Amplifon-Infomate partnership aims to foster the BPM talent pool in Sri Lanka

Shehan Thambimuttu Director Of Corporate Procurement, Australia and New Zealand, Amplifon

Jehan Perinpanayagam CEO Infomate

By Kamanthi Wickramasinghe

Amplifon, a global leader in audiology recently announced a strategic partnership with Infomate, one of Sri Lanka’s most experienced shared services and Business Process Management (BPM) as its partner for a range of back-office services.

With the strategic intent to focus on its core operations and access talent globally, Amplifon’s senior management believes that this partnership has many strategic benefits including the opportunity to leverage Sri Lanka’s world class talent pool together with process improvements and cost efficiencies. “Infomate has expertise in conducting these operations and we selected them as our potential BPM partner because they ticked all the boxes we needed,” said Shehan Thambimuttu, Amplifon’s Director, Corporate Procurement- Australia and New Zealand.

Amplifon takes pride in empowering people to rediscover all emotions of sound. Manned with a strong employee base worldwide, Amplifon strives to cater to the unique needs of every customer to deliver innovative and highly personalized products and services. With a huge presence in Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand and in the Asia Pacific region, Thambimuttu believes that Sri Lanka has the potential and required talent to deliver a global need. “This partnership will allow the Sri Lankan talent pool to do more work for Amplifon at a global level. It will also give Sri Lanka that global exposure because when we partner with companies like Infomate we consider them to be our internal but external team. So we will advocate to get their staff to Australia, NZ, USA or Italy which will be supported by the Company. We will train them, get them to work with our staff and make them feel they are a part of us because they are going to be part of a big organisation.”

He further said that even though people have had a negative outlook about Sri Lanka ever since the Easter Sunday attacks, companies such as Infomate has proven that irrespective of the circumstance, Sri Lanka will still perform, operate and deliver. “That is the message that companies like Amplifon are striving to achieve. With all recent occurrences and with companies like Infomate performing to their ability, it has shown the world that they need to take Sri Lanka as an example. Usually everybody tries to adopt to what the first world does but in this instance the first world is trying to learn from developing countries, and because of companies like Infomate we can proudly say that we are able to do more. So our contribution to Sri Lanka is to educate Sri Lankans and to get more Sri Lankans to do work for us, not only for me but for all other multinationals,” he added.

Infomate is a subsidiary of John Keells Holdings that has been in existence for over 20 years and has an exceptional track record in serving leading brand names including Fortune 500 companies. Speaking about the partnership, Jehan Perinpanayagam, Infomate’s Chief Executive Officer expressed his pride in partnering with a globally acclaimed company such as Amplifon. “We are proud to partner Amplifon, which is a global giant. Amplifon is a values-based company passionate about recreating the emotions of sound, helping people and we are very grateful that they have chosen Sri Lanka and it’s a great opportunity for us to partner with a global leader. It also enables us to help them with best practices, some of the learnings we have garnered, specialising in outsourcing and process management. Infomate has worked with some of leading Sri Lankan companies and corporates in addition to some of the big brands in Australia, Europe, UK, Sweden, Saudi Arabia and USA. This partnership allows us to add value to Amplifon with our Business Process Management (BPM) services, methodologies and focus on world class processes. At the same time, Amplifon will add a lot of value to us by opening different regions, introducing new processes and new opportunities. We both believe in making a difference through business, helping our staff to grow and build careers, impacting our communities and lives” he added.

Commenting on the resilience of Sri Lankans, Perinpanayagam further said that Infomate comprise of a 100% Sri Lankan workforce and that they take pride in their talents. “We find creative solutions even amidst a crisis. Our customer feedback mentions that there had been no change in our deliverables even during the peak of the Covid and later economic crisis. What is unique about the talent pool is thinking beyond access to talent and arbitrage. We take pride in ingenuity, innovation, ideas, process improvements and recommendations that we share with our clients. The brand of Sri Lanka’s IT / BPM industry is IOI – Island of Ingenuity, It is not going to be limited to just doing what we are taught to do but we will also give back with recommendations, best practices, automation suggestions, where there can be process improvements and further efficiencies. So, our customers are not only getting the benefit of access to talent, but they are also getting process improvements in a pathway to world class processes. In order to ensure we have access to the best talent we have close links with several accounting bodies. We also have our own training facility and training team. We call it the Infomate University because there’s continuous training happening both on technical skills and on soft skills. We are also looking at developing new talent pools. We were the first in the country to roll out what was known as the rural BPM model. Today 50% of the John Keells accounting work happen in three rural centres. There’s great talent across the country and we are actively exploring new talent pools so that we can keep growing and showcasing the best of Sri Lanka to global giants such as Amplifon,” he further said.

While continuing to increase its profits and keep shareholders happy, Amplifon is passionate about continuing various corporate social responsibility initiatives that they are committed to. “We believe in giving strength and ensuring inclusion to all those at risk of falling behind. This is immaterial of age group or any other differences. We give them an opportunity to come up and be inclusive in the community. At a global level we support a lot of disadvantaged young people so they could find their own career path and access opportunities in line with their ambitions. During COVID we provided a lot of age care facilities. We provided elderly persons with TV screens and audiology equipment so that people in age-care facilities or elderly homes who were isolated so that they could keep in touch with their families. They were able to make calls and see their loved ones via a screen. We also had statistical references indicating that their mental wellbeing improved as a result of these initiatives. There were instances when people developed suicidal thoughts because nobody knew when the lockdown would end. We are a company that have carried out these activities and continue them. But CSR activities in a first world country versus a third world country are totally different. Because of the partnership with Infomate and John Keells we want to get involved in more activities of this nature. We want to identify what the need of the country is and then help any fellow Sri Lankan to get to where they want to be in life. We want to work out new ways to partner with a big conglomerate like John Keells to help Sri Lankans further,” Thambimuttu added.

Similarly, the John Keells Group, led by the John Keells Foundation, has led in Corporate social responsibility. In addition, the John Keells Group has a very mature ESG programme for well over a decade. “JKH has a very structured programme and interestingly healthcare which is one of the pillars” Perinpanayagam continued. “The foundation has been doing a lot of work amongst elders, particularly in restoring eyesight, performing free cataract operations, eye examinations etc. It would be interesting to see how we could extend this partnership to hearing as well. Education is another pillar of the John Keells Foundation and livelihood development. As our company’s CSR initiative our rural BPM project has created over 200 jobs over the past 15 years and 90% of employees are women. We work with a children’s charity Child Action Lanka to build career and life skills amongst disadvantaged children and youth and delighted that 3 of them were able to work at Infomate. We have several initiatives on employee physical and mental well-being. Our offices are all designated as zero plastic, and we have a tree planting initiative and a goal to be carbon neutral by 2030.

We believe in making a difference to our customers, to our staff and also to the society and country,” he added.

Both Amplifon and Infomate look forward to strengthen this partnership while contributing to the talent development in the country.