5-year old Neochem plans strategic expansion into new industries
View(s):Neochem International (Pvt) Ltd, said to be one of Sri Lanka’s innovative solution providers for chemical products, celebrated its 5th anniversary earlier this month.
Chathura Piyasekara
A media statement said Neochem, which commenced operations in 2009 as a solution provider for the cosmetics and detergent industry, currently consists of four business units providing different products to local manufacturing clients – cosmetics raw material, detergent raw material, food flavours and fragrances.
Starting off with just two workers in 2009, Neochem now has a staff of 14 and provides solutions to some of the leading FMCG companies in Sri Lanka. The company sources all raw materials from foreign suppliers, most of whom are global giants in their respective fields, the company statement added.
Reflecting on the early days of the company, Chathura Piyasekara, Managing Director of Neochem International, said, “When we commenced operations, there were no solution providers for chemical products in Sri Lanka. There were only chemical suppliers who did buying and selling of chemicals without any value addition whatsoever. I am proud to say that we changed Sri Lanka’s chemical industry by providing excellent customer service as well as innovative solutions to the local manufacturers through our network of global suppliers, highly-skilled technical sales team and our outstanding market intelligence”.
Commenting on the suppliers of the company, Mr. Piyasekara, stated, “We have a strong foreign supplier base that is highly reliable, efficient and attentive. Therefore, we are able to attend to client requests promptly. For instance, we currently work with a French company that is one of the leading flavour and fragrance houses in the world. It’s a company that does a lot of innovations with 27 R&D sites worldwide and manufacturing facilities in 22 countries. Similarly, all our foreign suppliers are both innovative and technologically advanced, which is a huge advantage as we can then introduce these new technologies in real time to our clients locally and help develop their products and brands”.
The team that spearheads sales and helps solve clients’ problems is the company’s technical sales team. This team consists of chemistry graduates from Sri Lankan universities. “We are proud to employ local graduates and provide them with a promising career where they can fulfill their ambitions,” he said.
During the past five years, Neochem has diversified into several other sectors such as IT/BPO services, education and exports. VeloxCloud (Pvt) Ltd, their IT/BPO services subsidiary, provides cloud-based solutions such as HR and Finance systems, a GPS tracking system in collaboration with a Singaporean and a Lithuanian company, as well as IPTV and POS systems.
In the education sector, a subsidiary Neolink Migration Consultants (Pvt) Ltd primarily focuses on career guidance and skilled migration. Neolink Education provides guidance to students looking to pursue higher studies abroad while their other subsidiary Neolink Migration provides professional migration services to those looking to migrate.