SLASSCOM and CIMA Sri Lanka drive IT and BPM startup
Thursday, 27 November 2014 00:00
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Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM industry, the fifth largest export revenue earner for the country has grown from $ 213 million in 2007 to $ 800 million in 2014 in terms of revenue. Considering the industry’s growth potential and need for start-ups, it is imperative that knowledge and best practice sharing forums are facilitated. With this objective, SLASSCOM and CIMA Sri Lanka jointly organised a forum on ‘Strategies for setting up and developing IT, BPM, and FAO operations’ recently.
SLASSCOM in its drive to facilitate $ 5 billion in revenue, 1,000 start-ups and direct employment for 200,000 in the industry by 2022, focused on facilitating discussion on sustainable markets, people and process development of new and existing IT/BPM and FAO operations in Sri Lanka together with CIMA – the world’s largest professional body of management accountants.
The presentation on ‘Strategies for setting up and developing a FAO/BPM operations’ by Omar Fatha Rally, Director of Tellida Ltd reflected thatan innovative mindset, infrastructure that supports seamless service provision, adhering to customer compliance requirements, talent which supports the value proposition in a business and adequacy of quality controls are key focal areas to concentrate on at the initial stages ofa BPM start-up.
Hayleys Industrial Solutions Ltd Managing Director Engineering, Power and Energy Sector Dr. Arul Sivagananathan spoke about ‘Business Process Transformation Using Shared Services’. In his presentation he stated the importance of developing unique business models and product offeringwhilst sharing cases of processes being streamlined financially and operationally in a holistic mannerin the journey of developing a BPM operation.
‘Opportunities for IT Start-ups’ was presented by Madu Ratnayake, Chairman Emeritus of SLASSCOM, Head of Digital, SVP and General Manager of Virtusa. During his presentation Madu mentioned that, “Innovations for emerging markets should come from the emerging regions itself.” Further, he mentioned the importance of entrepreneurs capitalising on relatively low investments for IT start-ups and the increasing need for more innovative, value added IT services in emerging markets. Venture capital access for innovative ventures through angel networks in Sri Lanka was highlighted in the presentation.
A panel discussion took place with some of the leading industry experts who shared their insights on ‘How Sri Lanka’s BPM industry can achieve sustainable growth’. During the discussion, the panelists agreed that entrepreneurship must be a part of school and higher education syllabi and discussed that imagination and calculated risk taking could foster local entrepreneurship further.
The need for constant evaluation of what makes your IT/BPM service offering unique and how such an offering can be sustained was discussed. The need for a ‘one stop shop’for investors in terms of awareness of regulations, tax concessions, legal/financial support and human resource access was deliberated.
The panelists at the forum included Fayaz Huddah – Program Head of ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), Ghanshyam Das Khandelwal – Head of HSBC securities Services Operations, Sri Lanka, Vipula Gunetilleka – Chief Corporate Officer/Director of Aitken Spence PLC, Hariharan Padmanaban – Director, Business Development of H-Connect Ltd, and the discussion was moderated by Dharshan Cooray – Executive Director of SLASSCOM.
Please contact the [email protected] for any further information or clarification.
