The next wave: A new trend in IT offshoring to Sri Lanka

Monday, 23 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A recent news story noted that Sri Lanka’s IT workforce had reached 75,107 in 2013 – a 50% growth since 2010. The story was reporting the findings of the National ICT Workforce Survey 2013.It went on to say that over 60% of this workforce was made up of employees with a degree or above, with system analysis and programming being the top priority skills demanded by employers. In another story, the Government outlined plans to increase the overall IT workforce to 100,000 by 2016 while setting up 10 IT parks in identified locations around the island. The global tech market too is aware of the Sri Lanka growth story. Industry pundits worldwide point out that Sri Lanka, with its rapidly growing highly skilled talent pool and favourable policy framework, offers a better environment compared to so-called traditional offshoring geographies. IT decision makers around the world are taking Sri Lanka into consideration while formulating their corporate strategies. Several international players have ongoing operations in the country with several others planning to set up shop here. All this points to one thing – the IT sector in Sri Lanka is growing steadily with a promise of exciting times ahead.

Sharing his views on the industry, Virtusa Corporation Vice President Naresh Supramaniam, a global business consulting and IT outsourcing company that combines innovation, technology leadership and industry solutions to transform the customer experience, called attention to specific areas we need to focus on in order to sustain the growth momentum. “While we as country celebrate the success the industry has achieved in such a short span of time, we also need to take heed of global trends and chart the course of our future accordingly. While keeping pace with market realities in the West, we also have to stay abreast of our competitors by providing differentiated, innovative services. This is something we are very conscious of at Virtusa. We also strive to ensure that the services we offer become indispensable to our clients. It’s by turning our services into integral, non-discretionary elements of our client’s operation that we stay ahead of the competition,” said Supramaniam. Application Support and Maintenance (ASM) – A non-discretionary service Application Support and Maintenance is one such critical area where enterprises around the world are in constant need of robust solutions from reliable service providers. With about 50-60% of typical IT personnel costs being utilized for maintaining existing applications, managers are faced with a staff crunch for developing new applications. CIOs are constantly looking at ways of moving their teams away from ‘run-the-business’ activities to ‘change-the-business’ initiatives. ASM in Sri Lanka A staunch believer in the potential of ASM, Naresh observed, “A relatively new focus area for Sri Lanka, our workforce has traditionally ignored this work-stream, having largely misunderstood it as being non-glamorous and equating it to defect fixing. Globally however, ASM has grown into an individual business vertical in its own right, and the prevailing misconceptions in the local marketplace have led us to lag behind countries such as India who have a vibrant ASM industry. ASM services are a strong driver of growth in the Indian market and ASM accounts for a significant percentage of revenues of some of India’s tech giants. It is now time that we as a nation take advantage of the opportunity this area presents.” Drawing on his experience of over 18 years in the Sri Lankan ICT sector, Supramaniam added: “The quality of talent we have in Sri Lanka makes us an ideal choice for ASM oriented work. Clients have always praised our teams for their uniquely Sri Lankan ingenuity. They often note the service orientation and cultural adaptability of the Sri Lankan workforce and appreciate our commitment to solving problems by doing what it takes.” ASM at Virtusa “At Virtusa, we have an eight year old ASM practice run by an experienced team with operations focused in Colombo. Working with several Fortune 500 companies, our ASM practice has matured over the years, growing exponentially in size and revenue. Over the last few years we have seen 100% year on year growth in this area. Our crowning glory was being voted the number one ASM service provider for one of the largest companies in the UK, where we were in direct competition with a number of other tier 1 service providers. This is a testament to the fact that we provide a really world class service offering, that is better than our competition, from our facility in Sri Lanka,” said Supramaniam, one of the founding members of Virtusa’s ASM team in Sri Lanka. ASM and career development Keeping entire IT ecosystems up and running, a client’s vital systems depend on the mission-critical work that ASM teams are involved with. Having worked on diverse ASM projects for clients from across the globe, Supramaniam noted: “While development of new applications and programs could get delayed without having a significant impact on client operations, ASM teams deal with problems that need to be fixed as soon as possible with turnaround times often being in a few hours or minutes.” For instance, one of Virtusa’s ASM teams in the healthcare sector support a number of applications that provide emergency care for the elderly, where a delay of a few moments could mean the difference between life and death. Hence they need to be constantly vigilant, checking systems for potential issues and resolving them before the client and the end user feel the impact. Beyond offering a dynamic work environment, ASM engagements also provide a holistic view of applications that typical software development projects do not. Being tasked with monitoring a wide spectrum of applications and maintaining entire ecosystems, members of ASM teams gain exposure to a diverse set of experiences while honing their application development skills at the same time. The practice also offers young entrants to the industry a rare opportunity to liaise directly with senior architects, giving them a unique opportunity to learn from seasoned professionals from around the world. The promise for Sri Lanka Reiterating ASM’s potential to drive the Sri Lankan ICT industry to greater heights, Supramaniam stated: “I have witnessed how clients, both large and small across all industries, do not cut back on their spending in this area despite financial and other constraints. This ensures that service providers have a stable revenue stream and are less susceptible to budget cuts, etc. As members of the Sri Lankan IT industry, we need to focus our efforts on ASM and work alongside our skilled IT graduates to help realise its potential to be a key driver of growth in this sector for Sri Lanka.”