Sri Lanka eyeing IT outsourcing from SMEs in Europe

Submitted by cdas on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 16:00

Following the toes of its neighbor India and the Philippines, Sri Lanka is also endeavoring to become an important destination for IT and ITeS services, especially business process outsourcing work. A recent statement issued by a Sri Lankan industry body, said that the IT companies in the island nation are eyeing BPO work from the small businesses in the European nations.

Quoting Reshan Dewapura of Information and Communications Technology Agency, a government-run organization, a financial website focusing on business activities in Sri Lanka reports that the island nation is a distinctive and viable location for focused and small and medium enterprise (SME) sourcing. Addressing the International Outsourcing Forum (IOF), which brings together top IT and ITeS services buyers and vendors across the globe, in London recently, Dewapura said that they witnessed an increased interest among the SMEs in Europe for outsourcing their work to Sri Lanka with a view to expand their firms globally for the value of their money as well as an inexpensive workforce.

With the objective of luring the European SMEs to outsource their work to the island nation in Asia, Sri Lanka was among the main sponsors of the 2010 edition of the International Outsourcing Forum (IOF). IT and ITeS firm owners in Sri Lanka are keen to attract the outsourcing companies’ attention towards the country and present it as a rapidly emerging outsourcing destination for IT and BPO services. In fact, the sponsorship was a belligerent publicity drive by the country’s industry body – Sri Lankan Association for Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM), to enhance the potential of the island nation before the SMEs in the United Kingdom and across Europe.

SLASSCOM director and Global Trade Forum chief Ashique M Ali said that as a part of their strategy, they were concentrating on the UK and other nations of Europe to project Sri Lanka as a competitive and cost-effective outsourcing destination. He said that Sri Lanka’s association with the UK has enduring and now they intend to expand this relationship to the country’s emerging IT and ITeS industry.