Piramal Glass wins multiple awards 

Piramal Glass Ceylon was honoured with a Gold award at the 18th National Chamber of Exporters Awards for the Extra Large category in the Industry sector.

The glittering awards ceremony was held at the Hilton with the participation of a large gathering of the business community.

The selection criteria of this prestigious export award were based on performance outcome and performance drivers. The performance drivers such as value addition, introduction of new products, penetration of new markets and the quality based management processes adopted played a key role in the evaluation scale.

Undoubtedly, Piramal Glass was rated quite highly in all these areas, which resulted in it being presented with the Gold award.

Piramal Glass Ceylon also bagged the Merit Award at the National Extra Large category for its performance during the past three years, at the ninth CNCI Achiever Awards.

The Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI) conducts the CNCI Achiever Awards to recognise and reward the Sri Lankan industrial and manufacturing enterprises which demonstrated courage and resilience and achieved industrial and manufacturing excellence by contributing much to the Sri Lankan economy, foreign exchange and social upliftment.

Piramal Glass annually exports over 2,000 containers of glass bottles to India, Australia, UK, South Africa, Mauritius, Philippines and the Maldives.

“We are honoured to have renowned international brands such as Bacardi, VAT 69, Kingfisher, Antiquity, Black Dog, Sula and Coca Cola leading our export customer portfolio,” said Director and CEO of Piramal Glass, Sanjay Tiwari.

Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC (formerly Ceylon Glass Company PLC) is a company with a rich history of over 50 years. It was initiated by a group of Ceylonese entrepreneurs after the country gained political independence.

The main focus and objective of the company until recently was to supply the glass container demand in the local market. Horizons opened for this local company with the opportunity of coming under the umbrella of the Piramal Group in 1999 (a large conglomerate in India).

Piramal Glass has its wings spread over the length and breadth of the international shores with 11 manufacturing plants in India, Sri Lanka and the USA, as well as several marketing offices worldwide. This strategic alliance paved the way for the local company to have a global presence as well as recognition.

The opportunities further unfolded with the investment of over Rs. 4 billion in a state-of-the-art glass plant at Wagawatte, Horana in 2007. This investment enabled the company to substantially increase its manufacturing capabilities; in fact more than doubling them.

The infrastructure and overall competence endowed the company with the ability to offer glass containers in different shapes and colours for multiple industries such as food, liquor, pharmaceutical, agro chemical, as well as soft drinks. The company successfully achieved the challenge of selling its additional capacity in the international markets, increasing its export sales tonnage from 1,200 tonnes to over 25,000 tonnes in just three years.

Piramal Glass also boasts of being the only glass manufacturer in Asia to have a fully-fledged corporate design centre with several industrial designers working full time on developing new bottle designs. The company works continuously on developing innovative bottle designs to meet the varied requirements of its extensive customer base. 

“Winning these prestigious awards is an encouragement and motivation for the organization to move forward steadfastly, whilst encouraging them to successfully face each new challenge in a business where competition is intense in terms of volumes and innovation,” said Tiwari.

Piramal is a classic example of a local manufacturer who has taken steps to ensure that the total local glass requirement is met by its own in house production in an era in which most of the country’s commodities are traded from overseas.

“The glass industry is an industry with almost 70% of value addition and relies mainly on local raw materials. In fact there are several local industries which are dependent on the glass industry both as a supplier, and also as a customer,” said Tiwari.

Currently Piramal Glass Ceylon holds fast to its simple yet steadfast objective of fully serving the domestic market whilst increasing its business in the specialised liquor and beverage segment in the international markets, thus realising its vision of being ‘the most preferred specialty glass packaging solutions provider in Asia by meeting customer expectation through innovative designs and manufacturing’.