hSenid's blog on Outsourcing

Sri Lanka has a great opportunity to develop in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) industry. The Government and the Board of Investment (BOI) is taking many initiatives to promote and develop the skills of the youth of the country.

The Java World Congress and Exhibition 2010 is schedule to be held on November 19 to 21 at SLECC and BMICH. Sri Lanka can make use of the Java technology to develop a knowledge based economy as it is one of the fastest and one of the best technologies in the world.

It is important to improve the professional education and skill development of our youth. Although the young entrepreneurs have academic education most of them lack the professional and skill developments. As a result of enhancing the youth capacity and empowering them with Java technology will create avenues to attract more foreign remittances without depending on the foreign remittances from the Middle East expatriates.

During the industrial revolution the main difficulty was to gather capital in our productions, but today it has changed into ICT. Building and strengthening the social capital is vital in developing the country’s economy.Therefore, we should promote using open source Java technology to empower the youth with many opportunities.

Multinational companies around the world have utilized locally developed software in their business processes due to superior quality.

“Sri Lankan software is being used by many multinational companies across the world and Sri Lankan software have been recognized as one of the best and top quality software in the world and the country is capable of developing quality software”, Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), COO, Reshan Dewapura said.

He said local demand for the Sri Lankan software is increasing and the Government is also using Sri Lankan software and all prospects are good as long as country can get the numbers.

“The country has talented people and more people need to get into this industry. When it comes to software development, the country needs to employ at least 500,000 to 600,000 people to develop the industry in the future,” he said.

Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy rate in the country was 4 percent in 2004 and currently it has increased up to 25 percent. ICTA hopes to increase this percentage up to 50-60 in five years.

Currently, the software industry is considered as the fifth largest foreign exchange earner in the country. It earns US$ 275-300 million and it was US$ 60-70 million six years ago.

Sri Lanka needs to increase the quantity of IT/BPO professionals without compromising on quality for the industry to grow, a senior industry official said. Sri Lanka has earned US $ 275 million turnover last year. It was placed as the fifth largest income generator in the world in IT BPO sector. It is also expected to create 400,000 direct job opportunities and 300,000 indirect job opportunities in five years. This is a good signal that Sri Lanka can be a fast growing country in the region for specialized fields like finance and the telecommunication sector in the BPO industry.

The Government has taken initiatives to promote Sri Lanka as a destination for BPO. The industry and support from officers in foreign missions is highly expected in this venture. The SLASSCOM together with ICTA has taken numerous measures to increase the number of professionals into the industry and also to qualify them with external educational qualifications.

Sri Lanka can cater to European countries and also countries in the region such as Bangladesh and Singapore. Sri Lanka is superior in conceptual thinking and the adaptability is far ahead of competing countries like Egypt, Philippines and Vietnam.