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SL even behind Afghanistan in digital transformation: Oshada Senanayake

04 Nov 2021

  • TRCSL DG laments SL transforming digitally at snail’s pace
  • Says archaic IT infrastructure methods should be off the table
  • Highlights even enabling emails for public sector a big deal
  • Submarine Cable Protection Bill to Parliament soon
By Shenal Fernando Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) Chairman and Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Director General Oshada Senanayake lamented the present state of Sri Lanka’s digital transformation, pointing to the fact that countries such as Bhutan, Afghanistan, and Nepal have springboarded ahead of us in this regard and that it is imperative Sri Lanka catches up. These comments were expressed during the launch event of OrionStellar yesterday (3). “Even with all that is going on in Afghanistan, they, Nepal, and Bangladesh are spring boarding in digital transformation ahead of us. We have a lot to catch up on.” Explaining further, he claimed that Sri Lanka is struggling to execute even basic digital functions such as enabling emails for the public sector. He was further critical of Sri Lanka’s continuous reliance on archaic measures with regard to developing IT infrastructure and proposed the adoption of a cloud-first strategy similar to that imposed by Australia and the UK. Under the cloud-first strategy, both the UK and Australia have mandated government organisations to take a cloud-first approach when adding new IT services or replacing existing services. According to the global multispectral benchmark developed by McKinsey, called “Digital Quotient”, Sri Lanka has a DQ score of 35, which places the country barely above the global median of 33. This benchmark is developed based on in-depth surveys across four core pillars of successful digital transformation – strategy, capabilities, organisational practices, and culture – encompassing 18 management practices including customer experience, automation, and digital talent. McKinsey’s analysis of 50 Sri Lankan companies across multiple industries identified that while Sri Lanka in comparison to its other Asia Pacific neighbours possesses strengths in connectivity, digital marketing, investment in digital initiatives, and the ability to move quickly, it is still significantly lagging behind developed countries such as China and India. McKinsey further identified that Sri Lanka’s weaknesses include the appetite for risk, ability to integrate their digital priorities into the overall business strategy, automation of internal and customer-facing processes, and adoption of a collaborative culture between the digital teams and business functions. Senanayake further claimed with pride that Sri Lanka possesses an extensive network of fibre-optic submarine cables, making it one of the first countries in Asia to obtain such a network and that this advantage should be leveraged in achieving Sri Lanka’s digital transformation goals. However, the absence of a legal framework to protect submarine cables has been a lingering issue, and as a result, in the instance of a vessel damaging a network cable, there is no legal remedy available in Sri Lanka. Consequently, a draft bill has been drawn for such a purpose, and according to Senanayake, it will be presented to Parliament soon. He further claimed that under the vision of achieving a digital economy in Sri Lanka, the $ 5 billion IT industry of the country is expected to expand to $ 5 billion within the next four to five years. However, he claimed that Sri Lanka’s IT industry must move away from its current service-oriented nature and produce its own products to be marketed globally. If such a transformation is achieved within the local IT industry, he expects the growth of it to exceed the projected $ 5 billion mark. OrionStellar, located at the Orion City IT Park in Colombo 9, is Sri Lanka’s first carrier-neutral, high-density data centre built to TIA Tier-3 standards and possesses a capacity of over 200 racks. The new data centre represents an important milestone in the journey to achieving Sri Lanka’s vision of a digital economy, which will require a significant escalation in computing power. This data centre promises the highest energy efficiency and power density up to 15kW per rack with a total power capacity of 1.5 MW.


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