More than a third of Business Processing Organisations (BPOs) are not satisfied with the availability, skills and quality of local personnel with a skills-gap in accounting, IT and English knowledge, according to Dr Gamini Wickramasinghe, Chairman, Bank of Ceylon and a veteran in the IT industry.
At the recent 26th LBR- LBO CEO Forum on the topic “Some Insights: Gaining Synergies through Business Integration”, Dr Wickremasinghe spoke of three synergies – an unconventional Inflation Targeting model: Bridging the agriculture output gap; a Development model based on Airport Retail Trade and IT/BPO Capacity Building Model: Employment opportunities and human capital Development.
He said that inflation is associated with the dominant role of food and agriculture in the economy, which contributes to around 50 %, and increasing local food production and curtailing imports of food items could bring down inflation.
Commercial banks should be asked to assist the farmers, he said adding that the government is encouraging home gardening as this would save home expenses.
If the food items that are imported could be grown in the country foreign exchange could be saved, there would be more employment and the quality of life could also be improved.
Dr Wickramasinghe said that the duty free shopping concept should be expanded and referred to several successful ventures such as Dubai and Bahrain. He said that a luxury electric train system from Maradana Railway Station to Katunayake Airport should be introduced and duty free shopping complexes should be developed in the Maradana Railway Station compound and in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone. Those airport passengers who visit these duty free shopping complexes could check in there and travel by train to the airport. He said that if an elevated highway is built on top of the railway line, it would be cost effective than acquiring and constructing a highway.
He said that shopping complexes in Sri Lanka could induce travellers, particularly from India and South Asia.
In the IT/BPO capacity building model, he said that there would be employment opportunities and human capital development. The programme concentrates on customer focused professional qualifications in line with skills in demand with on the job training He said that importance should be given to provincial representations of the candidates to cater IT/BPO employment. |
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