Company executives, business leaders and excellence practitioners, yesterday shared their knowledge and experience on their journey towards continuous improvement and business excellence.

With the theme “Raising Productivity for Sustainability”, the companies are aiming at managing sustainability to improve processes, pursue growth and add value to the company.

Chancellor of the Fiji National University, Ikbal Jannif said this would encourage every group whether it was in the public service, private sector, self employment, NGOs or the industrial associations, to make productivity their collective business.

Fiji National University organised the event.

“Productivity is everyone’s business because the benefits permeate throughout society,” Mr Jannif said.

He added one needed to make productivity their business, so that in whatever they did, there would always be a consideration of the quality service they provided.

Mr Jannif said since Fiji is a small country, there are fewer natural resources.

“We rely on a few commodities for exports. We compete with bigger countries with very low cost structures and higher productivity rates,” Mr Jannif said.

“When we export our goods and services, globalization confronts us with even bigger challenges. We are competing with other countries supplying similar products.”

A total of 25 organisations from the public and private sectors were recognised in 2016 for their achievements in business excellence.

He added some of the challenges faced today in organisations were to stay competitive and remain sustainable in the business environment.

Some of the best performing organisation leaders shared the experiences and success path of their business journey.

Two main presentations yesterday were:

nChief Executive Officer for Fiji Electricity Authority, Hasmukh Patel.

FEA spent $32 million after Cyclone Winston which was not part of their budget. Representatives from New Zealand and Australia examined the damage and came up with the analysis that it will take FEA approximately two yearS to do the repairing. However, due to team work and cooperation, Mr Patel said it took them only six months to restore electricity. “That was a record in the history of FEA,” he said.

nChief Executive Officer for Investment Fiji, Godo Muller Teut.

For a sustainable Economy, building confidence in Investors is very important.

Some of the primary roles that Investment Fiji carries out are, Export Promotion, investment Promotion, Investment Facilitation, Investment Registration.

“We don’t only generate foreign exchange reserves, but allow for skill and knowledge transfer, transfer of technology, diffusion of ideas and ultimately drive growth and enhance productivity,” he said.

Edited by: Ivamere Nataro