Neochem International (Pvt) Limited, one of Sri Lanka’s innovative solution providers for chemical products, celebrated its 5th anniversary earlier this month.
Neochem, which commenced operations in 2009 as a solution provider for the cosmetics and detergent industry, currently consists of 4 business units providing different productsto local manufacturing clients - cosmetics raw material, detergent raw material, food flavors and fragrances.
Having commenced with a team of just two individuals in 2009, today Neochem has a staff of fourteen individuals and provides solutions to some of the leading FMCG companies in Sri Lanka.The company sources all raw materials from foreign suppliers, most of who are global giants in their respective fields.
Looking back at the early days of the company, Chathura Piyasekara, Managing Director of Neochem International stated, “When we commenced operations 5 years ago, there were no solution providers for chemical products in Sri Lanka. There were only chemical suppliers who did buying and selling of chemicals without any value addition whatsoever.I am proud to say that we changed Sri Lanka’s chemical industry by providing excellent customer service as well as innovative solutions to the local manufacturersthrough our network of global suppliers, highly-skilled technical sales team and our outstanding market intelligence. Thus, you could say that we are the ‘game changers’ in Sri Lanka’s chemical industry in the recent past.”
Elaborating further about the company’s operations, Piyasekara added, “One of the key strengths of the company is our in-depth market intelligence capabilities that is on par with and at times even exceeds some of the leading international market research agencies. Our technology, R&D and market intelligence is so advanced, we are able to pro-actively manufacture product samples based on our research analysis and present it to our clients. Such efforts have been very well received by them and they have been able to launch successful products based on our recommendations. To our clients, we are more than a supplier. We are actually an extension of their R&D facility for most of theirinnovativeproducts.”
Commenting on the suppliers of the company, Piyasekara stated, “We have a strong foreign supplier base that is highly reliable, efficient and attentive. Therefore, we are able to attend to client requests promptly.For instance, we currently work with a French company that is one of the leading flavor and fragrance housein the world. It’s a company that does a lot of innovations with 27 R&D sites worldwideand manufacturing facilities in 22 countries. Similarly, all our foreign suppliers are both innovative and technologically advanced, which is a huge advantage as we can then introduce these new technologies in real time to our clients locally and help develop their products and brands.”
The team that spearheads sales and helps solve clients’ problems is the company’s technical sales team.This team consists of chemistry graduates from Sri Lankan universities. “We are proud to employ local graduates and provide them with a promising career where they can fulfill their ambitions. Our employing of these graduates is one of the ways of giving back to society. They come from various backgrounds and from different parts of the island. We take them in, give them extensive training, an excellent work environment and mould them into highly professional individuals with a clear career path,” Piyasekara claimed.
He ended, “On behalf of Neochem team and the Management I greatly appreciate and thank the innumerable support we have received from our clients from all parts of the country and we proud to say that because of them we are standing strong today”.
During the past five years Neochem International has diversified into several other sectors such as IT/BPO services, education and exports. VeloxCloud (Pvt) Limited, their IT/BPO services subsidiary, provides cloud-based solutions such as HR and Finance systems, a GPS tracking system in collaboration with a Singaporean and a Lithuaniancompany, as well as IPTV and POS systems. In the education sector, their subsidiary Neolink Migration Consultants (Pvt) Ltd primarily focused on career guidance and skilled migration. Neolink Education- provides guidance to students looking to pursue higher studies abroad while their other subsidiary - Neolink Migration - provides professional migration services to those looking to migrate. In addition, the company’s expansion into the exports market takes advantage of their network of suppliers around the world providing them with raw materials such as spices and essential oils.
