Siblings Minoli Wijesinghe and Jeevaka Wijesinghe, Joint Group Managing Directors, and Major Ananda Rodrigo (Rtd) RSP, Group Director and Chief Executive Officer of SITREK Group, joined in a discussion with Echelon to talk about the group’s origins, successes, values and vision for growth. They began by charting the group’s journey since its founding more than 40 years ago:
We have come a long way starting with eight security guards, and initially focusing on providing security services in Sri Lanka. The company quickly built a reputation for reliability and excellence in manpower security solutions. As the years went by, we expanded and diversified our services to include cash management and secure transportation for the region’s major banks and financial institutions. As the next step in the diversification journey, we introduced electronic security solutions incorporating advanced technology to enhance our security services portfolio. We pioneered home nursing services in Sri Lanka and took age care into the comfort of our customers’ homes whilst adding courier services to our portfolio to facilitate last-mile deliveries.
The expansion and broadening of services were further strengthened in 1995 when we partnered with Certis Singapore. This partnership was a strategic collaboration between both parties to learn from each other and grow, as both companies were in the same line of business. Since its formation, our relationship has been excellent, and it is one that we truly cherish and maintain to this day.
Fast-forward to 2023 focusing on our strategies and plans, during our annual meetings with Certis International, the conversation led to where an agreement was made to part ways. Again, this was a strategic move for growth from both parties. This transformation to being a fully local organization paves the way for growth and expansion in all areas of our business. We are now able to build a strong Sri Lankan brand with the opportunity to expand internationally.
A Defining Pivot: From Certis to SITREK
The transition to our new brand identity from Certis to SITREK has been quite seamless and positive for our businesses. We have constantly been communicating with all our stakeholders that the change would only be in our brand identity and there would be no change in the levels of service, operational models or management structures. We are truly blessed with an amazing and experienced team that has the know-how, management and operational skills to handle any change. We planned out and enhanced our existing support services to be more responsive and effective to both internal and external stakeholders. This proactive planning helped us with customer service strategies to anticipate and address needs more efficiently.
An added advantage that we have is that our logo and branding are placed and visible island-wide on our uniforms, collaterals and vehicles. Taking a certain amount of weight off traditional marketing methods. This gives us space to focus on maintaining our service levels.
We have been keeping in constant communication with our customers and have been receiving positive feedback from pre & post-rebranding. This assists and motivates us to keep going, knowing that the trust and faith of our customers remain. During the past few months, we have also seen an increase in inquiries which validates the market’s acceptance of the change.
Overall, the rebranding to SITREK Group has been a strategic move that has strengthened the company’s market reach and significantly improved customer satisfaction, laying a strong foundation for continued growth and success.
Values that Shape Destiny
Our core values, which have been the foundational pillars of our organization for the past 47 years, have now been seamlessly integrated into our new brand identity. We bring order to our operations by providing a well-defined framework for planning and execution, ensuring all activities align with our customers’ needs. Clear objectives and targets are documented for all teams, whether in operations or administration and management. Our well-defined hierarchy outlines each person’s roles and responsibilities, increasing accountability across the board.
Integrity and trustworthiness are central to our industry, and we promote ethical behaviour at all levels, ensuring fair treatment of our workforce, customers, and partners. We instil honesty and strong principles, ensuring accountability and transparency, giving our stakeholders a partner they can rely on. Responsibility is another key value; we take ownership and care in what we do. By delegating responsibilities, we cultivate a sense of ownership among our team, encouraging them to take initiative and responsibility for their work.
Excellence drives us to exceed our service levels. We honour and reward every team member who performs exceptionally, motivating everyone to give their best. Knowledge is crucial, and we continuously equip our team through on-the-job learning and development, ensuring everyone remains skilled and well-informed. We encourage the sharing of ideas and best practices across the organization, fostering a collaborative and informed workforce. Constant communication across all levels is essential, and we hold regular meetings with operational teams to talk and listen.
Maintaining Market Edge
Our operational models in each business line are heavily structured, and process-driven with a good balance of people management and monitoring systems. Having always had a good balance of team, mechanism and process has given us the ability to be alert and adapt to situations.
The biggest and most valuable asset is our team, and we make sure we go out of our way to look after each other and support each other. Through this, we see commitment, loyalty and dedication.
We are always looking to improve our service offerings as well as enhance and increase standards and services. And one area we have always leaned towards is offering integrated solutions. Where we integrate, cross-sell and combine various services, for example, electronic security solutions with physical security like CCTV, alarms, surveillance, and access control, for comprehensive protection.
We also look to fostering a culture of continuous innovation and improvement, ensuring that we evolve with market demands and technological advancements. Recently we started one-on-one sessions with batches of our security officers to get their feedback and ideas, which helps us to understand certain pain points to rectify.
We have also recently partnered with an organization that provides state-of-the-art communication devices and software systems that we hope to integrate into our ecosystem, which will enable us with constant connectivity, better visibility, operational management and transparency. By making these strategic investments in operational development, and technology, SITREK group aims to not only enhance its current service offerings but also set new benchmarks in the industry, ensuring continued leadership and setting a competitive advantage. We have more plans in the pipeline that will add value to all our customers which we are hoping to roll out in the next year.
Future Prospects
We identified and initiated new lines of services during the pandemic which we hope to continue. Property rental and buying services were one of them, where we have invested in a small team to build and carry it forward. It has not been easy, however with time and effort we hope to see this service offering grow organically.
Being in the industries we are in there are certain natural extensions that we can add to our portfolio, AC maintenance and servicing is one of them. As this area is a recurring necessity, we see a lot of opportunities in the scope of service integrations where we can offer our existing customers essential services under one roof. This new service offering is gathering momentum and we see potential to grow.
Given the increase in demand for caring services, Identity College of Higher Education (ICHE), was set up and launched late last year to cater to the demand and inquiries that we have been getting for educating, training and equipping in this area. As we were the pioneers of home nursing services in Sri Lanka, we see a huge opportunity and ability to educate potential caregivers as well as give on-the-job training and upskilling.
Our end target is to focus on delivering high-quality education through experienced educators, modern facilities, and industry-relevant programmes as well as invest and move into robust online learning platforms to offer flexible learning options and reach a broader audience. We hope to do this with international partnerships: ranging from industry leaders to provide practical training opportunities, internships, and job placements for students.
Throughout the years we have made strategic partnerships overseas and are in stages of finalization to provide trained personnel for international placements. And we’re looking to launch this as a separate entity this year as well as exploring the area of software development.
Investing for Growth
Building on what was mentioned before, our people are our biggest and most valuable asset, so equipping, educating and developing them is an area that we as a core team see as vital to move forward. As of now, we have two locations that come under our training academy, of which one was added recently. One academy facilitates more outbound training and the Colombo-based academy facilitates more classroom as well as practical training.
Our training academy in Colombo will be going through a renovation allowing us to give hands-on practical and situational training to our team members whether they are in operations, administration or management. We are also hoping to introduce free e-learning platforms to teams as well. A key investment was made to have a structured training team, this team is headed by our General Manager – Training, along with close to 20 internal trainers and facilitators that are spread across our main training academy and the rest of our branch network. As we are in a high labour turnover industry we strive to have a comprehensive onboarding process, so all new employees undergo a thorough orientation to understand company values, policies, and expectations as well as some form of mentorship of pairing recruits with experienced mentors to provide guidance and support during their initial phase.
Some of our training is also based on feedback mechanisms and we have implemented a robust online and paper-based customer satisfaction feedback system to gather customer insights. This is studied further by our training & development team to continuously improve and adjust training programmes.
To echo the words of our former Chairman, the late Mr Sanka Wijesinghe, “Our goal is to make a change in the industries we are in and establish benchmarks through our uncompromising commitment to serving our customers with the best.”