next Sourcing’s “Suppliers’ Seminar 2019” shines spotlight on top performing partners

next Sourcing, a fully-owned subsidiary of the retail clothing and accessory giant next Plc – UK, recognized and rewarded the top performing partners amongst all of the company’s suppliers at the “Suppliers’ Seminar 2019” held recently. The 2019 edition of this annual event was held at the
Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo and was attended by a large gathering that included representatives from the supplier organizations as well as the management and staff of next Sourcing.
The key highlight of the evening was the special awards of recognition presented to the three top- performing suppliers for their exceptional performances in 2018. Accordingly, the Gold Award was won
by Nobleswear (Pvt) Limited, the Silver Award by next Manufacturing (Pvt) Limited and the Bronze Award by Crystal Martin Garments (Pvt) Limited. next Sourcing also commended the positive contributions made by all suppliers in helping the company achieve sales targets while also ensuring that high production quality and on time delivery standards were adhered to.

Over the course of its 25 years of operations in Sri Lanka, next Sourcing has successfully built long-standing relationships with the entire supplier base with a large majority of the partners having associations with the company for over 15 years. As next Plc – UK is known to source only the finest, most exclusive fabrics and garments from Sri Lanka, next Sourcing always maintained close links with all suppliers to ensure that they continuously
improve their manufacturing process to meet the stringent standards of the UK office. The event also included a comprehensive performance overview of next Sourcing’s sales achievements during the previous quarter together with an updated analysis on the current performance in line with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set by next Plc – UK.
next Sourcing is engaged in the design, sourcing, buying, merchandising and quality control of next Plc products. The company also coordinates with a global network of offices to negotiate market prices, manages the supply chain, and ensures on-time delivery on behalf of next Plc. The next Sourcing management carries out bi-annual factory evaluations allow to make the selections for the top three
factories out of a relatively large factory base operational in Sri Lanka. The criteria for selection includes elements such as on time performance, capacity offered, sample lead-time and several others.
Wilhelm Elias – Associate Director of next Sourcing stated, this year has been an exceptional year for us with 12% growth achieved on the year and credit goes out to all of our teams and our suppliers.
Working together towards one objective has resulted in great service and with great service builds confidence and owing to the increased levels of confidence we have beaten our sales targets.
2019 marks our 25 th year in Sri Lanka which is the very first office across the next Sourcing group, I have seen the office go from our humble beginnings of $7.0mil sales to now $120.0mil sales. We are a very
wisely and prudently managed business and reason for us to have had great success in Sri Lanka. We take pride in our product and disciplined in our work ethic yet embrace a fun loving culture. The Sri Lanka office will be planning growth on the year for 2020.