Ahamed Aroos, Director and Chief Executive of Rainco, is leading the charge to elevate the company to a global lifestyle brand with a focus on sustainability, despite Sri Lanka’s challenging economic climate. He believes that Sri Lanka, a nation that has faced both a thirty-year war and a tsunami, is well-equipped to overcome obstacles, but the current crisis presents unprecedented hurdles, including funding, cost pressures, and market issues.
Despite these challenges, Aroos and his team have been able to identify opportunities and pivot quickly to adapt to the changing circumstances. They have become more agile and efficient, rethinking their business fundamentals, and taking advantage of import restrictions to strengthen their presence in the country. Aroos emphasizes that successful businesses are those that can bounce back stronger when pushed against the wall, and Rainco has done just that. In an interview with Echelon, Aroos shares his insights into how the company has tackled these challenges and implemented innovations to overcome them. He highlights the importance of improving operations and challenging the status quo to become more resilient in times of crisis. With a determination to seize opportunities and a focus on sustainability, Rainco is wellpositioned to weather the storm and emerge even stronger.
In your view, what does repositioning Sri Lanka mean to you?
The crisis has presented an opportunity for Sri Lanka to reposition itself by thinking differently, innovating, and going global. The Rainco business has shown that being ready to break boundaries and thinking out of the box can lead to success, even during a crisis. The company focused on its core strengths, dropped non-core activities, and realigned its thinking to give Sri Lankan consumers what they need and can afford.
Rainco has also increased its focus on new product development and launched the highest number of new products in its history. Innovation does not always have to be premium or expensive; it can also mean being affordable and value for money. Rainco has gone global and strengthened its export business for exponential growth.
Sri Lanka has the expertise to become the next best alternative for some industries, especially for global customers looking for alternative supply chain positions due to challenges with their core supply partners in China. The country is well-renowned globally for its apparel supply chain, and many other industries can go in line with apparel.
Rainco’s vision is to be a global brand with a Sri Lankan identity, taking Sri Lanka to the world. The company believes that by repositioning Sri Lanka as a sourcing hub, it can attract more industries to the country, creating more opportunities for growth and development.
What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? What innovations did you introduce to address these challenges?
Setting aside the negative impacts, recent events have turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As I previously mentioned, these events have had a significant impact on our profitability, cash flow, and even the livelihoods of our employees.
However, this situation has forced us to find solutions and overcome the challenges we face. We cannot deny that the impact was severe, but we refused to dwell on it for too long and the credit goes to the people within our organization who worked together to find positive solutions. We have a strong brand and a dedicated team, and when people come together positively, we can achieve great things.
We made a promise to ourselves that we wouldn’t just overcome this crisis but would use it to improve upon our previous performance. We took decisions that we may not have considered before. Through our united efforts, we have broken our records year after year and achieved outstanding results.
One of our successful journeys was in exporting products. By collaborating on our resources, we were able to utilize our existing facilities and identify our strengths and capabilities, which we could apply to other product categories globally, thanks to the dedicated leadership of Riyas Rasik, COO of our global business wing who had led his team towards this. It is not easy to convince the workforce within a company to change directions and diversify during tough times. Yet, we were successful in keeping our people engaged and encouraged throughout the crisis. Although some may have thought we were moving away from our original product, our diversification proved to be a success.
In conclusion, we have learned that we are capable of doing much better and bigger things than we previously thought. This realization has been our breaking point towards success. We have recognised our strengths and blessings, and we are now putting them to much better and larger use.
We recently launched our brand campaign, ‘The World is Your Stage,’ to showcase our success in managing and overcoming the crisis. The campaign brings all our products together and encourages people to explore opportunities beyond Sri Lanka and emphasizes that the world is our stage, not just Sri Lanka. Our brand is connected to this vision, and we want to inspire others to think the same way.
How do you build a culture of enterprise and keep everyone encouraged?
The success of a business often comes down to the vision of its leadership, particularly the Founder Chairman and Directors who inspire and encourage the CEO to lead the organization towards growth. This is certainly the case for Rainco where I am fortunate to receive abundant support from our Executive Board.
As CEO, I believe that our team’s ability to find opportunities amidst crises is one of our greatest strengths. When faced with the challenges of the pandemic, for example, we rallied together and supported one another. One team, in particular, shared their sales incentives with those who were struggling to meet their targets, demonstrating the close-knit relationships and high levels of understanding that characterize our organization.
Our success, however, is not just due to our ability to support each other in tough times, but to the culture that we have built within the business. Our purpose is to enrich people’s lives, and this is driven by our core values of ownership, partnership, goodness, and drive. We take ownership of both our successes and failures and understand that we can only overcome challenges by working together.
To ensure that our vision and thinking are communicated effectively throughout the organization, we maintain a culture of continuous engagement and communication. This has been particularly important during the pandemic, as we’ve made a concerted effort to keep everyone aligned and motivated towards our shared goals.
Overall, it’s clear that our success is due in no small part to the strong culture of support and collaboration that we have cultivated within the organization. By staying true to our purpose and core values, we can weather any storm and come out stronger on the other side.