Affno
completes 'Excellent' first year
Daily News - Tuesday May 22, 2001
Affno completed its first year of operation in March. Its CEO Suren
Kannangara described the first year as an excellent year. Here Mr.
Kannangara explains how the company achieved this success within
a short time.
Q: What do you attribute the success to?
A: There's no real secret. I think it has been
a lot of hard work by a very talented and dedicated team. Affno
was able to attract the brightest and the best. The entire team
works like one big happy family. Also our clients had a lot of faith
in us and trusted us to deliver, even before we had a proven track
record to speak of. We are very grateful to all of them. I'm happy
that Affno has got off to a good start but the road is long and
we have a long way to go. For a start up we've done well. In our
first year we were successful in winning major e-business integration
contracts that came up in Sri Lanka - the most prominent being the
SriLankan Airlines contract. Our plan was to set up our base here
in the first year and then expand internationally. However, we set
up successfully in the UK too in our maiden year and we're now poised
to enter the US Market as well.
Q: So would you say that we have the right people
for IT in Sri Lanka?
A: Most certainly, yes. I have worked with people
from all over the world during my tenure as a senior software engineer
at AT&T Bell Labs. And I'm convinced that our Sri Lankans are
as good as any in the world. As always it is not possible to generalize.
But if I do, I would say that our people are very talented, hardworking
and have a fine work ethic.
Q: Is Sri Lanka on par with India in terms of IT
resources?
A: As I mentioned our people are second to none.
The difference is however in the training and exposure. In that
respect we need to improve the quality of IT education in Sri Lanka.
It is not enough just teaching people programming. We need quality
institutions where people are taught how to design software. Also
their training should not be limited to the technical side. Other
aspects such as project management and some basics on marketing
and finance would be very useful if combined with the technical
training.
Q: How have Sri Lankan companies responded to e-business?
A: Very positively. One year ago, Sri Lankan companies
only wanted simple informational web sites. Now that has changed
dramatically. Today we see a huge trend in companies going into
various degrees of e-business.
These companies no longer are satisfied with static informational
sites. They want their site to do a job of work in driving business
for them. Two recent examples are Dimo and IE Technics. Both these
companies have built e-businesses enabling their clients to buy
their products on-line. In the case of IE Technics who manufacture
and market electronic products, they have integrated their procurement,
manufacturing, order processing and international delivery into
a seamless on-line process. Dimo on the other hand are targeting
a very specific audience in Sri Lanka through the e-business they
launched - Alokaonline. This is aimed at Architects and Interior
Decorators who need sophisticated lighting solutions. Likewise a
large number of companies are now looking at such integrated e-business
solutions.
Q: What are the barriers for Sri Lankan companies
getting into e-business?
A: I don't think there are any barriers here in
Sri Lanka, which cannot be overcome by someone who has a good e-business
idea. Thus the real barrier is in the mind. If one wants to find
excuses what can't one find? But if one looks further there are
solutions too. Take for example two commonly touted excuses: the
small number of Internet users and the lack of adequate bandwidth.
This is a chicken and egg situation. If we had enough users and
enough bandwidth, do we have enough quality and volume of content
to offer? On the other hand if one has a good idea there are millions
of users out there elsewhere in the world. And bandwidth is not
an issue either as one can host the site anywhere in the world.
Q: What would you say are the prerequisites for
a successful e-business in Sri Lanka?
A: The most important prerequisite was to have
an excellent product and service. This has been vividly demonstrated
with the huge number of Internet company crashes in the world last
year. But despite these crashes the well-established companies all
over the world are more and more aggressively moving on to the Internet.
Therefore the message for the well-established companies here in
Sri Lanka is to move on to the Internet and be ready to do business
on-line. And thankfully this is indeed happening in Sri Lanka.
The next most important thing is to build a brand. And there are
no short cuts here. One has to have a clearly mapped out plan and
have the will and courage to invest the required financial and other
resources behind the plan. Affno has forged alliances with top international
marketing services companies in UK and USA to provide our clients
a variety of inputs they need to successfully create brands and
market internationally.
Q: What was Affno's most exciting project in the
first year?
A: There were many. But the most exciting is perhaps
the e-business solution we provided for the Scientific Exploration
Society (SES) in England. The SES is organizing one of the largest
expeditions to be mounted by Britain, SES wanted scientists from
around the world to be able to follow the progress of the expedition
through the Internet. In addition SES also wanted to link the schools
in South America with the schools in Britain and Europe. Thus it
is expected that an estimated million people will be logging on
to the Internet daily to follow the progress of this expedition.
This expedition is also attracting wide media coverage internationally
in the likes of BBC, Discovery and National Geographic. Thus SES's
efforts have profound impact on the tourism industry as well. And
Affno plans to organize an SES expedition in Sri Lanka next year.
We have so much to offer in Sri Lanka and an expedition of this
nature could do much to boost our tourism industry.
Affno built the Internet site for this expedition and also provided
the total communications solution plus organized the international
marketing and PR. In the true Affno spirit of getting fully immersed
with clients' projects and always playing a value added role, Lasantha
Kannangara from Affno joined the explorers on their 4-month quest,
which began on May 15, Lasantha has prepared himself for this feat
over the past few months and is armed with a lot of background knowledge
of the region explored to compile reports and upload them to the
Internet together with pictures and streaming videos. He will also
liaise with the journalists and the international media.
Q: What are Affno's plans for the second year?
A: We have already moved into large-scale
integration projects. We looked at different sectors in Sri Lanka
where IT can drastically improve efficiencies or improve business.
Our maiden project in this respect is on the verge of fruition -
and we hope we'll be able to make the announcement very shortly.
In the meantime we'll be going ahead full steam with setting up
international operations.
Q: What is Affno's
financing plan?
A: We need additional
financial resources to move ahead as planned. The first year was
funded entirely by the equity put in by the shareholders. For the
next stage we're looking at either venture capital or something
more creative such as financing through debt by issuing medium-term
notes in the market.
