Suntel hosts CEO forum

Suntel hosted a panel discussion recently on 'How to trim IT CAPEX through SaaS,' which was attended by 100 CEOs from different industries. Suntel the leader in corporate telecommunications market drew panel members from different spheres and discussed the concept of SaaS, Software As A service and how this would benefit Sri Lankan companies.

Founder and CEO of Hsenid Software international Dinesh Saparamadu moderated the panel discussion and the panellists were Dr. Sanath Jayasena from University of Moratuwa, Dr. Tariq Marikar CIO of Suntel, Mihindu Rajaratne from Lanka Financial Services Bureau, Dinesh Weerakkody prominent HR/Management consultant & Managing Director of Cornucopia Lanka Ltd, Shahaz Zahir Finance Director of Attune Lanka.

Dr. Sanath Jayasena said that the emergence of SaaS as an effective software-delivery mechanism creates an opportunity for IT departments to change their focus from deploying and supporting applications to managing the services that those applications provide. A successful service-centric IT, in turn, directly produces more value for the business by providing services that draw from both internal and external sources and align closely with business objectives allowing world class software services at a fraction of the cost on rental basis.

Dr. Tariq Marikar said that today, SaaS applications are expected to take advantage of the benefits of centralization through a single-instance, multi-tenant architecture, and by providing a feature-rich experience with comparable on-premise applications.

In contrast to the one-time licensing model commonly used for on-premise software, SaaS application access is frequently sold using a subscription model, with customers paying an ongoing fee, to use the application.

Lanka Financial Services Bureau was stated as a working example of SaaS model which is used by the banking industry in Sri Lanka for their FOREX transactions, according to Rajaratne a resource person at the discussion.