Sri Lanka at OutsourceWorld in London

CONFERENCE: There is an ardent need to promote Sri Lanka as a high-end destination for outsourcing. Whilst attraction for BPOs is as a low cost destination, factors such as low operating costs, trained talent pool and tax incentives; are areas in which Sri Lanka already performs quite well when compared with other regional destinations.

However, Sri Lanka is keen to move quickly into the higher value added segments in IT and BPO Outsourcing.

A well trained talent pool will be a key factor in attracting Outsourcing investments to the country, a press release states. In this light, thirteen Sri Lankan companies was to participate at The 2007 OutsourceWorld conference and Exhibition held in London on 1st - 2nd May.

Partly funded by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), the Sri Lankan team was to host a pavilion 'Outsource Sri Lanka' at the exhibition promoting the country as a premier outsourcing destination.

OutsourceWorld is the leading pure play business trade platform for the outsourcing community. As a neutral body, OutscourceWorld's primary purpose is to enable commerce between buyers and sellers across diverse geographies.

It focuses on the day to day sourcing of business services including ICT, Human Resource Management, Finance and Accounting, BPO, KPO and other types of critical business processes. "This is a year of great significance as the Government of Sri Lanka is devoting increased focus on developing the ICT and ITES sectors of the country.

It is also one of the key components of e-Sri Lanka, and the ICT Agency is engaged in continuous initiatives to raise industry standards and develop adequate infrastructure and resources to support the industry.

We sincerely hope that OutsourceWorld 2007 will be extremely rewarding for the participating companies," said COO, ICTA Reshan Dewapura who will be accompanying the Sri Lankan delegation.

This specialist outsourcing event is slated to draw participants from the UK, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Russia and the United States, thus providing good publicity for Sri Lanka. With the outscourcing culture fast gaining ground in the country, it is important to build awareness about what Sri Lanka has to offer and position ourselves on the map as this is becoming increasingly important in the global offshoring space.

Sri Lanka's high value services coupled with its high literacy rate, large proportion of English speakers and high technical skills makes it an increasingly attractive offshoring choice.

The country also performs relatively well in terms of pure financial costs which is a primary driver for offshoring initiatives Dewapura said.