Sunshine Holdings forges ahead with digitisation
The diversified group, Sunshine Holdings PLC is committed to digitisation of its processes — deploying drone technology in their agricultural sector.
Officials said in this regard, the company uses drone technology to gather field data. “We are working with two start-ups in this case. If a field is left without weeding, then drone technology helps us to identify that field,” Vish Govindasamy, Group Managing Director Sunshine Holdings PLC told the Business Times in a recent interview. The 50 year-old company which has four sectors – Healthcare, Agri, Fast Moving Consumer Goods [FMCG] and Energy uses 2 to 3 per cent of its total budget on digitisation. “We are committed to digitisation,” Mr. Govindasamy said. The company is on the lookout for new start-ups but nothing significant has come their way so far.
Mr. Vish Govindasamy
Mr. Govindasamy added that last year has been reasonably good given the global and local economic challenges that industries had to face. “We are into the business of day to day needs and despite various vagaries that came (during the last year), these businesses did well.” He added that despite the taxation certain businesses in FMCG had increased rates, so the increase in taxes was offset.
In their agri sector, Sunshine Holdings faced a drop in demand for tea from West Asia and Russia as well as rising oil prices and challenging weather.
Analysts say that despite the challenges in the sector owing to many adverse weather patterns and an impending wage hike for the plantation sector workers (it’s expected the daily wage to increase to Rs. 720) which could intensify the cost of production, it is expected palm oil to outweigh the negativity with some revival in volumes and a rise in selling prices in the coming quarters.
Their dairy project at Ginigathhena, a subsidiary of Watawala Plantations is now complete, on its first year of operation and produces 25,000 litres of fresh milk a day. Mr. Govindasamy noted that the company turned around an unprofitable tea estate – Lonach Estate – to a profitable entity with this dairy project.
Sunshine Holdings has completed its third hydro power project at Lippakelle at Lindula region last month and now the company generates 7.3 Mega Watts (MW) in total.
They are into rooftop solar, and have 0.5 MW roofing solar at Kelaniya and 1.5 MW plants at Mattakkuliya and Ratmalana. “We will be completing the last two projects by this year end,” Mr. Govindasamy added.
His take on the economic downturn is that it is not necessarily that people don’t have money, but they lack the confidence to spend. “The confidence has left people. When you really think about it, with last year’s currency depreciation there should be more money in those households that have migrant workers who send in foreign remittances. They should have at least 20 per cent more cash with the depreciation. A main reason for the economic downturn in this setting should be that these people don’t have confidence to spend the money,” Mr. Govindasamy explained.