Title: Operational efficiency to financial efficiency - a case study on 'apparel sector' in Sri Lanka

Authors: N.S. Jayawardena

Addresses: Department of Marketing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia

Abstract: This is an era of economic instability and high inflation in Sri Lanka. Apparel sector is the largest gross export which contributes as the largest net foreign exchange earner from 1992 in Sri Lanka (Dheerasinghe, 2009). In 2002, the apparel industry in Sri Lanka contributed almost 6% of the GDP with a primary foreign exchange value of 40% from exports and 52% from industrial products exports (Embuldeniya, 2015). As a leading apparel brand in Sri Lanka, the ABC Company continuously faces a decreasing movement in operational efficiency. This research examines the factors affecting towards the operational efficiency of the ABC Company to avoid operational inefficiency. Therefore, as a major finding of the study, it has identified the inventory management as the most largely affecting factor towards operational efficiency and the second highest influencing factor as the labour productivity. The least influencing factor is the information system management.

Keywords: economic stability; major export; operational efficiency; financial efficiency; apparel industry; Sri Lanka.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2020.109022

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2020 Vol.36 No.4, pp.440 - 454

Received: 09 Apr 2018
Accepted: 24 May 2018

Published online: 17 Aug 2020 *

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