Sri Lanka: Poised to Excel in IT Development & Offshoring

Imran Hishaam | Jul 6, 2024

3 mins read

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1. Depth of skill


  1. Highly skilled IT talent pool which can help scale any operation, ranging from simple IT services to captive development centers and offshore product engineering teams
  2. Higher concentration of “core IT” and “core software engineering” subjects covered in the average graduate degrees


2. Breadth of skill


  1. About 150,000+ pool of highly trained and experienced Software Engineers
  2. Adds about 15,000+ every year


3. Geographical location of Sri Lanka means sufficient “work-day overlap” with the Nordic region, rest of Europe and Far-East


  1. Works well for international clients in the Nordic region / Europe (at least 4 hour overlap) and Far East Asia/ Pacific (at least 4 hour overlap)


4. Infrastructure and Eco-system


  1. Free education up to Bachelors degree level
  2. Asia’s lowest data charges has helped Sri Lanka’s growth in internet connectivity
  3. Government and private programs to increase regional work spaces, coworking spaces, and support for bulk buying and distribution of key Cloud infrastructure access


5. “Best practice” grooming along with international success stories


  1. Teams born and groomed in Sri Lanka are providing high quality and mission critical services for international products. Examples include the London Stock Exchange Group (stock market trading system / Fintech), Pearson’s (EdTech), Creately (Productivity tools), WSO2 and IFS (ERP)
  2. These success stories also have led to key domain/sector knowledge being available within the talent pool
  3. Resources are groomed in “best practices” including development workflow management, good coding practices, technical documentation, and soft skills such as communication and challenge management. This helps international clients fast track the onboarding and integration of Sri Lankan talent.


6. Cultural edge in relationship building and management


  1. The “can do” problem solving attitude. Sri Lankan resources are known for going the extra mile beyond defined work hours and frameworks to deliver creative solutions
  2. Human touch with “accommodative” and flexible engagement of the client. Such values are ingrained in the Sri Lankan culture of hospitality
  3. Culture of self learning


7. Taxation / Fiscal advantages


  1. Local income and sales taxes for the IT industry are between 0% to 10%, being the lowest in the South Asian region.
  2. Such savings also help us recruit highly skilled resources with flexibility in pay and mobility.