SLRA partners ‘Digital Retail’ Breakfast Forum conducted by Institute of Chartered Accountants

IT Faculty Member Prasanna Pinto, IT Faculty Member Apsara Tillakaratne, IT Faculty Chairman Wasaba Jayasekara, CA Sri Lanka Chief Executive Officer Dulani Fernando, Takas CEO Lahiru Pathmalal, Daraz.lk Managing Director Bart Van Dijk, SLRA Founder Chairman and Hameedia Group Director Hussain Sadique, SLRA Founder Convener Leonard Michael Perera and Abans Director Dinesh Perera 

The Sri Lanka Retailers’ Association (SLRA) partnered the ‘Digital Retail’ breakfast forum recently conducted by the IT Faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants under the New Normal Digital 5-Series sessions with speakers Daraz.lk Country Manager Bart Van Dijk, Takas.lk Co-Founder/CEO Lahiru Pathmalal and SLRA Founder Chairman and Hameedia Group Director Hussain Sadique, followed by a panel discussion moderated by IT Faculty Chairman and Hayleys Aventura MD Wasaba Jayasekera. 

SLRA Founder Convener Leonard Michael Perera

Daraz Managing Director Bart van Dijk

Takas CEO Lahiru Pathmalal

SLRA Founder Chairman and Hameedia Group Director Hussain Sadique

SLRA Founder Convener Leonard Michael Perera appreciated the opportunity given to the Sri Lanka Retailers’ Associationwww.slra.lk to partner the forum event with premier accounting body, Institute of Chartered Accountants and briefed on SLRA and its Retail Academy activities with the objective of enhancing capacity, competence and professionalism of the retail industry professionals. 

SLRA’s vision is to achieve retail excellence and drives the mission of being the ‘voice of the retail industry’ in Sri Lanka by harnessing the resources of the organised retail industry which will bring together and facilitate innovation, growth and global outreach.

Daraz Managing Director Bart van Dijk mentioned: “Compared to other countries in the region, digital retail is not yet fully embraced by the retail industry in Sri Lanka. The largest TV channel for the youth is YouTube. The youth gets inspired on Instagram and speaks with overseas family on Viber or WhatsApp. Sri Lanka is already digital. Those retailers who will embrace this reality will benefit.”

Takas Ltd. CEO Lahiru Pathmalal said: “I firmly believe that the future will be digital, what this means is that companies big and small should embrace digital technology. Companies which embrace change/digital will thrive in the future.”

SLRA Founder Chairman and Hameedia Group Director Hussain Sadique, in his speech said: “I strongly believe that there is no traditional and digital retail and the way forward is only one retail to get connected to the common growing global consumers and all retailers should embrace and adapt phydigital retail platform to succeed in this dynamic and disruptive business environment.”

For enquiries contact Leonard Perera [email protected] or Shehara Stephnie 0115-588800, [email protected] – SLRA Secretariat, The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, 50 Nawam Mw., Colombo 2.