ETCA: Your Value and the Industry
How does ETCA destroy Sri Lankan IT industry?
Sri Lankan IT - Rapidly progressing towards a high value quality destination
Sri Lankan IT - Rapidly progressing towards a high value quality destination
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Source: Sri Lankan IT/BPM Industry, 2014 Review- SLASSCOM |
Sri Lanka’s competitive advantage in IT/BPM is built around agility, cost, a niche talent base, ethics, cultural adaptability, and superior quality of life as a destination of doing business.
On the IT front, our competitive position on product Engineering is now becoming a formidable key advantage with many global and local companies building or outsourcing product engineering work in Sri Lanka.
Competitive Bench-marking
On the IT front, our competitive position on product Engineering is now becoming a formidable key advantage with many global and local companies building or outsourcing product engineering work in Sri Lanka.
“Sri Lanka offers a unique mix of extremely low costs- among the lowest anywhere- combined with highly educated, English speaking population with sophisticated technical skills, and a business environment and infrastructure that is superior to most of the low cost countries.
Furthermore, contrary to the image created by the earlier conflict, Sri Lanka is among the safest, lowest risk emerging markets both in terms of personal safety and business security.”
-ATKearney – Competitive Benchmarking: Sri Lanka knowledge services.
International Recognition
Emerging as a premier outsourcing destination for IT-BPM services globally, Sri Lanka is gaining with increased global brand recognition and visibility. Leading global multinationals, local blue chips and corporate alike have established operations to carry out IT-BPM operations in the country. HSBC, IFS, Intel, Motorola, WNS, BR Donnelly, Virtusa, Pearsons, and Accenture are just some of the key investments. The Client portfolio also includes global multinationals such as the London Stock Exchange, Microsoft, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Lenovo, JP Morgan and Google.
Balanced demand and supply for graduates
There is no shortage of supply of graduates for the industry requirement and the supply of graduates have been continuously growing keeping par with the demand for graduates.
The Potential
The industry stakeholders, government and academia together have set the vision for Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM industry to achieve by 2022;
• USD 5 billion in exports
• Generating 200,000 jobs
• Creating 1,000 start-ups
Source: Sri Lankan IT/BPM Industry, 2014 Review- SLASSCOM
Why entrepreneurs have invested in Sri Lankan IT industry?
The current status of growth, international recognition as an outsourcing destination and the potential of the Sri Lankan IT industry clearly shows its own way forward. The current growth indicates that the enhanced foreign revenue earning by the IT industry will be playing a great role to reduce the trade deficit and to improve the situation of balance of payment while providing jobs to thousands of graduates each year.
The Potential
The industry stakeholders, government and academia together have set the vision for Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM industry to achieve by 2022;
• USD 5 billion in exports
• Generating 200,000 jobs
• Creating 1,000 start-ups
Source: Sri Lankan IT/BPM Industry, 2014 Review- SLASSCOM
Why entrepreneurs have invested in Sri Lankan IT industry?
Sri Lankan IT industry has been able to attract investors over the last few years. When an investor looks at this region for investment, Sri Lanka is not the default location. He first evaluates the giant that is India to invest. Then he looks at the Sri Lankan IT industry for some niche benefits.
What do these investors say? |
Source: Sri Lankan IT/BPM Industry, 2014 Review- SLASSCOM |
ETCA will degrade the value of IT profession
Even today, hypothetically if there is a shortage of IT professionals for vacancies in demand, it is possible to legitimately employee professionals from any part of the world.
If the ETCA agreement is signed, then Sri Lankan job market will be virtually merged with the massive Indian job market with their enormous number of unemployed IT professionals, which in fact is more than the entire present day IT workforce in Sri Lanka. They will be able to arrive to Sri Lanka even without being employed by any company as free-lance professionals. Once they arrive here they would benefit from the “National Treatment” which explains as having the same right as a Sri Lankan. This will definitely lead to the reduction of salary levels in Sri Lanka and the value of IT professionalism. This decline will not be marginal but very much significant.
ETCA will kill the niche benefit for the investor to invest in Sri Lanka
As per today, Sri Lankan IT industry is capable of attracting top graduates to the industry. One of the main reasons for the attraction is the starting salary level of the profession. Once Sri Lankan job market is opened to India, new graduates will not be able to reap that benefit in the industry. Furthermore the industry will not be able to attract the required talent pool from Sri Lanka. As a result, Sri Lankan IT industry will absorb more and more Indian employment. Ultimately the investors will not experience the above mentioned niche benefit of top tier talent in the Sri Lankan IT industry. From their perspective, without the top tier talent pool that they have been enjoying over the years in Sri Lanka, they will have very good reasons to shift their investments to India where they have closer access to a massive market and a huge number of employees.
Current situation
Neglecting the voiceof professionals, business community and the general public of Sri Lanka, the government is to sign the ETCA agreement with India without establishing a national policy for international trade agreements and the required legal framework.
How to defeat this atrocity of signing ETCA without a national policy and required legal framework in Sri Lanka?
In the vacuum of any prompt, real and genuine attempt by the Government of Sri Lanka to put the country’s long-term (national) interests first when any policies or strategies pertaining to foreign trade are concerned, in spite of written requests made by the professionals to prepare a National Policy for International Trade with wide public participation, it becomes the role of professionals of Sri Lanka to institute a public hearing process on the subject, in view of perceiving what the public at large think of the apparent orientation towards attempting to find answers to economic problems through bilateral and regional preferential trade liberalization. Professionals’ National Front (PNF) decided to appoint a public commission with the objective of fulfilling this national need.
Association of Information Technology Professionals
In the vacuum of any prompt, real and genuine attempt by the Government of Sri Lanka to put the country’s long-term (national) interests first when any policies or strategies pertaining to foreign trade are concerned, in spite of written requests made by the professionals to prepare a National Policy for International Trade with wide public participation, it becomes the role of professionals of Sri Lanka to institute a public hearing process on the subject, in view of perceiving what the public at large think of the apparent orientation towards attempting to find answers to economic problems through bilateral and regional preferential trade liberalization. Professionals’ National Front (PNF) decided to appoint a public commission with the objective of fulfilling this national need.
Association of Information Technology Professionals
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