John Keells Holdings PLC Deepens Collaboration with Salesforce to Power Customer Growth Across Retail and Automotive in Sri Lanka

Salesforce, the #1 Agentic CRM*, today announced the expansion of its collaboration with John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH), one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most diversified conglomerates, to accelerate customer experience transformation across Sri Lanka. The expanded collaboration will enable two of JKH’s key businesses — Keells supermarkets, one of Sri Lanka’s leading supermarket chains, and John Keells CG Auto, its automotive business, to deliver stronger customer experiences that are connected, personalized, and data-driven, as they evolve for the next phase of growth.

Strengthening personalised engagement at Keells supermarkets

At the heart of the collaboration is Keells Nexus, one of Sri Lanka’s most recognised loyalty programmes, powered by Salesforce and serving more than two million members.

Keells Super is using Salesforce Loyalty Management, Data 360, Marketing Automation, MuleSoft and Agentforce Service. By unifying customer transactions, behaviours, preferences, and interactions, Keells can turn customer insight into action—delivering more personalised experiences that deepen loyalty, drive engagement, and unlock greater value across the customer lifecycle.

Connecting the automotive journey at John Keells CG Auto

John Keells CG Auto is the authorised distributor for BYD passenger vehicles in Sri Lanka, supporting the country’s growing adoption of New Energy Vehicles.

The business is using Salesforce Automotive Cloud to support vehicle inventory management and connect it with customer interactions across pre-sales, sales, ownership and after-sales service.

A unified view of customer and vehicle data will help John Keells CG Auto connect every stage of the automotive journey—from discovery and purchase to servicing and ownership. This foundation will enable more contextual and consistent customer experiences while supporting the company’s expansion across new locations, services and premium segments.

Comments on the news:

Ramesh Shanmuganathan, EVP & Group CIO, John Keells Holdings PLC, said “At John Keells, we see the experience economy as the next frontier of differentiation. It is about moving beyond transactions to creating connected, intelligent and increasingly personalised experiences. Our partnership with Salesforce brings together data, AI and customer engagement to turn insight into action. From Keells Supermarkets to John Keells CG Auto, we are building a scalable foundation that will expand across the Group, with relevance to each business and its customers. As agentic AI moves increasingly to the edge, we see the opportunity to turn context into action in real time — enabling personalisation at scale.” 

Osanda Warnekulasooriya, Senior Vice President, Head of IT – Retail Sector at John Keells Holdings PLC, said, “With more than two million Keells Nexus members, personalisation must be relevant, timely and trusted. Salesforce enables us to bring together customer transactions, preferences and engagement signals so we can better understand our customers and make every interaction more useful. This is about going beyond rewards to build deeper everyday relationships and deliver a more consistent experience across channels.”

Mankiran Chowhan, Managing Director, Salesforce - India & Sri Lanka, said “Customers do not experience businesses as separate systems or functions, they experience one continuous relationship. Whether someone is making an everyday retail purchase or navigating years of vehicle ownership, the expectation is the same: recognise me, understand my context and make every interaction easier. Our collaboration with John Keells reflects a broader shift from simply collecting customer data to activating trusted customer intelligence across the moments that matter. This is how modern enterprises create sustainable growth: by bringing data, CRM and AI together as one connected operating model.”

The collaborations demonstrate how organisations can build on their existing technology foundations to embrace the next phase of digital transformation — using data, AI and automation to create more connected, intelligent and customer-centric businesses.