Sri Lanka’s IT industry has the potential for growth and is a major contributor to the nation’s foreign exchange earnings. During a recent LMDtv interview, Director/CEO of Metropolitan Technologies Ali Asgar Roshanali said that political stability and consistent GDP growth will contribute to the industry’s expansion.

He also mentioned that proper digital infrastructure, knowledge and sufficient tech education (beginning at primary school level) are needed to fuel this growth.

Roshanali explained: “Digital financial services have to improve. We see how countries such as India with massive rural populations are going cashless. This is the first step we need to take as a nation when it comes to improving digital financial services and acceptance of such services by people.”

Though the adoption of tech advancements such as AI and machine learning have enjoyed an uptick in Sri Lanka, he noted that progress is slow and would take time. On the other hand, Roshanali pointed out that cloud computing is a good option for the country due to its ability to be a cost-effective solution for small organisations, which can’t afford digital infrastructure.

He stated: “Statistically speaking, a large portion of Sri Lanka’s economy is attributable to SMEs and they constitute the most dynamic sector in the country. However, since most of the sector isn’t structured, small and medium-size enterprises need to embrace structures and platforms that they can afford.

“For instance, installing a cloud based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution would be the easiest because no infrastructure investment is needed,” he explained.

Getting on the cloud will help smaller organisations move onto artificial intelligence support, he pointed out: “AI is able to do your marketing, advertising, data analytics and more, all of which are absolutely important factors in today’s business landscape.”

Roshanali continued: “Data analytics will help you know customer trends and where to find clients, and instead of a machine gun approach, you can use a sniper approach.”

Moving to e-commerce platforms is also beneficial for smaller organisations, as Roshanali explained: “Sri Lanka is showing a lot of promise with e-commerce; customer confidence levels are increasing and they’re even purchasing high value equipment online. Unlike previously, buyers aren’t afraid to make online payments or order something without physically touching it.”

Facilitating the adoption of tech by enterprises is key but this process has to begin with education.

“We need to improve the tech literacy of the next generation but also look at the existing generation. If your com­pany is adopting technology, then there’s no point only training future employees – the existing workforce also has to be trained. Tech literacy is very important to all generations, especially baby boomers – the demographic cohort to which most of our leaders belong,” he said.

Next comes investment for the necessary infrastructure. “Organisations must account for infrastructure related investments in their budgets the same way they’d invest in people,” Roshanali averred.

He continued: “One way of adopting tech in your organisation is to take the leap. Most companies still hold back because their structures or processes don’t allow it, or the board of management may be slightly old-fashioned.”

Roshanali also explained that “if your organisation still issues cheques, you need to take the leap and say that you’ll only process online payments from tomorrow. It’s not easy; every decision you make requires you to get accustomed to change. People who may be slightly averse to change will have no choice but to jump on the bandwagon – this is what the pandemic did to us and it was a great learning experience.”

“When it comes to accepting and embracing tech, having a gradual or incremental approach is needed but somewhere down the line, you need to take a leap,” he concluded.