The global IT sector and Sri Lanka

December 18, 2011, 8:54 pm , The Island.


Welcome

Welcome to the sixty ninth edition of the regular column "The Catalyst".

ICT Industry

Last couple of weeks have been a busy period for me with many ICT industry activities. For a few days, I was in Mumbai in India for the Asian Pacific Conference on "Collaboration for inclusive growth" (iGrowth) hosted by the Computer Society of India. This is the annual conference for 2011 for the regional ICT Body SEARCC (South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation) of which many countries in our region including Sri Lanka is a member. In fact it’s the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) that is a member of SEARCC representing Sri Lanka and other similar bodies from regional countries are also members. Information about the Conference can be found at http://www.searcc-2011.org.

The South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC - http://www.searcc.org) is a forum of national Information Technology professional societies in the Asia Pacific region. It aims to promote collaboration and cooperation among its member countries. SEARCC is also an affiliate member of the International Federation for information processing (IFIP) which is considered as a leading global body for ICT. The newly elected president of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (www.cssl.lk) Mahesh Perera represented Sri Lanka in this forum in Mumbai.

I was reminded of just how global ICT is and how much we have in common with ICT professionals all around the world while I was in Mumbai. I also had the opportunity of attending the World Computer Congress 2010 (WCC2010) in Brisbane late last year. WCC is the premier global ICT event of the leading international body for ICT (IFIP – International Federation for Information Processing).

At these events not only did I meet lots of great people from around the world, but it was truly a mind-expanding experience to listen to speakers of that calibre and share ideas with other ICT professionals and experience the global nature of it.

In this backdrop I thought it would be useful to look into some of the facts about the global ICT industry.

Global Situation

The USA is the world’s largest market in terms of ICT spending. UK, Japan, Canada and Germany are also in the top ten.

Sweden tops the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 released by the World Economic Forum. This showcases the readiness of the ICT infrastructure as taken as a whole. Singapore and Denmark are in second and third positions respectively. Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and the Netherlands are also in the top 10. Sri Lanka stands at 71st place, while India takes 43rd place.

The world Internet usage is now over 1.6 billion users. China recently took the lead in the list with 338 million users, followed by the U.S. with 220 million, Japan with 94 million, and India at 81 million. Some of the internet penetration stats are as follows: Africa - 10.9%, Asia- 21.5 %, Europe- 58.4 %, Middle East- 29.8 %, North America-77.4 %, Latin America/Caribbean- 34.5 % and Oceania / Australia- 61.3%. Sri Lanka has an internet penetration percentage that is less than 9%. Higher the penetration, the stronger the industry would be and also higher the contribution to the economy.

The U.S. is the world’s leader in terms of ICT-related patents (35% of the world’s ICT patents), followed by Japan (18%) and Germany (8%). This justifies their leadership in innovation and leading edge in the sector.

Clearly the ICT industry is huge worldwide. The important issue to think about is its impact on almost all other industries and the society at large. It is a key driver in productivity improvement across the economy and industries, in particular those of financial services, resources, energy, manufacturing, health, education and entertainment. ICTs are continuously transforming the way all industry sectors collect, analyse, utilise, distribute and exchange information.

Just take e-Commerce for an example. This is where various forms of commercial activity such as buying and selling take place online over the internet. Many people today are used to using internet for such purposes, changing the way economies work. e-Bay is a huge web space for buyers and sellers. Various businesses around the world use internet mechanisms for commercial purposes, and it is increasingly becoming popular in Sri Lanka as well. Proving the impact of the scale, U.S.-based manufacturers used e-commerce to ship over $1.86 trillion in goods in 2007.

The ICT industry has few different aspects to it. Hardware, Software and Services are the main ones. For a country like Sri Lanka, Hardware manufacturing is going to be a tough game although computer hardware retail and services are important if other types of ICTs are to thrive. For this reason, around 70% of Sri Lanka’s total ICT spending was hardware related. As of now however, since we don’t manufacture hardware, we are just users of imports. Therefore, the area that really could benefit us from a foreign revenue perspective is the Software and Services sector with special attention to ITES (IT Enabled Services) and BPO.

The computer hardware industry is one of the flourishing markets in the world. The global computer hardware market grew by 5.6% in 2007 to reach a value of $399.8 billion. It is also being estimated that by 2012 the global computer hardware market would have an increase of 34.4% since 2007.

In IT consulting services, following companies take the first 10 rankings in the world. Accenture, IBM, Capgemini, Atos Origin, Logica, Deloitte, Infosys (India), TCS (India), McKinsey and Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. I had the opportunity to work for the number one in the list Accenture, a company that has over 160,000 employees across 50 countries.

One of the drawbacks for countries like Sri Lanka historically in competing in the world economy was our geographical remoteness. However, ICT provides an easy road in terms of accessibility. Communicating and working together with any other parts of the world couldn’t be easier. However, we should continue to improve the ICT infrastructure, awareness and accessibility.

e-Diplomacy

A forum on "ICT and Modern Day Diplomacy" was held at the auditorium of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) on Thursday, 15th December, 2011. The forum consisted of ‘informal discussions’ - a new way of communicating with the general public and industry experts and which will indirectly contribute positively to policy formulation.

Chairman of the Kadirgamar Institute, Hon. Prof. G.L. Pieris presented his views on the importance of ICT for Modern Diplomacy. Mr. Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, Executive Director of the LKIIRSS, gave the opening remarks. Prof. Rohan Gunartna an expert on Security and Counter-Terrorism studies was a guest speaker at the event. Presentations were made by four eminent speakers, " ‘INTEXT’, an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Strategy for Modern Day Diplomacy" by Mr. Kithsiri Gunasekara, "ICT for Faster Collaboration" by Mr. Yasas Vishuddhi Abeywickrama, "Web 2.0 as a Catalyst in Creating Advanced International Relationships" by Mr. Chanuka Wattegama, "Cyber Security and Legal Aspects" by Mr. Vasana Wickremasena, and "Social Media and Terrorist Groups" by Mr. Udara Soysa, followed by an instructive question and answer session. The forum was particularly pertinent to the use of ICTs in the conduct of diplomacy by Sri Lankan diplomatic missions abroad.

Information communication technology (ICT) has created a paradigm-shift in the conduct of international diplomacy, as it has in the social, political, and economic aspects of our lives and our world. While the conduct of diplomacy through the use of new ICTs (e-Diplomacy) empowers diplomatic missions with its speed and reach of communication, not to embrace them is to be left powerless, without a voice, in a world of competing interests and differing perspectives.

Readers Corner

One of our readers, Mr Yasapala Nanayakkara, who is a retired senior administration officer from Sri Lanka Administration Service (SLAS) has written to us thanking for the efforts of this column. Further, he has made comments as to how the ICT industry is starting to help the general public. At 70 years of age, he is an avid user of ICT. I quote him here:

"I use them extensively in my day to life, banking, CRM with local companies, reference on drugs and ailment, payment of bills, reading news papers (I do not buy them), communicating on line with experts outside Sri Lanka, especially Burt Goldman who write on Quantum Jumping. Daily I spend few hours at the computer that means I am living today. I have two Laptops Dell, and HP presented to us by our son. One is partially used by my wife who got use to it for use of e mails long time back and now using it for Skype."

He also says that, "I am delighted that the industry has come thus far and the public is immensely benefited by the IT based services, especially the public service institutions now in a position to provide on line services at short notice. Maharagama Divisional Secretariat issues motor car revenue licence in less than nine minutes, what a change!".

In a philosophical comment he says, "Through IT we can bridge (not breach) the so called ‘generation gap’ and bring solace and comfort to our ageing population who will play a meaningful role".

This is the extent of what ICT can offer the society and this country.

See you next week!

The Columnist

Yasas Vishuddhi Abeywickrama is a professional with significant experiences. In 2011 he was recognised as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) in Sri Lanka. Yasas has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Colombo and a Masters degree in Entrepreneurship & Innovation from Swinburne University in Australia. He has worked in the USA, UK, Sri Lanka & Australia and being trained in the USA & Malaysia. He is currently involved in the training organisation, Lanka BPO Academy (www.lankabpoacademy.lk). Apart from this column, he is a regular resource person for ‘Ape Gama’ program of FM Derana (Sunday 3-5pm). Yasas is happy to answer your relevant questions – email him at yva@lankabpoacademy.lk