies.
What drives you for better products?
Part of my business management approach is innovation. I always like to come up with better, improved services or products in the industry. I have been talking about Polymer Modified Bitumen. Since 2011, I have done a lot of work influencing our authorities to go for improved
products of Bitumen for roads in Sri Lanka, purely because we still have the very basic Bitumen products used in roads of this country. When you go to other developed countries, even in India, they use improved products, which provides better service levels, comfort,
safety on the roads. As such we need to go to these new methods, new varieties of Bitumen and that is something that drives me for results. There are over 250 products of Bitumen for various applications and I’m trying to introduce them one by one as import substitutes and also
products for exports. Those are the main things that drives me to move forward.
How do you stay motivated with these obstacles and challenges?
When it comes to running your own business, challenges and obstacles are common things. We have to take it as way of life. What is actually necessary is finding the way out and how to get over these problems. What is the timing, what is the magnitude of the problem, how to
prioritise, what are the avenues that you can take. There are various ways to do that. It could be ethical, unethical and various other ways. But I’m trying to be always ethical in the business and maintain values in the business
How is the contribution of your staff to achieve your goals?
I believe they are well motivated. I always feel that the staff of an organization should grow parallel to the growth of the organization. I have done my best to train them, position them in better places with higher responsibilities. Also, giving them exposure in working life, training them and treating them as human beings and valuable people. With all that I believe people are motivated, they have the loyalty to the organization feel they own the company. I always tell them at the beginning of the last interview of the selection process. ‘You have to treat this as your own company and see that everything is done as it is your own ’.
What are the challenges in retaining the staff?
There are monetary and non-monetary benefits that people expect from an organization. There should be a friendly and motivated working environment. If there are problems, then there should be a proper HR function for discussing it and sorting it out. Within the organization, we have created that if one has a problem, he has to discuss it with others and we have given them ample space to come out with their
suggestions for improvements. They could be at labour level, supervisors, executives or managers, they have the opportunity to come up with their suggestions and receive due consideration. There are welfare activities such as ‘Shishyadara’ programs, where all the children of staff members, get benefits. So those are the non-monetary aspects. In the monetary aspect also they are placed well above our industry norms. Performance based remuneration and rewards for sales are given. They are motivated to come up with new ideas, join this innovation program that we have. With all this, I believe we are assisting them to achieve their goals.
Leadership is about the thrill of competition and the quest for success. Your comments?
There are businessmen or entrepreneurs who are organically grown, there are people who are supported by politicians, those are different. I’m talking about real entrepreneurship. The thrill of competition leads to innovation in services and new products. Entrepreneurs
like to see that they are in an active field all the time so that they get more ideas, more room for expansion, going for new products. That makes them more competitive both locally and globally. That’s something I agree with and competition is something that you can
enjoy on many occasions. Of course, there are other backgrounds to this. Competition is varied; there are ethical, unethical and
various other issues involved. I’m talking about pure competition. When somebody is trying to have a way of importing something to the country without paying duty purely on certain unethical practices, then it does not become a genuine competition. It’s something else.
When it comes to genuine competition, I agree that business leadership is the thrill of competition and quest for success with innovative services, products and promotions
How can the business leader be better mentors and genuine leaders?
The objective of running a business is the key factor. If the prime objective of running a business is making money or increasing your wealth then you tend to take shortcuts and resort to various unethical practices. Your money map is the only thing that guides you. In addition, there is a service that you can do to your country and create employment. There are other benefits that you can provide to the country. You can also create something for the global people. The motivation should be not only to create money but go beyond that and create services to the country and people.
What is your message to budding entrepreneurs?
If you take Sri Lanka’s entrepreneurship, we havevery valuable, creative people in Sri Lanka. But unfortunately, the political situation in the country, the rulers, they could be blue or green or whatever colour, their basic approach to govern the country is extremely poor. Understanding problems, trying to find solutions and then implementing them are not seen at all. As a country we have lots of opportunities and very rich with highly skilled and innovative human resources. Politicians seem to be guided by extremely corrupt and inhuman practices. Although we have good entrepreneurs in the country, incubation is not taking place in the way it should happen purely because of the poor background.
Leo Tolstoy writes, ‘Everyone thinks of changing the world, but not one thinks of changing himself’. Do you agree?
Yes, changing yourself is the key aspect because you are the master of yourself. That is the best you can do within you, before you try to change world. If everybody thinks that way, the majority of them can contribute towards making the big change in the world. The first thing is to concentrate on yourself, what you can do and how you can contribute for the betterment of society