ComBank becomes only Bank in Sri Lanka to win National Quality Award from SLSI

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon was recently honoured by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) with the National Quality Award – the highest award presented in the country to recognise performance excellence in quality.

Commercial Bank is the only bank in the country to be bestowed this prestigious award.

The Bank won this award in the Service sector under the ‘Large Scale Business’ category for excellence in quality management and quality achievement at the annual awards programme organised by SLSI.

The award affirms Commercial Bank as a role model organisation of Sri Lanka. Winners are evaluated on seven criteria based on the world-renowned Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award of the USA. These include Leadership, Strategic planning, Customer focus, Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge management, Workforce focus, Processes management, and Results.

The process of assessment for the awards included individual evaluations, consensus evaluations, and site visits to ensure organisations are aligned to the aspects of benchmarked performance excellence. Thereafter, based on the recommendation of the review committee, a panel of judges selected the final winners.

Commercial Bank was recognised for leadership based on setting visions and values to build a customer centric culture, promoting legal and ethical behaviour, facilitating effective communication channels between employees, customers and shareholders, and its focus on action. The Bank demonstrated that organisational governance and societal responsibilities feature heavily in corporate leadership.   

While the Bank’s strategic planning included engaging an external consultant in 2019 – McKinsey & Company, a world-renowned consultancy firm – to support the Bank in visualising the future banking industry, the progressing trends and competitor space, elements such as budgeting, responses to the pandemic, situational analysis and innovation were also taken into consideration.

The Bank’s customer focus measures recognised for the award encompassed listening to customers, expanding customer touch points and communication channels, and developing products to suit each customer segment. Commercial Bank’s efforts in measurement, analysis, and improvement parameters for organisational performance, information and knowledge management systems, organisational learning models and best practices were also assessed.

Under workforce focus, the Bank demonstrated its recruitment, training, and inclusive decision-making practices at all levels, its workforce benefits and policies, tools to measure workforce engagement, and practices regarding performance management and development.

Strategies for product and process design, processes for corporate and overseas banking operations, and local subsidiaries and support function operations were evaluated to validate the Bank’s achievements in the Process Management category.

In terms of measurable results, the Bank’s financial results for the year in review, figures on deposits, loans and advances, growth in digital banking operations, work process effectiveness and customer and employee satisfaction results were among the factors considered. 

In 2021, Commercial Bank was also presented the ‘European Quality Award’ by the Europe Business Assembly of Oxford, UK. This prestigious international award recognised the Bank’s excellence in the management of quality and its approach to total quality management that contribute to the satisfaction of customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

The Sri Lanka Standards Institution is the National Standards Body of Sri Lanka, established under the Bureau of Ceylon Standards Act No. 38 of 1964. The corporate mission of SLSI includes undertaking, promoting and facilitating standardisation, measurement, quality assurance and related activities in all sectors of the national economy.

Sri Lanka’s first 100% carbon neutral bank, the first Sri Lankan bank to be listed among the Top 1000 Banks of the World and the only Sri Lankan bank to be so listed for 12 years consecutively, Commercial Bank operates a network of 268 branches and 940 automated machines in Sri Lanka. Commercial Bank is the largest lender to Sri Lanka’s SME sector and is a leader in digital innovation in the country’s Banking sector. The Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the Bank operates 19 outlets; Myanmar, where it has a Microfinance company in Nay Pyi Taw; and the Maldives, where the Bank has a fully-fledged Tier I Bank with a majority stake.