Brief company history

 

Sri Lanka Association for Software Services Companies (SLASSCOM) is the national chamber for the knowledge and innovation industry in Sri Lanka and acts as the catalyst of growth. We do this by facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouraging research and innovation, and by influencing a national policy framework of value to the industry. SLASSCOM has over 200 member companies with a 30,000+ employee base.

SLASSCOM drives the Imagination Economy: Sri Lanka’s Industry of the future, with the potential to become the #1 export revenue earner for Sri Lanka.

The SLASSCOM Board supported by the Past-Chairmen and an Advisory Board determines the priorities and goals for SLASSCOM, driven by industry needs.

Our vision for 2025 is to:

– Generate USD 5.0 billion of revenue

– Create 200,000 direct jobs

– Establish 1000 IT/BPM startups

SLASSCOM key strategic initiatives are run by 9 different forums; Marketing, Capacity, Regional Development, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Quality, Business Process Management, Innovation, and Human Resources. Each of these forums is comprised of industry leaders and volunteers, forums drive the key strategic initiatives at SLASSCOM.

The strategies come to life through the intervention of the General Council and Corporate Office.

Our key strategic initiatives under forums are:

Marketing and Demand Generation

– Marketing – Access to markets and assisting companies grow

Capacity and Skills Development

– Capacity – Increasing the talent pool, enhancing capacity and skills

– Regional Development – Developing regional IT hubs across the island

– Entrepreneurship – Triggering Sri Lanka’s next unicorn

– TechKids – Infleuncing future Tech Leaders

Building Industry Capability

– Technology – Enabling talent with technology trends

– Quality – Embedding quality into talent and organizations

– Business Process Management – Building industry capacity and visibility

– Innovation – Harnessing Sri Lanka’s ingenuity

15 years ago, the IT/BPM industry recorded an export revenue of $50 million and today, quoting Central Bank figures for 2015, it’s at $850 million, employing around 80,000 professionals. We are inching towards becoming a $1-billion-dollar industry. We have become the fifth largest export revenue earners with 95 % value addition. It has been a journey not by accident but by a plan made 10 years ago when we set our mission to become a billion-dollar industry. And looking into the future, in line with making Sri Lanka a key IT/BPM destination, SLASSCOM’s Vision 2022 is an aspiration that foresees the Sri Lankan IT Sector becoming a $ 5 billion industries, creating 200,000 direct jobs and enabling the launch of 1,000 startups. This Strategy Document, which is the first of its kind, mirrors this tactical direction that we had, starting 10 years ago and outlines the framework that will see Vision 2022 become a reality. The industry’s main priority for the next decade is to move up the value chain, doing away with the dependency on cost arbitrage and instead focusing on niche sectors to truly deliver high value added products and services. The document outlines four key focus areas and seven proposed initiatives that take into consideration all these factors and will drive Sri Lanka towards being an innovative and competitive player in the global IT/BPM sphere. Yet, this cannot be achieved alone – it requires support from not just the key stakeholders, but every player in the industry, from the government bodies to the private companies, innovators, entrepreneurs, to the academia, to action this strategy and make it a reality.