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Rural talent to the fore as BPO goes to the villages
The collective capabilities of Sri Lanka’s rural youth in dealing with highly professional Business Accounting and Data Processing services and their reputed knowledge of the English language, have opened new vistas for them in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), by taking the industry to Sri Lanka’s villages.
With these professional services being diverted from Colombo to rural bases, this effort is not only providing employment to rural youth in and around their own villages, but also providing opportunities for local and foreign companies to turn to Sri Lankan talent, for services in a highly competitive global industry.
The appeal to turn to skilled Sri Lankan talent and benefit from its internationally accepted professional resources was underlined by leading figures of InfoMate, a subsidiary of one of Sri Lanka’s leading corporates, when they showcased the achievements of the rural ventures they had helped create and develop in the villages of Mahavilachchiya bordering the Wilpattu National Park, Seenigama in the south and in Jaffna in the north.
The InfoMate delegation’s visit was to inform the Sri Lanka diaspora and others, of the latent talent available in abundance and the success of the village BPO projects that have earned professional respect, and to make use of this talent by diverting business to these rural BPOs.
Sri Lanka’s pool of professional talent, capable of managing outsourced business, is exemplified by the country having the largest number of CIMA-qualified Accountants in the world, after the UK.
At the event held last week, at the Sri Lanka Mission, Acting High Commissioner (AHC) Sugeeshwara Gunaratne in his welcome address, was quick to pinpoint that Sri Lanka is recognized as one of the emerging destinations for offshore services for ICT and BPO services.
AHC Gunaratne also mentioned that Finance and Accounting, Legal, Insurance, Banking, Telecommunication, Data Management and Consultancy are some of the main areas of focus and many global service providers have selected Sri Lanka to set up their businesses. Some have praised Sri Lanka as a “Centre of Excellence” for the services it has provided. He said that, as a result of the initiatives taken by the Sri Lanka Government, Global Sourcing Association (GSA) UK promotes Sri Lanka as a top outsourcing destination among their members.
InfoMate (Pvt) Ltd CEO Jehan Perinpanayagam, who gave the keynote address, later told me that one of the factors that make these rural Centres successful is that, the youth can live and work from home, within their own environment, without having to find employment in Colombo, where living could be too expensive. These Centres provide sustainable livelihoods in an environment they are familiar with.