Compiled by Sonali Kadurugamuwa
For the past twenty years, Sala Enterprises has been representing leading brand names with the most innovative technology in IT and communication products to the Sri Lankan consumer, according to Chinthaka Wijewickrama, Managing Director. Signifying the importance of giving the customer innovative, quality products at an affordable price, he stresses that since Sala Enterprises deals solely with electronic goods, “the after-sales service for customers is prioritised.” Sala Enterprises is driven to bringing down the latest products that suit the Sri Lankan market in order to ensure customer trust and satisfaction. “We were the first to launch the pen-drive, the digital camera, the all-in-one PC, navigation systems, CLI phones and the talking dictionary, in Sri Lanka,” adds Wijewickrama.
Sala Enterprises had first started their business based on electronic dictionaries and later began delving into a diverse world of technologies, as consumer demands were beginning to increase. “We even had our own brand of computers called Pride,” he adds, and today Sala Enterprises is “the market leader for most innovative products.” The company works closely with countries such as China, Japan, Singapore, Korea and the US. “It is not just about importing the products from various countries,
selling it and then forgetting about it,” says Wijewickrama. A considerable research and development is carried out on products for at least one to two months before launching them. “It is our social responsibility to our customers,” he stresses.
With brand names such Prolink, Fujitsu, Divoom, Seiko, Delux, Alcatel, Gaoxinqi and Sala Prosat; Sala Enterprises is the distributors of Fujitsu notebooks, peripheral and communication items from Prolink, computer casings and keyboards for computers from Delux, speakers from the brand name Divoom, cordless phones from Gigaset (Siemens) and mobile phones from Alcatel. “Gaoxinqi is also a very popular Chinese brand in communications that we distribute,” he adds.
As a part of Sala Enterprises’ navigation products line, the company represents Navitel, which Wijewickrama says is the number one brand in navigation software in Europe. “We however developed the Sri Lanka map to cover all of Sri Lanka for this system,” he notes. The company has its own local brand of computers called
E-marc, which is a contribution to value addition for their customers.
Speaking on future product introduction, Wijewickrama explains that cloud computing and mass storage has emerged through viable popularity and they are now testing several products in this regard. In the pipeline is the workings of another device that can simply be connected to the television and then subsequently be used as a computer as well. “For less than 10,000 rupees, every household can own a computer as well.” As the Vice President of the Computer Federation for the IT industry, Wijewickrama, places significant emphasis on working towards increasing technological advances in Sri Lanka’s IT industry.
In recognition of their invaluable services the accolades are many. Throughout the years Sala Enterprises has won many certificates and awards, for instance the E-content award in 2010, e-Swabimani and Infotel in 2011 for the most innovative stall. “We’ve been winning since 1997 as recognition for what we’ve done but nothing is more rewarding than when you actually get to see your products being used in households or offices. This is when we know that we’ve gained customer trust,” he says proudly. Sala Enterprises represents over 500 dealers island wide and works with “leading names like Sri Lanka Telecom, Dialog, Lanka Bell and Etisalat and have had a nearly 70 percent market share with ADSL, for many years.”
Sala Enterprises recently celebrated their 20th anniversary. He believes that without the strong teamwork and effort of his faithful staff members and trust of the valuable customers the company‘s success would not have been the same.
