Sri Lanka, a strategic location -Microsoft
“Software solutions of Microsoft have created a revolutionary change
on the lifestyles of the Sri Lankan people making businesses and
interaction easier and convenient”, said EPG Director of Microsoft Sri
Lanka Imran Vilcassim.
Microsoft is celebrating its seventh year in Sri Lanka. Looking back
on how the global software giant has influenced Sri Lankans. Vilcassim
said that Microsoft has uplifted technology in all sectors corporate,
government, NGOs and students.
| What is the reason for a multi-national to spend more money than what
it earns in a country on CSR projects? The response from Vilcassim was
“to create the right impact in the community”. This impact will
certainly create a market from which Microsoft can earn profits in the
future.
Not only Microsoft, most other global IT and telecommunication and
mobile giants are doing the same in poor countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America. They are attempting to make impacts on the communities
that are definitely beneficial to these countries and bridging the
technology gap.
As Vilcassim says the company has the capability to do so and we all
know that these multi-nationals are capable of more than our governments
and their revenue is several times higher than our GDP. |
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| Imran Vilcassim with over 12 years of experience in the IT industry
is currently a Director at Microsoft Sri Lanka. He has been with
Microsoft Sri Lanka close to five years and has been a key contributor
in showing the value of technology to consumers in Sri Lanka.
He currently leads a team responsible for spearheading technology
adoption and deployment based on Microsoft technologies for large
enterprises in Sri Lanka. He is also a prominent speaker in many
information technology forums and has presented many topics on driving
end-user productivity, IT Security, Unified Communications and Server
Virtualization Technologies.
Imran, a Microsoft Certified Engineer, a member of the British
Computer Society also holds a MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of
Management (PIM), University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Prior to joining
Microsoft Imran was also appointed a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) by
Microsoft for his contributions in enhancing the knowledge of the
community in Microsoft related technologies and also for being a
prominent speaker on Microsoft technologies. |
Some of the technologies such as MS office transformed the way people
do their day-to-day work and helped people and institutions to become
more productive and efficient in what they do.
One of the key features is that Microsoft is bringing latest
technologies and practices used elsewhere in the world. We launch all
our latest products simultaneously and ensure availability of latest
global technology here. It enables people to enhance their productivity
and efficiency and be competitive globally, he said.
Our latest technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and
Microsoft Lync have made it easier for people to work together. Using
SharePoint 2010, web sites can be set up to share information with
others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to
help make better decisions.
MSCOMRTM Page Content 5 The capabilities of SharePoint 2010 work
together to help companies quickly respond to changing business needs,
people can share ideas and expertise, create custom solutions for
specific needs, and find the right business information to make better
decisions.
For IT, SharePoint helps to cut training and maintenance costs, save
time and effort, and focus on higher business priorities.
Lync ushers in a new connected user experience transforming every
communication into an interaction that is more collaborative, engaging,
and accessible from anywhere. For IT, the benefits are equally powerful,
with a highly secure and reliable system that works with existing tools
and systems. Easier management, lower cost of ownership, smoother
deployment and migration, and greater choice and flexibility are other
features.
Vilcassim pointed out that lifestyles of people have changed with
technology mostly supported by the MS software solutions in Sri Lanka as
well as elsewhere in the world. However, Sri Lankans grab them fast. For
instance communication between people has drastically changed today.
A few years back it took several days to communicate by letter and
today it is a couple of seconds by passing an instant message, email or
telephone call. Our Windows Live enables people to do more with Windows
on the PC with free programs from Microsoft for photos, movies, instant
messaging, email, social networking, and more.
Today expressing ourselves has become faster. Other technologies such
as Facebook and Twitter have enabled people to communicate with each
other instead of calling. Today around 17-20 percent of people are on
Facebook and this shows the power of these technologies.
Vilcassim said that Sri Lanka is proud of four Sri Lankan companies
that are globally recognised as models in using Microsoft solutions in
an innovative manner in their businesses.
Brandix is recognized for the innovative use of SharePoint and
BisTalk for content management and reporting.
Etisalat has been recognized for innovative use of software to cut
down time in making applications available to consumers.
Dialog for technology usage in managing system productivity to
eliminate down time to customers and ACL Cables for application of
business management solutions in automation of production.
In addition Microsoft Sri Lanka is working with many banks and
insurance companies in Sri Lanka and they are innovatively using our
solutions. We look at Sri Lanka as a strategic location and see high
growth potential. Sri Lanka is recognized as the best destination to
invest in the South East Asia region. Although Sri Lanka represents a
very small market we want to help Sri Lanka grow using IT as an enabler.
During the last seven years Microsoft has touched 1.5 million Sri
Lankans. We have trained 12,000 teachers, provided our software free to
universities and NGOs, provided IT laboratories in universities and
number of locals have been presented to international events. The cost
of all these investments is higher than what Microsoft earns in Sri
Lanka.
The key objective of all these programs is to make the country ready
to move forward with a truly technologically enabled workforce. As
Vilcassim points out the impacts on investing in technology is already
visible in Sri Lanka.
“Our partners have grown and expanded their businesses much more than
Microsoft Sri Lanka. Some who partnered with us six to seven years ago
have grown and started their global operations and they have a larger
number of employees. We are proud of giving them the right technology”,
he said.
The Social impacts of all these technologies are much higher. It has
changed the working pattern of the people. People can work from home
instead of travelling to cities and offices spending time, effort and
money benefiting both employees and employers. The environmental impact
of this scenario is much higher, Vilcassim said.
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