GLX Garage SMEs become catalysts of the new economy
View(s):Good Life X (GLX) Garage was very much an innovative experiment to take the best of Sri Lanka to the world!
Good Life X brought together 5 sustainable SMEs in the food, agriculture and design sectors who were seizing opportunities to be different, innovative and wanted to take on the global “conscious consumers” by storm, it said in a media release.
As part of a larger programming portfolio of the Good Life X, the Garage focuses on personalised coaching and interventions for SMEs to seize opportunities in order to infuse innovation, update their approaches or refocus their strategies, and further entrench themselves along ethical and sustainable missions and practices to deliver to the growing global market of conscious consumers.
This round of the programme initiated in October 2020, was facilitated by GIZ SME Sector Development project, with the special funding received from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), in response to the impact of COVID-19 on the Small and Medium scale enterprise sector in Sri Lanka.
The specialty of this programme was its nature and approach to problem solving and how it brought together 9 experts from 5 continents, representing diverse fields of expertise to work together in a 5-month period to ignite innovation in the participating enterprises. This ignited exciting, proactive discussions in strategising, best practice sharing, actionising for resilience in the face of the contextual uncertainty, and steering implementation of each SMEs specific goals. The success of Garage is today well represented in the positive disruptions courageously undertaken along with global business growth of each enterprise, the release said.
The GLX Garage’s 2020 cohort comprised of five enterprises from design and Agro/food sectors. House of Lonali, Worga Naturals, Serendipol, Target Agriculture, and Ceylon Exports and Trading benefitted from the international knowledge sharing, and customised strategies in building short-term resilience and long term growth, while creating opportunities for their cutting edge solutions to come in to global markets.
Dulara de Alwis, first-generation entrepreneur and CEO of Ceylon Exports and Training, used his opportunity to learn and implement digital strategies for the growth of the businesses’ in house brand – Coco House. “The Garage programme was an eye opener for me. The experts had immense value in helping us build a unique global brand proposition and a more holistic digital strategy for our company,” said Dulara, from Ceylon Exports and Trading.
Coming from a design background, Lonali Rodrigo Founder of the House of Lonali, commented on how the level of expertise accessible to her, helped her hone the business direction and partnerships within a short period of time. “The programme helped me identify my key strengths and align all branding and communication tools to make the most impact at key points. This has helped tremendously in fine tuning our marketing strategy. The Garage programme has also been beneficial in helping me identify the right kind of buyer.”
Saranga from Target Agriculture, a company that exports organic and fair-trade certified fruits products, joined the programme seeking guidance on developing and marketing a new sustainable product range. He commented, “When I first started the Garage programme, I only had a concept of a new product line which I had planned back in September 2020. Through the programme I was able to see my dream come to life. The experts provided valuable insight on branding and marketing communication strategies. This gave me the confidence I needed to reach beyond my limits to launch my products in new market spaces. This programme is ideal for emerging companies as they open doors to innovative ventures like mine.”
Meanwhile Nishantha Jayathilake from Worga Naturals, recounts a different path taken by the dedicated GLX experts supporting Worga to be the best organic food processing company in Sri Lanka, empowering the local organic farming community and supporting the rural economy. Though hesitant at first about the programme’s possibilities, its outcomes made him a believer, “Even though at first I didn’t expect much out of this, having experienced first-hand the knowledge of the experts, I now feel privileged to have had the opportunity to have been a part of this programme. The knowledge I received in areas such as proper certification, e-marketing, product branding and communication tools in targeting international markets, was invaluable.”