IT sector gears up with resilience for growth opportunities
Gone are the days where employees were confined to offices and work for 8-12 hours interacting with colleagues while spending much time in staff gossip.
All of a sudden this change has taken place in the wake of COVID-19 with many employees now working from home participating in discussions in video conferencing, online and mobile phone deliberations.
Enterprises are now applying different digital tools to manage their operations and these tools worked as a catalyst for some firms to develop work from home solutions.
The government is going ahead with digital governance under the directions of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who is very keen to provide high speed access across the country, which will permit the IT/BPM industry countrywide to grow, a senior Finance Ministry official said.
It has given priority to attract investments for the establishment of international e-commerce and e-payment systems, a high-speed data exchange system and the related mobile network systems, he added
This present trend has moved the IT sector towards new directions and it has recorded a significant growth of 13.5 per cent in the third quarter 2020 compared to the same quarter in 2019, according to the Department of Census and Statistics.
Taking advantage of 50 per cent tax concessions and 14 per cent corporate tax rate offered in the 2021 budget, a considerable number of start-ups along with new innovative firms are now lined up to list their ventures in the Colombo stock market.
1,000 Information Technology / Business process management (IT/BPM) start-ups have been planned improving the local industry.
“Further commercial banks have been directed to provide a loan facility of Rs.500,000 at an interest rate of 4 per cent as start-up capital to support the youth in accordance with the 2021 budget proposal,” the official said.
Overcoming obstacles, approximately 90 per cent of IT-BPM companies in Sri Lanka was ready to act to ensure very minimal interruptions to their regular operations, IT industry sources said.
Responding to the crisis, local IT companies have quickly resorted to allow work from home for their employees ensuring their safety and business continuity for most of company clients, a senior member of the Knowledge Innovation Chamber disclosed.
With the possible trend of some nations such as Japan, Europe, US etc wanting to shift their factories and production centres from China to different geographical locations, many opportunities could be created to attract those shifting operations to Sri Lanka, he revealed.
Local IT firms are now diversifying their offerings and propagating innovative ideas in block chain and artificial intelligence to clients using innovation hubs and research and development centres, he disclosed.