This was a period of great success as the company shared many innovations in the market and also gained market acceptance as a strong brand. Crisis hit us once again when Clipsal Global decided to sell their business concerns to Schneider of France, a decision taken almost overnight.
At this juncture in time, we had two choices, either sell to Schneider like the majority of others were doing, or go it on our own and create a powerful local brand. An element we had to our advantage was that, unlike many other Clipsal subsidiaries overseas, we had a majority shareholding in Sri Lanka, thus we were not legally obliged to sell overnight and not subject ourselves to a hostile takeover.
By this time, I had decided that we should go it alone and create a brand that would retain the market share that was held previously by Clipsal and challenge the whole market in general. To change a brand that was established in the market for over 20 years overnight was a huge task.
We decided to re-brand because we knew that, if Clipsal was bought out, it would mean that no Sri Lankan electrical brand would ever stand to make a global presence.
Apart from tea, we are not known for our engineering and manufacturing capabilities, and thus, we saw this as an ideal opportunity to place Sri Lanka on the map. We felt that if we were to sell, we would be betraying the country.
With the support of our dealers, electricians, the general public, and other stake-holders, Orange - a local brand, became an overnight success. Within a month of trading we had managed to capture the original market share that was held by Clipsal, pre-re-branding.