Technology
 

Valista ventures into new business territories
 

by Gamini Warushamana
 

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Sri Lanka will be the main base of Valista in its new business plan, said the new CEO of the company John Lowry.

Evanna Kearins

John Lowry

Valista, the Irish software giant who specialises in digital commerce solutions, last week launched its new business development plan expanding to two new territories, software licensing and managed services. Lowry said that with the new business plan the nature of the company will change significantly. Valista was set up as a software solution company and we implemented solutions developed by us for our clients.

Under the new business plan we are moving from a solution company to a software licensing company or product licensing company, Lowry said.

Business plan

The new plan focuses on three revenue sources, software solutions, software licensing and managed services. The new plan will fundamentally change the nature of the company enabling the company to grow very quickly creating greater values.

To implement the business plan Valista will bring huge new investments in 2008 and 2009, Lowry said. These investments will be distributed around the world and of them a significant part will come to Sri Lanka.

The investment is predominantly on people and technical infrastructure. The majority of the investment will go for the people and within the next three years we will double our head count.

Lowry who did not specify the value of the investment said that the new investment is equal to 25% of Valista's total investment over the past seven years. The objective of the new investment is to change the balance of the revenue among three business lines.

Under the new investment plan Valista is eyeing the acquisition of companies. Over the past seven years we have had an organic growth. On top of that we are planning a growth by acquisition. We will acquire any company, even Sri Lankan, Indian or elsewhere in the world, if the company has the quality we need. We are looking at people, technology, customers and markets. In Sri Lankan companies we look at technology and the people, especially in finding skilled people that we need to implement our new business plan.

Strong presence

Valista's Director Marketing, Evanna Kearins said that the majority of the software development of Valista is done in Sri Lanka. Earlier software development was done mainly in Ireland and now that emphasis has been shifted to Sri Lanka.

This shift is mainly due to the quality of the people. Sri Lanka has very talented people - no second to any country and the level of education, commitment and the loyalty to the company are the other positive factors we have here.

The main R&D centre of Valista will be in Ireland and Sri Lanka will be the main base of Valista, she said. Lowry said that cost is the other factor for Valista's strong presence in Sri Lanka.

The level of salaries alone does not give the true picture. But if you compare the total management overheads with Ireland or other places, the ratio is 2:1 which means we can find people at half the price here.

Lanka - the main base

He said that the biggest threat is the high inflation in Sri Lanka. It is currently running between 10% and 20% and the government says it wants to reduce it to 10% next year. If the high inflation continues over a long period we will lose the cost advantage we have here against the other parts of the world.

Lowry said that the lack of professionals would hurt the industry by pushing up salaries in the industry. This happened in India. Many IT companies are moving into India but the education system is un -able to cater to the demand. As a result the cost is rising. This is what Sri Lanka should get rid of, he said.

Commenting on Valista's decision to select Sri Lanka as a main base despite the adverse security situation, Lowry said, as an Englishman the situation in Sri Lanka is not as bad as what he experienced in 1970s and 1980s with the IRA. "When the Harrods department store was bombed I was about 400 yards away. Unfortunately now we face the same situation with Al Quaeda. When the underground train was bombed in London I was in the train behind it. That is terrorism," he said.

This situation will adversely affect the industry as talented and experienced people would leave the country seeking safer places.

However, Valista can moderate this issue as a global company with a policy of moving people in different parts of the organisation around the world.

Lowry said that forecasting the future of the IT industry is somewhat difficult. "I stopped forecasting the IT industry many years ago. Something we think today that will happen in three years time will be probably completely wrong. The industry is reinventing itself completely every two or three years. I will never consider a business plan that looks beyond three years.

Three years is the maximum. Trying to project what is going to happen in the technology industry beyond 2-3 years is waste of time," he said. John Lowry, who was appointed the new CEO of Valista last month has 43 years' experience in the IT, communication and related technology industries.

He has worked in senior positions in world renowned companies such as General Electric, ICI, Ford Motors, IBM, Unilever and Thorn EMI for over 25 years of his career.

Providence - Parsec join hands in major outsourcing venture

A pioneering outsourcing venture has been introduced to Sri Lanka by the renowned Providence in association with Parsec Technologies of India.

This initiative will give a boost to the rapidly-expanding outsourcing industry in the island, resulting in the creation of new employment opportunities and attracting much needed foreign exchange.

The joint venture will deliver the full range of call centre solutions for telemarketing, debt collections, market survey and other outbound and inbound applications.

The success of Parsec revolves around its core technology of a total outbound call centre solution along with inbound call handling capabilities equipped with a campaign management system for tele-marketing, a collection management system for collections, digital voice recording, a comprehensive lead management system, advanced conferencing and sales verification system and exhaustive analytics in the form of online and off-line business reports.

The partnership between Parsec and Providence Network (the IT subsidiary of St. Anthony's Group involved in this venture) will usher in a range of innovative call centre solutions that will provide an impetus to the Sri Lankan economy in the near future.

Managing Director of Providence Network Dr. Vaz Gnanam said that Sri Lanka is ranked among the top 10 outsourcing call centre hubs in the world according to a recent article in Voice and Data (Nov 7) issue. He said call centre operations will play a major role in our economy.

Among the advantages Sri Lanka has in this industry is the relatively low labour/operational costs, tax incentives, fluency in English and its cosmopolitan attitude. "The key factors for survival in the call centres business are good software, good data mining, good agents and good processes," said Dr. Vaz. He also said that the Parsec - Providence joint venture will offer end-to-end solutions with the complete infrastructure.

Manager-Business Development, Parsec Technologies, Ankur Khurana said there is much scope in the Asian region for call centre operations. He said that they have entered into technical alliances with such international communication technology giants such as intel, CISCO, HP and dialogic Corporation.

The company also supplies and supports the latest dialogic products to customers across the globe.

One Laptop Per Child soon

The OLPC Sri Lanka Foundation will be launched soon, the organisers told a workshop last week to introduce the OLPC program in Sri Lanka.

The one Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is an education project.

Addressing the seminar, the organiser of the OLPC Sri Lanka Foundation Sunil C. Wijesinghe said children in rural areas of developing countries do not have access to schools. Building schools and training teachers is one way of addressing this issue.

Pix by Nishani Liyanage

However, this is a very slow process and therefore without abandoning the program the OLPC has advocated a parallel program to address the issue.

The OLPC is to leverage the children themselves by engaging them more directly in their own learning. For the purpose OLPC has introduced a low cost laptop computer XO, which was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.

The MIT Media Lab launched a new research initiative in January 2005, to develop a low cost laptop that could revolutionise the education of children around the world. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit Association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), was created independent of the MIT.

XO is the first generation laptop from OLPC. It is a very low-cost, child-friendly laptop computer. OLPC's goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves. Laptops are a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think.

They are a wonderful way for all children to learn through independent interaction and exploration, Wijesinghe said.

Wijesinghe said that all countries that have launched the program have formed OLPC local foundations (non-profit) to handle the logistics in relation to the import and distribution of the Laptops.

The OLPC Sri Lanka Foundation will establish a close association with the Ministry of Education and the private sector. An informal committee is now in the process of setting up the OLPC Lanka Foundation.

GW

SLIIT offers Easy Pathway to IT Degree

The Foundation certificate program in Information Technology (FCIT), designed by the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) offers students, falling short of the minimum academic university entry requirements, a unique pre-university pathway and a progression to higher education.

The special foundation program is designed by SLIIT in collaboration with Edexel and Sheffield Hallam University of UK and Australia's Curtin University of Technology.

Students who complete the Foundation Course are entitled to enter the Diploma course in IT and thereafter transfer for a degree courses at one of SLIIT's affiliate universities of Curtin or Sheffield Hallam.

"Foundation courses are common in many universities abroad and we want to make it available in Sri Lanka too," said SLIIT's CEO, Prof. Lalith Gamage. "This unique foundation course is being offered in Sri Lanka now and SLIIT hopes that it would be an incentive for students wanting to pursue a higher education qualification but who do not have the formal university entry qualifications", said Prof. Gamage.

"It would also encourage those wanting to pursue higher education but who have taken a break from studies for various reasons" he said.

Suntel ties up with Alpha Industries

Suntel, the fastest growing telecommunication company, implemented a full fledged data/voice solution for Alpha Industries and its 12 branches islandwide.

The solution with cutting edge technology for seamless connectivity would provide Alpha to meet and consistently exceed international standards.

Suntel is a joint venture Company that brings together the resources and expertise of Swedish telecom giant overseas Telecom AB, Metrocorp (Pvt.) Ltd. Townsend Limited of Hong Kong, the National Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group.

Microimage co-sponsors HR Awards 2007

Microimage, the pioneering e-HRIS solution provider joined hands with HRP (Association of Human Resource Professionals) by offering co-sponsorship for Sri Lanka's main HR Awards event - HRM Awards 2007.

HRM Awards 2007 Super 10 organised by the Association of Human Resource Professionals (HRP) of Sri Lanka will select and rank the top 10 HRM practitioners of excellence. More than 100 corporate entities vying for honours in the competition in its first year itself bodes well as it means that human resource management is given high prominence to the integral role it can play in corporate performance.

The one-day learning conference will focus on three key issues, viz. Becoming an Employer of Choice, Creating a High Performance Organisation, and Rewarding Performance - topics of extreme importance will be delivered by top HR experts from all over the world espousing the latest in human resource management, research findings and experiences to local HRM professionals, helping them to improve productivity and overall corporate performance.

CEO of Microimage, Harsha Purasinghe said, "We are pleased to partner HRP on this prestigious event which selects and recognise the best HR practices". "The judging format unveiled this year will encourage more organisations to participate in future which helps to benchmark internal HRM practices," Purasinghe said.

Microimage recently ventured into a more focused entity with the new goal of providing HCM Solutions for people driven business. Apart from the co-sponsorship, the company came forward to provide web presence and a stationery pack for the event.