11th October 2017, Colombo: The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM), which organizes the much anticipated National Sales Congress (NASCO), announced the conclusion of the judging process to discover 2017’s SLIM NASCO winners. The judging process proved to be extremely tough as a result of the high level of competition in the fray. The event attracted a record number of applications this year, with 5 to 50 contestants taking part from 22 industries under 3 categories, namely, Front Liners, Sale executives and Territory Managers. The applicants included 110 companies of which 12 are first-timers at NASCO, which reflects the importance and respect given to the awards by Sri Lanka’s corporates! Since their inception, the NASCO awards have helped enhance professionalism across the sales function in Sri Lanka.
The arduous judging process was conducted by 32 industry experts on the SLIM NASCO judging panel. Conducted over four weekends, the last session was dedicated to selecting the ‘best of the best’ Golden Nominees. The panel was also privileged judged the ‘Best female salesperson of the year’. The judging was concluded in a highly transparent manner as the judges follow a very strict but a fair and unbiased process to select those who will be crowned as winners. As Consultant to the Judging Panel, Nandana Wickramage made a significant contribution to the judging process.
Commenting on the process, The Head of the Judging Panel, Stephan Paulraj said, “Judging the 2017 SLIM NASCO winners was an extremely difficult job due to the high quality of applicants this year. There is no doubt that overall participants have done a better job over the previous year and the work they submitted and presentations they made were of exceptional standard. The future of the sales profession looks bright with these young and vibrant, talented individuals. We would like to congratulate the winners and others in the competition for having given their best.”
The winners of the 2017 SLIM NASCO will be announced at the SLIM NASCO 2017 Gala Awards Ceremony to be held in October. As the National Body for Marketing, SLIM has been in the forefront in fostering marketing knowledge and best practices in the country, and SLIM NASCO is the only national event which recognises and rewards sales personnel covering a spectrum of business sectors. SLIM NASCO fights to instil importance and recognition in the sales profession. A national level competition with participation from different industries has continuously improved the standard of the individuals. Hence, this competition has made a positive impact on the corporate sector.
Project Chairman NASCO 2017 – Manthika Ranasinghe
Organized for the 17th consecutive year, NASCO awards are being presented in 15 diverse business sectors under which aforesaid are recognised. In addition to Gold, Silver and Bronze awards, best female sales personnel are also recognised under each category.
The sectors for nominations are: Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), Financial Services & Banking, Industrial, Media, Consumer Durables, Telecommunication, Fashion & Clothing, Healthcare, Modern Retail, Travel & Leisure, Insurance, Alcohol & Tobacco, and Corporate Selling.