The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) announced today that Sri Lanka is growing rapidly as a sourcing destination for small to medium Australian businesses.
In Australia this week leading a Sri Lankan trade mission, Arunesh Peter, ICTA’s Director of Projects, said: "For the past few years, we have seen strong growth from Australian organisations utilising Sri Lanka as a sourcing destination, primarily for IT and business process management services. These Australian businesses are either setting up operations in Sri Lanka for functions including application development or back office shared services, or engaging Sri Lankan businesses for customer service and technical support, and software testing. Many of these organisations have expanded their Sri Lankan operations up to tenfold in a very short space of time.”
“The most exciting aspect has been the growth in Sri Lankan services providers who are specialising in developing solutions in cutting edge technologies like IoT, robotics, cloud, data analytics and wearables. That’s where Sri Lanka is really standing out as a sourcing destination in the region."
One of those cutting edge technologies is the rollout of Google’s Project Loon. Overseen by ICTA, the project uses high-altitude balloons to provide high-speed, cost-effective internet bandwidth with extensive coverage. The first trials of the technology have been completed successfully, with Sri Lanka set to become the first country to have universal internet access through Google's Project Loon.
Servicing Medium-sized Businesses
The typical size of an Australian organisation choosing Sri Lanka as a sourcing destination are those with between 50 to 100 staff. This is primarily due to the smaller, more agile service providers that currently exist in Sri Lanka, cites Mr Peter. With an accelerator program established by ICTA in 2011, there is a vibrant start-up culture in the Sri Lankan tech sector, supported by a highly-educated and skilled workforce.
According to a Gartner report published earlier this year, “Sri Lanka has built up excellent cost-effective capabilities and a track record to meet small to medium offshore requirements. It is excellent for setting up captives or shared-service centers.” Gartner, Inc., Evaluate Offshore/Nearshore Countries for Outsourcing, Shared Services and Captives in Asia/Pacific, 2016, Jim Longwood, et al, February 3, 2016.
One of the companies to set up operations in Sri Lanka to support its Australian operations is internet service provider Exetel. Exetel employs more than 200 staff at Orion City, a technology business park in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, providing a range of services including first and second level customer support.
“Exetel is one of the top five internet service providers in Australia. For the past ten years we have relied heavily on our Sri Lankan Customer Service Centre to provide business and customer support to hundreds of thousands of residential and business customers in Australia and more recently, the United Kingdom,” said Richard Purdy, CEO, Exetel.
“The Sri Lankan team has been integral in providing Exetel with an outstanding sales, technical support, provisioning, IT development, finance and compliance capability. We truly value the community spirit that our Colombo team bring to the office each and every day and their tireless devotion to delivering world-class outcomes for the business.”
Adelaide-based enterprise performance management (EPM) and business intelligence (BI) software provider CAMMS operates a technology centre in Sri Lanka, enabling the firm to accelerate software development, supporting the company’s international growth.
“We started with ten employees in Sri Lanka and have grown tenfold in the past three years. It is now a much more relaxed place with the government focusing on developing businesses and investing on infrastructure to support the same," said CAMMS Managing Director Joe Collins.
A highlight of the Sri Lankan visit is Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on the Gold Coast, with ICTA involved at the conference as an exhibitor and Country Pavilion. The Sri Lanka Pavilion at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo will feature representation from a number of the companies participating in the trade mission.
