Abstract:
Tea Industry of Sri Lanka, the largest net foreign income generator to the country is a
key component in the Sri Lankan economy, contributing to 17% of the export income.
The direct and indirect labour employed in the tea industry is about 650,000, which is
about 11% of the total workforce of the country.
In today’s dynamic and turbulent environment, industry survival and growth depends on
appropriate technology integration and change management in work practices. As
identified in the research, the Sri Lankan tea industry with a history of over a century is
facing global challenges requiring certain changes to the technology, work practices,
work norms and attitudes to overcome present problems faced by it. This research work
attempts to look into appropriate technology integration methods to develop and sustain
the tea industry of Sri Lanka with an emphasis on RPCs.
The objectives of this paper is to assess the present technology status in the Sri Lankan
tea industry; identify the technology gaps along the value chain in comparison to local
and global best practices; Benchmarking against the best practices and to identify future
technology strategies to improve competitiveness in Sri Lankan tea sector. The data
collection was mainly based on interviews conducted through a wide category of people
involved in different areas related to the tea industry. Two plantation management
companies, a lead performer and an average performer in the industry were selected as
the main data sources. The research scope extended from the field related activities to
the production of tea and did not focus on the market development aspects of the tea
industry. Based on Porter’s Value Chain Model of primary and support activities, a
simplified model for the industry was developed. This model was used to analyze the
processes involved and the present technology status of the industry.
The research work enabled the identification of prevailing technology gaps in the Sri
Lankan tea sector in comparison to the local and global best practices. Further, an
attempt has been made to identify the technology integration issues, which are the
underlying reasons for the technological gaps seen amongst industry players. Based on
identified reasons, several strategies in overcoming the shortfall in technology
integration have been suggested.
