National Business Excellence Awards 2021 to be held on March 22

The National Chamber of Commerce yesterday announced the awards ceremony of the ‘National Business Excellence Awards 2021’ which will be held on March 22 amidst a distinguished gathering of government and private sector, in compliance with Covid-19 rules at Sirimavo Bandaranaike Memorial Exhibition Centre A (BMICH). 

Being one of the pioneering Awards Competitions initiated as way back as 2004, by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, the National Business Excellence Awards (NBEA), has maintained its highest standards and gained much recognition and prestige amongst the business community as a well- structured Awards Scheme recognizing “Excellence” of businesses in Sri Lanka.

Nandika Buddhipala, President of the National Chamber after recognizing the current evolving trends such as agile nature of strategies to address disruptive nature of business environment with Covid-19 pandemic, emphasis on reduce carbon emission, transforming nature of workplace, increasing tendency of capital is getting attracted to trusted, ethical and environmentally friendly organizations and the purpose of the institutions more align towards creating long term sustainability and creating value for all in the society and not restricting to selected few, has appointed selected Committee in order to revive the National Business Excellence Awards application in order to accompany such important emerging trends. Committee after recognizing the fact that such changes emphasizing on Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) should be introduced gradually,  allowing our organizations to adopt over a period of time managed to come up an application  with some important changes based on the Evaluation Model of 7 criteria, namely – Excellence in Strategy & Leadership, Excellence in Corporate Governance, Excellence in Capacity Building, Excellence in Performance Management, Excellence in Local and Global Market Reach, Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability, Excellence in Business & Financial Results. It is expected to allow the contemporary needs to the application over a period of time.

The numbers and quality of applications have been on the rise over the years reaching over 100 this time as well.  The competition comprises of categories – Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small and Micro – and diversified sectors:  spreading over 29 industry sectors.

The evaluations is carried out initially, by a Technical and Financial Panel with a desk review, headed by the Chairman of the Financial & Technical Panel, Sanath Fernando, Partner, Assurance, at Ernst & Young.
The shortlisted applications are reviewed and interviewed by a panel of judges to ascertain the best corporate companies as award winners. Selection of winners will be made by an eminent Panel of Judges chaired by Sunil G Wijesinha, Past President - National Chamber, Former Chairman –Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, Former President - Japan Sri Lanka Technical and Cultural Association (JASTECA) & Non-Executive Chairman of several Listed Companies.