next Sourcing, a wholly owned subsidiary of next Plc, UK, the retail clothing and accessory giant, recognized and acknowledged its Supplier base at the Suppliers’ Seminar held at Park Street Mews Colombo recently. The event was celebrated under an ‘Olympics’ theme, in line with the companies’ successful supply of Olympic clothing to the British team, at the recently concluded London Olympics. 

The next Suppliers’ Seminar focused on recognizing the contribution of the supplier base who achieved sales targets maintaining a highly demanding and attentive production quality over the past fiscal year. The event was graced by the management of next Sourcing including, Mr. Simon Finch, Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Gwyn Williams, Regional Director, Mr. Chanaka Perera, Director/General Manager, Management and the team of next Sourcing Sri Lanka together with representatives from the supplier base.

Commending the excellence of the supplier base, Mr. Chanaka Perera, Director/General Manager- next Sourcing stated, “We are honoured to pay tribute to our valuable supply chain in Sri Lanka, who have maintained exceptional quality standards producing the best product to our customers throughout the years. next Sourcing by-annually conducts factory evaluations through which the management is able to make the selections for the top three factories out of a comparatively large factory base in Sri Lanka. The stringent quality standards maintained by these factories are highly recognized by next Sourcing”.

Mr. Hugh McConnell – Senior Technical Manager- next Sourcing commended the local production and quality. He said, “Sri Lankan suppliers to next consistently out perform all other countries on quality goods to the customer warehouses. Code of Practice category ratings for Sri Lanka factories is also consistently better than our competitors which is a great credit to the supplier base”.

The top performers for the period of 2012. ‘Sumithra Garments(Pvt) Limited’ was adjudged the winner of the Gold Medal for the second consecutive year. ‘Hela Clothing(Pvt) Limited’ for the second consecutive year won the Silver and the Bronze was won by ‘Miami Exports (Pvt) Ltd’. 

Mr. Wilhelm Elias - Senior Merchandising Manager, reiterated, “Sri Lanka is known for its great quality and also reliability. We have earned a reputation for being a safe pair of hands and this has helped us sustain and also grow our business in what is now considered to be a tough trading time. We do however have a lot of work ahead of us as we enter yet another demanding spring season; we need our fabric and trim suppliers to also focus on speed and reliability”.

The seminar featured a performance overview of ‘next’ sales during the last quarter, with an updated indication on the current performance in line with the Key Performance Indicators set by the international retail giant. next Retail is a chain of more than 500 stores in the UK and in Europe. next Sourcing designs and sources clothing, accessories and products through its global network of offices and suppliers, negotiating market leading prices and managing production, ensuring on time delivery on behalf of next Plc.

Photo Caption: from left Mr. Gwyn Williams, Regional Director next Sourcing, Mr. Annesly De Fonseka, Director Marketing, Hela Clothing (Pvt) Limited’ (Silver Medal), Mr. Jafar A. Sattar, Chairman, ‘Sumithra Garments (Pvt) Limited’ (Gold Medal), Ms. Dushani Mahipala, Director ‘Miami Exports (Pvt) Ltd’ (Bronze Medal) and Mr. Chanaka Perera, Director/General Manager next Sourcing.