ERP still a niche market

Charumini DE SILVA

Business application solutions or commonly referred as Enterprise

Resource Planning (ERP) is still a niche market in Sri Lanka. Marketing in this space should be much focused and it should be response related. The product we are talking about is also a service. It is a combination of both; it is intangible and expensive. And it can bring in greater value for the organization and would make life easy for the user. Organizations need ERP for complex decision making. However, the numbers of ERP running organizations in Sri Lanka are few compared to other regional countries. Organizations in Sri Lanka should be aware and need much more maturity for this industry. For this to happen IT as a whole should be embraced more by society and organizations.

With the Government drive to make Sri Lanka as a IT hub and having more emphasis into IT spending and IT literacy even in schools, IT knowledge will increase. And when the exponential growth takes place, more and more companies will look at ERP solutions, and that is the growth potential we are looking for and are working towards creating, IFS South Asia Sales and Marketing Manager South Asia, Shiraz Lye told Daily News Business.

Excerpts of the interview with him

Q: As a marketeer what's your perception about using Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a marketing tool?

A: My view is that organizations survive because of society. It is society that pays the salary of the employee and it is the society that gives the profits to the shareholder. The organization will grow only if there is a growing society. I believe without society there would not be any market for any organizations. The corporates should not use CSR targeting publicity. They should share their wealth with society without expecting in return. The expectation should be to build a better and profitable societies and then the return would come inevitably.

Q: How do you align 4P's (Price, Place, People and Promotion) to suit global changes?

A: When you talk about Price, IFS was one responsible factor to bring down prices of ERP globally. It was our technology that introduced component based architecture and with it the concept of buy what you need when you need and grow with it.

This approach makes organizations to invest low initially and then to grow.

During the recession we had the advantage as more organizations looked at first focusing on their burning points such as supply chain, production, planning and later streaming down to other functionalities such as HR, Sales and Marketing, Service and many others.

IFS gives the comfort of being right next you. The company has offices in more than 50 countries and all around it has bought in the comfort and assurance to the customers of the much needed support.

In Sri Lanka IFS have two offices (Colombo and Kandy). We reach customers through our own offices and has a direct link for fast and sure response.

The corporate office in Sweden analyses through its regional offices of global changes in markets and builds strategies around it and put resources in terms of partnerships, in terms of R & D work for new products, or product enhancements. This has resulted in IFS having end to end solutions with four core processes of any organizations covered and in 22 languages in the system.

We even did run few reports in Sinhala. Being at the right place at the right time is another success factor for IFS' growth. IFS has a unique selling proposition which is in Sri Lanka, which is people or its consultants and engineers.

They are the life blood of the IFS implementation. ERP is a product as well as a service. The services are done by the people. The advantage we have is that unlike other vendors, IFS implementation is been done by its own consultants. The promotions and communications are based on focus and are response related. Changes in market dynamics locally and globally has very little effect in the type of communications we do in this industry. But the campaigns and messages may change from time to time.

Q: What are the mechanisms used to identify new trends and challenges in the markets both locally and internationally?

A: IFS is a global company where each office has a team of marketeers and a team of front line sales. Through this channel market information, trends, and intelligence is gathered and put together as digestible information.

Q: What is the importance of innovation, invention and re-design in marketing?

A: All these three elements are equally important to a growth of a company. An organization would be sluggish and at a standstill if they do not have a culture of innovating, inventing and re-designing. This is much more amplified in the IT industry. What is successful and right today may not be the case tomorrow. Strategies and processes bring in advantage and revenue today would not be the same tomorrow. This is a simple fact to understand in a market which is running at a pace no one deemed possible ten to fifteen years ago. The speed of technology development and the speed it reached the mass is remarkable, as it took more than 100 years for the classical telephone to reach one million households from the day it was introduced. That is the speed of world is moving today and to keep up to it; one needs innovative thinking, inventions and re-designing in culture.

Q: Do you think customer orientation is most important in Sri Lanka?

A: Customer orientation is another factor most organizations forget when they grow out of proportion. The front line staff takes up the attitude of that they are there to help the consumer. I believe that the consumer helps the organization. Thus the customer should be placed at their top of the priority list. In Sri Lanka, there is lot to improve when it comes to customer orientation. Currently what I see is that the concept is limited only to training programs and advertisements. However, I have seen a few out of the world customer orientated individuals and they single handedly through their actions and attitudes manage to keep the concept of customer orientation alive.

Q: How far can you be satisfied with the customer accessibility of the product or services?

A: We need lots of improvement in customer accessibility. Sri Lanka is still not at a leading phase when it comes to the IT industry. Although people have access, majority of the population are not aware of the ERP product. This is the area that Sri Lanka should now focus in educating the people. Improving the knowledge and educating the public is vital to develop the IT industry of our country. The Government has recognized the significance of this segment and is taking a good effort in uplifting the industry.

Q: What is your view about global branding?

A: There is only one market. We cannot segregate global and local any more. With the growth of ICT any new product that is introduced could reach the farthest location in the world. Multinational and Transnational organizations are dominating communications and the airwaves and one who would not think of global branding will not have space. Global branding brings in one culture for the brand. By global branding, other than regional or country cultures, a new culture is created unique to that brand.

Q: Where do local marketeers stand in the international arena?

A: Sri Lankan marketeers are equal in creativity and adaptability. But they need improvements on responsible marketing or Return on Investment (ROI) based marketing. Improvement in visionary and proactive based marketing is vital. I believe this would come soon as organizations now pay great emphasis for marketing. Majority of the marketeers are now in most of the boards and in senior level management. This trend would certainly help marketeers to go into the next levels and be on par or even above the peers in international arena.

Q: If you did not select marketing as your career, where would you stand today?

A: I might have ended up as a pilot in the Sri Lanka Air Force.