BizTech

Economic crisis helps IT, BPO

Anjana Samarasinghe

The current global economic crisis will help IT and BPO industry to pick up in mid and long term as most of the companies struggling to cut their cost and increase their productivity.

Speaking to Daily News Business General Manager Sri Lanka Advanced Technology Center Virtusa Madu Ratnayake said global economic crisis is an issue that impact all the businesses in the world. It will impact IT BPO offshore business too.

“When the economy goes down companies try to increase their productivity and reduce their cost. Companies demand more value from each dollar they spend.

This scenario will put more outsourcing pressure on companies for reducing cost. This is where IT BPO industry comes to play and we believe that mid to long term industry will pick up with the opportunities created through the global economic crisis,” he said.

“However at the moment still we do not experience that companies moving more on outsourcing due to the economic crisis. Still nobody is making big and bold decisions like outsourcing.

At present they are worried about the jobs and they need to settle down and look for other solutions. Global economies has not got out of the shock yet and there is a holding on pattern among companies. Quarter down line there will be more activities among these companies,” he said.

Talking about the latest trends in the local industry he said that Sri Lanka is now mainly focusing on the niche markets. “Five years back we were trying to be a generic outsourcing. But today industry has realised that it is important to narrowing down to multiple areas such as financial and telcos.”

Today global companies outsource their services to the best places that they could get for different outsourcing purposes and catering to niche markets is vital in this scenario.

During last four to five years a fair number of companies stepped into local IT BPO industry. IT graduates numbers also has grown up and we see there are large numbers of IT education institutes in the industry which is a positive move. There are many developments happening in the local industry he said.

“Indian SMEs find it very difficult to operate in big markets and they are looking forward to setting up their operations in Sri Lanka to get their talent pool. Recently the Industry had discussions with the Indian SMEs. Middle East is another potential market for Sri Lanka.

There are many public and private sector partnerships happening in the industry. We see lots of dialogue between private sector and the public sector. However there are little investments made in the R&D. It is difficult for the private sector to invest on these areas and there should be more resource allocations in this sector”, he said.

IFS comes to Kandy

IFS AB, the global leader in component based Enterprise Application Business Software, opened its second Research and Development Centre in Kandy yesterday.

Senior Vice President of the IFS Group Thomas Petersson ceremonially inaugurated the new R&D Centre yesterday. The new R&D Centre in Kandy will employ 120 software professionals.

Petersson said the R&D Centre in Colombo is by far the largest contributor worldwide to the development and support of IFS Applications.

“We are very impressed by the high quality of the software produced by our staff in Sri Lanka and the competitiveness of our products in the international market bears testimony to the high standards set by our Sri Lanka operations”, he said.

“We have established a R&D Centre in Kandy to expand our operations in Sri Lanka so as to be able to meet the rapidly increasing demand for capacity both in the development of IFS Applications and in servicing our steadily growing customer base”, he said.

The R&D Centre in Kandy has already provided opportunities for 45 graduates in computer science and related fields, many of them coming straight from the Universities.

“From the inception of operations in Sri Lanka our strategy has been to recruit graduates with little or no work experience” said Manager of the R & D Centre in Kandy Pubudu Liyanage.

“We have a comprehensive training program for new staff and are always on the lookout for graduates with the ability to learn new concepts quickly, work on their own initiative, and thrive in a team-based corporate culture”, Liyanage said.

Local brands key players in PC market

Sri Lanka will be the next biggest PC market after Pakistan in the emerging market segment, said General Manager PSG Asia Emerging Countries HP Philip Lau.

“We see lots of opportunities in the Sri Lankan market and expect to focus more on consumer segment with innovative products. We will be looking at maintaining a closer relationship with our local partners and expect to invest more on our human resource,” he said.

“In the Sri Lankan PC market local brands have become phenomenal players and Government is the biggest customer in this market,” he said.

Vice President PSG South East Asia Taiwan HP Tian Chong Ng said Sri Lanka is an exciting market for HP. “Present civil war is a on going issue but we are optimistic that things will change soon.

Average year on year growth rate of PC markets in the emerging countries is at 20 per cent. In the local market 80 per cent of our sales come from Colombo. We operate through our partners in and out of Colombo,” he said. “In Sri Lankan market we have a lot opportunities in the consumer segment and the SME sector. We have noticed that local SMEs are growing rapidly and they are focusing more on automating their businesses,” he said.

HP is committed to capture key opportunities in Sri Lanka by expanding on its broad portfolio of products and services, driving the best customer experience at retail and continued push towards mobility.

“It is a rapidly emerging and growing marketplace, and with our end to end expertise in consumer and business devices and solutions across segments, HP is well-poised to remain as the technological partner of choice here,” he said.

Talking about the global trends in the market he said the next generation of emerging markets such as Sri Lanka are evolving rapidly. In Asia interest on green IT is increasing. Today devices such as laptops has become fashion accessories specially among youth and women.

AS

Biz Tech Quiz

‘Daily News Biz Tech’ will run a question every week and Sala Enterprises has come up to sponsor the ‘Daily News Biz Tech’ fortnight quiz by providing the World’s smallest computer mouse to the winner. Sala Enterprises was established in 1992 as a company marketing electronic dictionaries and today has grown to be one of the leading IT providers.

What makes them most outstanding is the introduction of innovative products from leading brands all over the world and making them affordable to the average consumer.

Question for the Week.

What is a trilingual keyboard?

Mail your answers to Sala Enterprises, No. 445, Havelock Road Colombo 5 or email them at [email protected]

Please mark ‘Daily News Biz Tech’ on your answers.