National brand for Sri Lanka’s ICT/BPM sector launched

The national brand for Sri Lanka’s ICT/BPM sector was launched by Malik Samarawickrama, Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade, Harsha de Silva, Deputy Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs, Indira Malwatte Chairperson and Chief Executive– EDB at BMICH, yesterday. 

This was organized jointly by the Sri Lanka Export Development Board and Asian Development Bank (ADB), utilizing technical assistance funding from the Japan Fund, with PwC as consultants. 

Sri Lanka has been continuously increasing ICT exports and maintaining an impressive upward trend in annual figures.  More than 300 companies and 85,000 technologically savvy professionals are employed in the sector with the IT literacy of 35 percent. Annual exports last year reached the target of US$ 1 billion. The industry targets to achieve US$ 5 billion of exports provide 200,000 direct jobs and groom 1,000 start-ups by 2022. Further, the ICT sector is the fourth largest export revenue earner and has been identified as one of the key sectors in the National Export Strategy (NES).

Need of strong branding for ICT/BPM sector has been identified as a critical factor in international arena and this will be a timely initiative in order to further promote capabilities of the Sri Lanka ICT/BPM industry. All key stakeholders of the industry, namely SLASSCOM, FITIS, SLEMEA along with EDB, ICTA, BOI came together for the creation of this new brand.

For a country like Sri Lanka, which does not have an inherent scale advantage, the focus on creating a brand platform on the manpower skills of providing complex solutions was seen as a powerful credible claim. In addition to this, the IT centres in the country are tailored to meet the constantly evolving and rapidly changing customer needs through agile and flexible services. These attributes were identified as being the unique, competitive advantages of the Sri Lanka IT /BPO industry.

Based on these insights a powerful and compelling brand proposition was formulated around “Knowledge Solutions” as the product offering, and the brand idea of “Island of Ingenuity” which captures the complex and specialized solutions that are being offered.

By showcasing the industry through such a high-profile brand, there are opportunities for a multi dimensional impact, from customers of the IT/BPO industry to students who are a core source of talent, to the Government and other regulatory bodies to be more positively engaged with the sector.

This new brand which was launched on 15th February 2018 under the patronage of all its stakeholders and has been enthusiastically received by the industry, who have  embraced the brand idea and is set on taking Sri Lankan knowledge to global markets.