Eureka exploring Dubai, SME market with new investors

Impressed by its services towards him over the years, as well as its vision for a greener IT environment, Nobel laureate Prof. Mohan Munesinghe, Vice Chair of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has become an investor in Internet Service Provider (ISP)-turned Managed Service Provider (MSP), Eureka Technology Partners, and will be joined in the venture by Indian investor consortium Indian Angel Network (IAN).

The MSP is looking at expanding its operations to Dubai and capturing the Middle Eastern and then European market, in a bid to capitalise on the current boom in the offshore industry and the increasing demand for Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM). RIM includes the IT infrastructure facilities ranging from IT security to management of the connectivity services of the ISP of firms, and involves management of both the software and hardware aspects of IT.

“Sri Lanka missed the IT export age completely,” said Rajan Anandan, Vice President of Dell USA and General Manager of Dell India, speaking at a press briefing recently. Representing IAN, a consortium of investors who have been pouring money into a number of Indian IT firms, he went on to say that Eureka is IAN’s first venture out of India.

The reasoning behind the move, according to Anandan, is three-pronged: Eureka has proved that they can successfully operate RIM as it already has close to 60 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as local clientele. Plus, the RIM services being offered are cost-efficient enough to attract the smaller fish. “SMEs are the fastest growing segment in the world for IT,” said Anandan, who went onto reveal that there are close to seven million in the Indian economy, and that they were a growing force. He put the efficient management team of Eureka as the third success factor.

“With RIM and Eureka, Sri Lanka could find a spot on the IT exports map,” he said, adding that the IT/ and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market raked in US$ 2 billion last year in India and that they hope to increase the number to 15 billion in the next few years. “We believe that a part of that can be done out of Sri Lanka,” he enthused.

“Sustainable development is the major challenge of the 21st century,” said Prof. Munesinghe, speaking of Eureka’s ‘Green IT’ initiative to carry out operation in a more energy efficient way. “The business world is not isolated, it can contribute not only to make a profit but also to help some of these (global) problems,” he said. He pointed out that IT firms are some of the largest offenders on the climate change front and that one aspect of energy efficiency that is not often talked about is the supply-side problem. Reducing the mass inefficiencies in the generating facet of power supply would greatly improve their services, according to him.