Colombo Transforming to an IT HUB

20 years ago there were virtually a few international players established in Sri Lanka to carry out operations other than from their headquarters.

Today most of the graduates work in multinational companies that have a presence in Sri Lanka.

Be it in any industry, more and more companies are setting up showing an interest in carrying out an operations centre from Colombo.

Here are the top reasons why Colombo is fast developing into an IT Hub.

Skilled Workforce

The amount of talent pool with training, education and experience is widely available in the Colombo market when compared to the rest of the country.

Here are the streams these local talent is produced

• State Universities

A large local pool is generated directly from local state universities. Not only do they provide free education they also provide a fantastic curriculum for local graduates to reap the benifits of their education with excellent employment options.

• Private Universities

This was once a highly debated topic, if children in the country should be allowed to study at private universities aside of the political side of things.

Private universities have become the backbone of producing large number of local talent.

Private universities have affiliations with world wide top notch universities and even have the opportunity of international student exchange programmes.

The University of Technology Sydney branched out to open its very own campus in Colombo to cater to the demand technology graduate studies in Sri Lanka.

• Returning International Graduates

Most Sri Lankan youth travel overseas for graduate education as quotas for local state universities are only a handful and not everyone gets the opportunity to study in Colombo.

These returning graduates have a much wider scope in terms of knowledge and experience.

Partly because they are educated in a multicultural campus and have access to superior knowledge and training.

• Experienced Professionals

These are professionals who have experience in working at local and multinational or even startup firms. Who readily possess the knowledge and experience of working in the industry.

 Yes, Colombo has been developing as an IT Hub for a considerable time and therefore there is no shortage in this type of talent.

It’s not just the coders, there is also no shortage when it comes to cross vertical experience in account management, business development and other expected skills.

Infrastructure

The start up eco system has shown welcoming signs in Colombo IT industry. 

More and more real estate developments are focusing on catering this community to significantly improve their working conditions.

In a real estate perspective local start ups are setting up out in the suburbs to reduce their financial burden and keep their overheads to a minimum. 

The local established multinationals however do have a strict control in terms of their real estate selection. Be it the in the city center or the suburbs there are no short cuts or compromises when it comes to search and selections to locate their operations center.

To cater to the incubators the local start up community has built out spaces where the small team can grow without the financial burden. There are international establishments like the IWG plc, Hatch, The Executive Center and also local establishments who have ventured out to support the growth phase of these start ups.

The locations of these serviced offices are both based in the business center and suburban locations. 

This allows the start ups to focus on their core business activities rather than focus on looking to accommodate themselves under pressure of capital expenditure and be stuck up to their eye balls in debt.

The larger multinational establishments also have become anchor tenants in properties taking up to more than 30% of the total occupancy in the development. 

Whereby landlords have also been able to achieve their objectives in terms of guaranteed financial returns as well where the tenants have also achieved significant favourable non commercial returns for their occupancy.

The properties have also focused in developing their standards beyond par to attract these long term multinational players with updated safety features and security.

This also has paved the way to faster rates of cannibalization of B grade spaces to A grade spaces. 

Time Zone

My first Boss was a very active in marketing this feature to offshore clients as to how well strategically located Colombo is when it comes to doing business with the rest of the world.

Colombo lies just North of the equator so enjoy sunshine year long with just 2 seasons sunny and wet.

It’s just 5.5 hours ahead of London, 1.5 hours ahead of Dubai, 2.5 hours behind Singapore and 5.5 hours behind Sydney.

The location advantage also includes direct flights to Europe, Middle East and most Asia Pacific. You may also get to any destination under 12 hours of journey time.

Let’s leave America for the moment, although most businesses in Sri Lanka do have majority of the offshore clients in the US it’s a far sling shot.

Industry Bodies 

SLASSCOM is one industry body which has members of all types ranging from multinationals, blue chips to start ups.

Regular industry meetings, forums and breakfast gatherings have focused on mutual betterment of the IT industry in Colombo.

Sharing knowledge is also a key concept as to why SLASSCOM is hugely a successful industry body.

Regular notifications to members on upcoming industry events have all kept this a tight knit community with the aim of taking the IT Industry in Sri Lanka to a US$ 5 Billion value by 2022 contributing to 200,000 direct jobs.

Conclusion

IT Industry is a hot topic with Telecommunication service providers improving service features to cater the ever growing demand of these tech companies.

The local start ups are incubating to take off while multinationals are looking at better talent pool to start an operations center. Things are changing for better but not without it’s challenges however we expect it only to be far superior to how it is now in the coming years.

The coming years we hope to see Amazon, Google setting up R&D centers to reap the rewards of the rich talent pool.