SL to roll out 3-month digital marketing campaign for IT/BPM industry

By Nishel Fernando 

Sri Lanka is to roll out a three-month digital marketing campaign (social media, search engine optimization and management) from September to promote the country’s IT/BPM industry  in 15 key markets, followed by a two-year comprehensive (digital and non-digital) marketing campaign commencing from next January to help the industry achieve the US$5 billion export target by 2022. 

Speaking to Mirror Business on the sidelines of an event themed ‘NES - IT Initiative Vision and Industry Roadshow’ held this week at the Orion City, an EDB Advisory Committee Member for NES -IT/BPM sector and  SLASSCOM, Director, Ashique M. Ali revealed that STAX and Surge Global were chosen to roll out the three-month digital marketing campaign from September. The EDB earlier this year launched a brand for the Sri Lankan IT/BPM industry with a logo and tagline called ‘Island of Ingenuity’. The branding is expected to support SMEs and large companies in the industry to increases the overall sector performance and to enhance visibility and market outreach.  EDB has indentified Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, India, the Middle East, US, and Canada as the initial target markets for this brand.

Chairperson of EDB Advisory Committee – IT BPM, Madu Ratnayake noted that Sri Lanka would need to almost double the current growth rate of IT/BPM service exports to achieve the US$5 billion target by 2022. Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM exports have grown by 18.9 percent during the 2012-2017 period to US$1.2 billion, however a 33 percent YoY growth is required to reach the industry target of US$5 billion by 2022, which remains challenging for Sri Lanka.

Pix by Nimalasiri Edirisinghe