Lankan ICT sector poised to significantly benefit from Tokyo B2B meetings

A group of Sri Lankan ICT companies were able to make a strong impact at the B2B meetings held with 12 key Japanese ICT companies in Tokyo recently. 
This is likely to increase business with Japan in 
the future.
Since 43.5 percent of Japan’s ICT service segment is for customised software coupled with the acute shortage of ICT personnel in Japan, Sri Lankan software development sector is ideally placed in marketing qualitative services to 
Japanese buyers. 
The Export Development Board (EDB) of Sri Lanka acted as the facilitator for the local companies during the B2B meetings in this new business promotion initiative in approaching business counterparts directly. The EDB has been actively facilitating Sri Lankan ICT companies to establish a linkage in the Japanese ICT market 
since 2014.
The Sri Lankan companies were able to convince their Japanese counterparts about the qualitative advantage of our IT resources, which came as a surprise to them.  Local companies were able to amply demonstrate to the Japanese companies that Sri Lanka is in a position to offer more innovative products and services as packages in comparison to their present vendors from other countries.
Japan Users Association of Information Systems Managing Director Koji Nishimura, whose membership covers more than 3300 corporates, identified cost, skill, culture, language and communication as key ingredients to be successful in the Japanese market.
Japan Information Technology Services Industry Association (JISA) International Affairs Chairman Kazunori Hamano said that at least more than 100 of their members are active in global markets and looking for IT skills particularly in IoT, big data, AI, cloud computing, embedded software and wearables.
The Sri Lankan companies that participated in the programme were 99X Technologies, zMessenger (Pvt.) Ltd, Evolve Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd, Allion Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd and Texonic Information Systems (Pvt.) Ltd.
Japan as a single country is the third largest ICT market in the world with a market size of over US $ 340 billion next to the USA and China. According to the traditional trade pattern in Japan, it is customary for larger companies to utilize the resources of SME companies; Japanese SMEs in the ICT sector play a vibrant role as an entry point to the Japanese market. 
The current tendency in the Japanese SME ICT companies is to utilise the cloud services due to increase in demand for their services from larger ICT vendors and direct user companies. These SMEs provide an ideal opportunity for Sri Lankan ICT companies to enter the Japanese market and to approach their main customers.
Even the large-scale Japanese ICT companies such as NSD Co Ltd, Internet Initiative Japan Inc, CAC Corporation and ATMJ which met the Sri Lankan companies commended them for their resourcefulness and the innovativeness that was evident to them at the B2B meetings.
The EDB is planning to organise a seminar in Tokyo to promote Sri Lankan ICT sector in Japan, in collaboration with JISA, JUAS and JETRO together with the Sri Lanka embassy in Japan in early May prior to Sri Lanka’s third consecutive participation in Japan IT Week.