With the motive of bringing about the opportunity to partner with the IT/BPM industry in the UK, the Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM) together with the Export Development Board (EDB) successfully concluded a highly interactive and engaging session on February 15 at The Kingsbury, featuring National Outsourcing Association (NOA) CEO and European Outsourcing Association (EOA) Director Kelly Hallard. 

EOA is the industry association and professional body for outsourcing that works with and supports large European buyers and global providers of outsourcing services.

Hallard arrived on February 15 to the island and delivered an insightful presentation on trends of the future of outsourcing from a global context, followed by an industry visit to Orion City, Virtusa, WNS and on February 17 went to visit HSBC, Codegen, Calcey and also saw the Sri Lankan built electric super car at Trace Expert City, VEGA.

Hallard stressed that data is the new gold and that it is crucial to know how to mine and refine it where customer centricity needs to be at the heart of everything whilst technology is the enabler. She also highlighted that the use of outsourcing globally will increase significantly over the next five years. However, the areas for improvement for service providers are creating and delivering value, delivering innovation, value-based sourcing models, automation and transparency.

The areas for improvement for outsourcing clients are alignment of business objectives with vendors, focus on outcomes not outputs, collaboration and a better understanding of client’s processes. Kerry unveiled a new eco-system for service providers (including joint ventures (JVs), digital agencies, app developers, systems integrators and other partnerships) where the key components are shared risk, open standards, people centricity, design thinking, innovation, transformation and flexibility.

The event also demonstrated the traits going forward such as ROI obsessors, speed of new junkies, content creators 
and curators, provocative idea makers, whilst the skills required to maximise future opportunities are digital transformers, transformation architects, automation experts, customer centricity managers, design thinkers, operational strategists, enterprise technologists and 
commercial negotiators.

This was a tremendous opportunity to showcase local talent and capabilities and vice versa. EOA is the leading European-based outsourcing association with more than 1,000 corporate members from the eight national industry associations: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and UK. The NOA is the UK and lead Chapter of the EOA. 

The SLASSCOM is the national chamber for the IT/BPM industry in Sri Lanka and acts as the catalyst of growth for the Sri Lankan IT and BPM industry by facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouragement of research and innovation and by supporting the creation of a progressive national policy framework. It has an ambitious 2022 vision to become a US $ 5 billion industry, creating 200,000 direct jobs and launching 1,000 start-ups.