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Careers > Life at CBL

LIFE AT CBL

I. M. Khan- Group General Manager Sales

CBL fosters a mutually beneficial, win-win relationship
between itself and its employees. It has allowed me to
develop myself meeting personal targets, a process which
has empowered me to achieve my part in meeting CBLs
corporate goals. It has been rewarding working with a
team of people from different cultures and religious
beliefs; a team that values and respects each other. It
was great to have been welcomed into a family that
treats all its members alike.

Asoka Neelakantha - Production Manager

I started at CBL as a factory clerk in 1985 and I now
serve as a Production Manager. Each day as I enter work,
I enjoy
 Vision

To be the most successful and respected food company in Sri Lanka.

Mission

To win the Hearts and Minds of Consumers by delivering food

propositions with exceptional quality, safety & value whilst being

environmentally & socially responsible, creating employee

satisfaction and returning optimum value to stakeholders.

the familiar sweet smell of CBL products. Working at CBL,
the giant in biscuit manufacturing in Sri Lanka, makes my
day fulfilling and it is with joy and pride I handle my
responsibility and accountability.

B. Piyadasa - Welfare Clerk

It is with humble pride that I say that I have been with
CBL for more than 43 years. I started as an office boy and
I now manage the entire welfare of the CBL family. Ive
witnessed the company grow into a solid organisation,
like an acorn growing into a large oak. Being the most
senior employee, the trust and the confidence the
management has put in me inspires me to continue my
work.

Chinthaka Abeyruwan - Area Sales Manager

CBL is endowed with a culture that one would come
across only rarely: a culture where personal development
is a priority and humanitarianism is practiced at its finest.
I started as a Sales Representative in 1998 and am now in
charge of a sales team of more than 50 members. I am
truly pleased to work under the CBL brand which is
renowned nationally and internationally and to be
associated with its iconic crown that promises
uncompromising taste and quality.
Nayana Rathnayaka - Assistant Research and
Development Manager
Having started as a Management Trainee 11 years ago, I
was promoted as a Quality Assurance Executive in 2007.
Today I am in the field of Research and Development as
Assistant Research & Development Manager partaking in
the company's innovation and development of its
premium quality brands, incorporating the knowledge and
the experience I gained through my degree in MSc. in
Food Science & Technology. CBL is a progressive and
innovative business entity that provides a stimulating
working environment with excellent growth opportunities
for employees who perform well.

Aidra Hettiarachchi - HR Executive

Having joined as a receptionist in 2005, I now manage
administration related functions of the junior staff at CBL
and have been supported by the management in my
ideas to enhance team spirit at CBL club activities. I have
been able to excel in sports, representing CBL at
Mercantile Athletic Tournaments and winning Gold &
Silver medals. I have been a member of Mercantile
Women's Hockey team from 2005 and was its Vice
Captain in 2010. I will continue to work hard and pursue
my plans of climbing up the career ladder step-by-step.
Management Trainees
CBL has opened doors for us to reach new horizons -
acquiring knowledge, skills & experience, giving the
wonderful challenge of cooperating with a highly
diversified workforce. The atmosphere at CBL is
absolutely vibrant and fun filled but yet so disciplined. It
has a positive work culture and an environment which
fosters friendliness, freedom and ethnic diversity. Its with
great pride that I say that Im part of the CBL Family.

More Awards and Certifications

COPYRIGHT CEYLON BISCUITS LIMITED 2012LEGALSITE
MAPWEBSITE DEVELOPED BYPYXLE
Part 1- Organizational Analysis:
Ceylon Biscuits Ltd was founded in late nineteen
sixties by under taking contract fromSri Lankan
government and Care International (USA) to
manufacture protein enrichedbiscuits for Sri Lankan
school children as a mid day meal. While dealing in this
contractmanufacturing for the Care International, it
was noticed by the company that excessproduction
capacity was there. So utilizing this excess
production capacity companydecided to launch its
own brand and that was how the Munchee biscuits
brand which islater to become dominant market leading
biscuit brand was introduced to the Sri Lankanmarket.
Till late nineteen nineties Munchee was not the
dominant biscuit brand in SriLanka. Till that time from
the starting of the Ceylon Biscuits, the company was
engagedin contract manufacturing for Huntley and
Palmer of associated biscuits UK other thanproducing
biscuits for Care
International.From the beginning of new millenniu
m, Munchee brand started aggressively invading
the biscuits market of the Sri Lanka and now the
company Ceylon Biscuits hasbecome one of the largest
privately owned group of companies of the Island.
With thedawn of the new millennium, Ceylon Biscuits
launched its diversification drive by settingup its wholly
own subsidiary CBL Foods for chocolate, cake and jelly
production and atthe same time CBL took controlling
share of Lanka Soy, Convenient Foods (Samaposha)and
Cecil Foods so that the company has now in a position to
offer diverse of products tothe food market of the Sri
Lanka.Vision of the Ceylon Biscuits Ltd is to become
leader in confectionary in SouthAsia with a global
presence and recognition. As a privately owned
group of companies,CBL group ha s no clearly
explicit mission. Instead what the company CBL
does isadapting set of marketing objectives, like
increasing market share of a certain brand bysome
percentage for achieving each year.Today CBL groups
core business is food manufacturing and initia lly
it
waslimited to biscuit s manufacturing. Then the c
ompany moved to manufact uring of chocolates
under the brand name of Ritzbury, and also
manufacturing of cakes under
thebrand name of Tiara and also wafer bisc uits m
anufacturing under the same brand Munchee and
recently company ventured into production of instant jelly
under the brandname of Go Jelly. During the same
period the company has taken controlling share of 1

Lanka Soy, Samaposha and Cecil so now CBL is

competing in fruit drinks market, Soyproduct market
and serials and snacks markets of the country.In term of
market share the flagship brand Munchee is holding over
60% marketshare in the biscuit market of the country
and cake brand Tiara is holding around 80%market
share by almost whipping out other competitors in
the market. At the same timeother dominant brand
Ritzbury is having 50% market share in the chocolate slab
marketand over 70% market share in chocolate
coated product market. So it can be concludedthat in
areas of biscuits, cake and chocolate markets, CBL
has been market leader in theSri La nkan market for
past few years and most likely the company
would be able to maintain its dominance in the
market.Fig: 1 Munchee Biscuits market share in
the market. (Source: AC Nielson retail audit)2

50251510RitzburyCompetitor-1Competitor-2Others
Fig: 2 Chocolate Slab market share of Ritzbury for year
2010 (Source: AC Neilson retailaudit)When it comes to
explain resources availability of CBL group, over
2000 work force
isemployed by the group in their, Pannipit iya, Ra
nala, Minuwangoda, Ratmala na andKandy factories.
Land area of Pannipitiya plant was fully filled with plant
buildings andno further building expansion is possible
there. In Ranala plant, which is nearly a 13 acrefac ility,
only small land area is available for future
expansion. In term of land area availability, situation
of premises such as Kandy, Minuwangoda and Ratmalana
are alsomore or less same as above. Therefore the
group has invested in Seethawaka IndustrialPark and
where group is going to set up their new production
facility solely for exports.As company
vision says, CBL is targeting vast market opportu
nities in the subcontinental Indian region, the
group has already bought land in Bangladesh for its
firstoverseas manufacturing facility.So far the group
has been operating as a privet limited company
which is nowalmost 12billon Rupees Company, is in
the process of considering to become a publiclimited
company as company has grown too big already and also
huge investments are indemand in order to make sizable
presence in the Indian/Bangladesh markets.3
Part 2
Business
environment
and strategic
orientation of
the
organization
Ceylon Biscuit
s Limited was
once a small
manufacturing
firm engaged i
n contractman
ufacturing in
the beginning
of 1970s and
now it has
become the
largest
biscuits,
cakeand
chocolate
manufacturer
in Sri Lanka
while
exporting its
products over
60 countries
inthe world.
Throughout
the journey of
CBL from a
small biscuits
manufacturer
to adiversified
leading
business group
in the country,
one of major
remarkable ma
jor strengthcan
be observed.
That is strong
corporate
leadership of
the chairman
and the
director board.
Under the fars
ighted corpora
te leadership
of the compan
y, the compan
y hasaggressiv
ely expanded
its operation,
has achieved
dominant
market shares
in its all
major product
categories and
also has
invested
heavily in new
plants,
factories,
technologies
inorder to
sustain and
improve
current level
of aggressive
market
performance
of
thecompany.D
uring the rece
nt history CBL
, the group ha
s won several
awards giving
testimony to
excellence
performance
of the
company. Som
e of which can
be
mentionedas
follows.

Food Award of
Excellence in
Confectionary

Product Brand
of the Year for
four
consecutive
years

Brand of the
Year for two
consecutive ye
ars (Awarded
by Sri Lanka
Institute
of Marketing)

Winner of Gold
for Innovative
Brand of the
Year (Awarded
by Sri Lanka
Instituteof
Marketing)

Innovative
Brand of the
Year
(Awarded by
Sri Lanka
Institute of
Marketing)

Winner of Gold
for Industrial
Excellence in
the Extra
Large category
at theAnnual
National
Chamber of
Industries
Achievers
(CNCI) Awards

Gold Award in
the Extra
Large Categor
y Exporter
Agriculture
Value
AddedProducts
(Awarded by
National
Chamber of
Exporters)

National Award
for Export
Excellence
(Awarded
by Ministry of
Trade
andCommerce
)5
With those
awards
together with
excellent
marketing
efforts of the
company,
Muncheethe
flagship brand
of the CBL
group has
become the
strongest food
brand
currently in
SriLanka. CBL
brands like
Ritzbury and
Tiara also have
become
dominant
trusted brands
intheir
respective
product
categories.
Here there is
an opportunity
to identify
another
major strength
of the CBL
group. That is
strong brand
images of CBL
products. The
groupname
CBL itself is
becoming a
trusted brand
for quality in
the Sri Lankan
marketprovidi
ng definite
strength for
the group
to achieve its
crowning
success.Well
established
sales and
distribution
network of CBL
also can be
considered
asstrength of
the company.
CBL
distributes its
products
through 60
agencies and
400dealers
located island
wide and
products are
available in
over 80000
sales outlets
islandwide.
Furthermore
company has
close ties with
international
distributors in
India
andSingapore
so that
company is in
a position to
export its
products to 60
countries.
Duringrecent
past CBL group
has been able
to widen
market share
of its product
portfolio
year after year
and efficient
and well
organized sale
s and
distribution
network of the
group canbe
observed as
a major
contributor of
recent success
of the
company.For
some of
products like
Samaposha,
Nutriline Rice
Pops, Nutriline
Serial
Bars,Cecil Fruit
Drinks,
company
purchased raw
materials such
as grams,
green grams,
crown,rice,
peanuts etc
locally. In
order to
source these
agricultural
raw materials
in
requiredqualit
y and
quantity,
company has
set up
farmers
network in
Ampara and
Wellawayaare
a. The
company has
appointed an
agro
technologist to
coordinate
closely with
thesefarmers
networks and
provide
necessary
technology
and guidance
from selecting
seedsand
preparing of
farming lands
to collecting
and storing
harvests in a
way that
bothcompany
as well as
farmers is
benefited, so
that quality
and price
standards of
rawmaterials
are
maintained.
This farmer
network also
can be
considered as
strength of
theCBL
group.In early
days of the
company,
most of
production
machineries
were
reconditioned
machineries
imported from
the Europe.
But in recent
times, the
company has
vastlyinvested
in purchasing
brand new
state of the art
machineries
from Japan and
Europe for its
production
process and at
the same time
company is
modifying its
old generation
of 6
machineries in
order to make
them more
efficient in
terms of
energy
consumption
andproduction.
This
modernization
of machinery
and
equipments
and
technologicalin
novation are
also can be
observed as
strengths of
the CBL
group.The
company has
established
well organized
product and
process
qualitymanage
ment system
for which
company has
received ISO
9001
certification.
And
further CBL
Pannipitiya
factory has
met ISO 14000
environmental
quality
standards and
alsoCBL
Ranala factory
is also working
towards
obtaining ISO
14000
environmental
qualitymanage
ment system.
Cecil,
Samaposha
and Lanka Soy
factories are
also having
ISO9001 certi
fied quality m
anagement sy
stems and als
o their produc
ts come with
SLScertificatio
n. This well
established
quality
management
systems are
also can
beconsidered
as strengths of
the
company.CBL
group is highly
engaged in
research and
development
activities
related
tobiscuits and
chocolate
manufacturing.
CBL is in a
process of
offering local
low cost
andsame
quality
equivalents of
international
market
products
coming under
brand
namessuch as
Cadbury and
Nestle etc.
Some of
international
products
formulas are
protectedunde
r patents and
high royalties
are to be made
for getting
them for local
use. So CBL
isinvesting in
R&D related to
developing
those product
formulas
locally and
these
R&Dactivities
can be
mentioned as
strengths of
the
company.As a
summary,
following
things can be
observed as
strengths of
CBL
group. Strong
corporate lead
ership Well e
stablished
sales and distr
ibution networ
k Strong bra
nd images and
excellent sale
s force Well
organized far
mers networks
Technologic
al innovations
Well establis
hed
quality/enviro
nmental
management
systems R&D
capabilities S
etting up of a
management i
nformation
system7