Nuwan Online - Nuwan Weerasinghe’s Web Log

I have to agree that we are not comparable to India in the ICT developments since India has created a clear advantage for her in Software and ICT product developments. It’s also quite visible how much of an Marketing effort the Indians have put in so far to boost their image as a potential destination for such FDI. If India has made a name for providing Software services, Sri-Lanka has wisely stayed away from the same area of competition and infact Sri-Lanka has followed a more product oriented strategy in Software and IT Services.

In a recent servey carried out by the World Bank, more than 50% of Sri-Lankan Software companies were found with their own proprietary  products. So the Sri-Lankans are not exactly competing with its Indian competitors, but are trying to go after a branding concept.

I believe this is the right way to go, since I cannot see how we are to compete with India due to so many evident reasons. This information is vital for me since we are slowly trying to create more awareness in software process improvement with CMMI in Sri-Lanka. It also tells me that, taking the Indian example for CMMI implementations wont go down as a mean of attraction in the same way here.

              Since it has to cater to a clientale which is more product oriented here, I need to see more closely the relevancy of CMMI to an off the shelf product development scenario. CMMI is extremely popular among software vendors providing services for overseas clients who are more aware of quality. This would be put to test in Sri-Lanka.

KPMG Sri-Lanka in collaboration with SLASI (Sri-Lanka Association for Software Industry) will be conducting a one day workshop on CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) for CEOs and Middle Management of Software Companies in Sri-Lanka. This would take place at the Hotel Trans Asia on the 26th of October. Resource personnel would be provided by KPMG India.

CMM and CMMI have been around for sometime,but it has gone virtually unnoticed in the local Software Industry. Even though CMMI is not restricted to Software Industry, it is widely seen as a benchmark in identifying the effectiveness of a development process practiced by a Software Company.India in this regard is far ahead of Sri-Lanka and has got hundreds of Software development organizations with CMM and CMMI ratings. India is using this situation to very good advantage when it comes to competition claiming the ability of her institutions to deliver the goods.

Sri-Lanka needs to act fast and has a lot of catching to do………..and I’m happy that I have my involvement in this. More would come on this regard in the near future.