“IT is an enabler in the business process” - Jayantha De Silva, Vice President, South Asia IFS

Jayantha De Silva Vice President South Asia IFS

Ashan Kumar met Jayantha De Silva Vice President South Asia IFS to understand How IT changed his life…

“IT is an enabler in the business process”

Looking back at the transformation IT has made in Sri Lanka, it has made and enriched many of the businesses to rise to the top enabling and strengthening the total business process in an organization. “In the past we had only a few areas in IT enabling, mainly in payrolls. Gradually IT was utilized to maximize efficiency and escalate returns”, was the opinion of a practiced individual in the field, Jayantha De Silva Vice President South Asia IFS.

An old boy of St. Anthony’s College Wattala, his parents were both government servants, he had an undying passion for technical engineering exploring avenues in the electrical engineering  from the start which was his early ambition.

In 1977, he was involved in the area of statistics in an UNFAO sponsored programme where he was awarded a scholarship to attend the in United States where he learnt software engineering, and returned to the country to establish his career and work for the mother land.

As a pillar in the IT field he believes in transferring knowledge gained, share and help the industry to grow and gain momentum in the global spectrum makes a complete person. The BCS Chairperson for two consecutive years and Chairman of the Software Exports Association and served the UCSC as an Director currently is serving in the capacity of a Director in SLASSCOM - Sri Lanka Association of Software Services Companies.

He continued on the vast revolution IT has achieved, “In the present IT is a huge spectrum, even an artist, doctor, chefs, can be a good IT specialist - using IT as an enabler they will be able to add value to their services and products. Success of my life can be easily attributed to IT. When queried about the recession period business impact he confidently said “the most successful year for IFS was in 2009, this is mainly because of the strategy built within the team”. He explained his ideas to survive in a competitive field, “in the game of competition we always try to keep pace with extensive investments on R&D the Sri Lankan IFS offices in Colombo and Kandy there are over 750 employees and 600 of that lot are dedicated to R&D, which demonstrates the value of always been on top of global trends. We continue to produce new ERP versions frequently to keep pace.

Explaining about the Knowledge Economy in Sri Lanka Jayantha added “To enhance the capacity in the industry I strongly suggest incorporating and making IT a subject compulsory into the O/L and A/L or even starting from the grade 6 syllabus in all schools through out the island this will make their CV heavy as they will be well equipped with the basics or even an in-depth knowledge of the subject. It will benefit the talent and the country as a whole as it will be an ingredient for a strong knowledge economy. The need to encourage entrepreneurship is fundamental; we are a small country with tremendous talent. The real strength in Sri Lanka is in the area of “Conceptual Design” our talent is naturally blessed with. We need to build on our strength and create our own identity. The industry is going in the right direction. I will focus my efforts in the schools for a better future in the IT sector to produce talent in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has an advantage in the talent pool who are well learned, cost on general commodities are relatively expensive compared to other countries for IT companies to set up but the government has helped a lot in this avenue.