Sri Lanka’s English Tea Shop (ETS) which markets premium organic tea to 50 countries won the prestigious Great Game of Business All-Star Award 2020 – International Champion having demonstrated a sustainable continuity in its business model showcasing profitability even through COVID-19.
The Company inculcates the best practices of open-book management (OBM) which encourages a shared value culture of employees thinking and acting like owners.
Playing the ‘Big Game’, ETS created a foundation of shared value by purchasing tea directly from tea growers to promote and sustain agricultural practices, allowing its team, farmers and shareholders to grow together. The company posted a 31% increase in productivity in the first year of playing GGOB. Since then 15% of the company has become employee-owned.
Commending ETS on this All-Star win, President and CEO of SRC Holdings Corp Jack Stack who is known as the Godfather of GGOB said, “You have taught us that we are on the right path and right direction. What distinguishes ETS from others is consistency, which is something they have understood. Not only are they growing with their senior employees but they also have the mechanism to engage the younger team into the business.”
A firm proponent of open-book management which inspired him to infuse these practices into ETS, CEO of English Tea Company, Suranga Herath said, “In our part of the world, opening the books to your company is not incentivized nor encouraged, which is an inherent challenge. But by playing the Big Game, I’m proud of achieving 20% compound annual growth in value-added per employee in the last five years
For a company that has navigated the challenges of both COVID-19 and Brexit successfully, Herath believes the award reinforces the tangibility of the ETS shared value concept.
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