The strategy experts suggest that, Sri Lanka tea industry should consider adopting the blue ocean strategy for it’s profitably and sustainability. The comments were made at a seminar organized by Tea Exporters Association recently under the theme of “Inventing New Horizons for Ceylon Tea” with the objective of finding new strategies for the development of tea industry which is currently at cross roads due to a number of internal and external factors. Dr. Ravi Fernando, a well-known corporate strategy expert, Dr. Chandra Embuldeniya, first Vice Chancellor of Uva Wellasssa University and Dr. Udaya Indraratne, former advisor to Dubai and Abu Dhabi governments, were the three eminent speakers at the event which was attended by Secretary, Ministry of Plantation Industries and Agriculture Exports, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tea Board and many other senior government officials and tea industry stakeholder members. Welcoming the participants Mr. Sanjaya Herath, Chairman of Tea Exporters Association assured that, TEA is ready to do its best to uplift the tea industry and work together with other stakeholders. Tea is one industry and belongs to all stakeholders and everybody should come out from their water tight compartments to understand each other’s problems. The industry should be run by the stakeholders and therefore joining hands with each other is necessary to take the industry forward. Mr. Jayampathy Molligoda, Chairman of SLTB addressing the participants stated that, Ministry of Plantation Industries and Colombo Tea Traders Association are currently working on two strategy documents, one looking at the industry issues from grower level up to the end consumer and the other one looking from the international demand for Ceylon Tea down to the tea small holder grower. In Sri Lanka’s context what is important is to have a strategy plan that is implementable as many studies done in the past have ended up in the respective organizations without taking any action. Tea industry is the most organized agriculture sector in the country which has survived for the last 152 years and SLTB is committed to guide the industry to make a bigger contribution to the national economy. One drawback in implementing strategies is lack of funding and the government is looking at possibilities of obtaining equity through multinational agencies to revive the tea industry. Any misunderstandings among the stakeholders should be addressed through dialogue to uplift the status of tea industry. It should have a proper value addition at each stakeholder level and if not no one will be interested in investing in the tea industry. Dr. Ravi Fernando spoke on the theme of “Creating Blue Oceans for Sri Lanka Tea Industry”. The essence of blue ocean strategy is to open up new market opportunities and create new demand where competition will be irrelevant. It is about creating and capturing uncontested market opportunities where competition does not exists. In the blue ocean strategy, the demand is created rather than fought over with other competitors. The strategy focuses on identifying opportunities for rapid growth and profitability. The competition is rather irrelevant as the company is targeting at unexplored market space. The strategy also speaks on “Red Ocean” or current market space where the boundaries or the limits and competition are known. The companies who are in red ocean try to out-perform the competitors to get a share of the current demand. Dr. Fernando identified four factors that will influence any initiative to take the tea industry forward.
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- Team performance – all stakeholders to work as a team
- Tea is a beverage – Ceylon Tea has to be relevant to tomorrows consumers and not to the past
- Tea is an agro based industry – climate change impact is already set in on the agriculture sector. Any strategy should take this fact in to consideration.
- Create value in consumer mind / at consumer end to get better prices for Ceylon Tea.
- The mistake of expecting consumers to be loyal to Ceylon Tea forever.
- Expecting new generation to make and drink Ceylon Tea in the same way without paying much attention to demand for convenience and changing consumer habits.
- Country can manure with standards and quality of tea and expect world consumers to accept it.
- Innovation in all sectors is not needed.
- No urgency for having Ceylon Tea GI and facilities for testing tea locally.
- Consumers who drink tea now could move away to other beverages in the future- loss of market opportunities
- Unexplored non tea consumers- that may provide a new opportunity as they may want to drink tea now
- Those who refusing to drink tea – haven’t drunk tea before but may want to drink tea now- an opportunity
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