Smart
Media gets an Affno solution
The Island - Sunday February 03, 2002
Sri Lanka's Annual Report Company, Smart Media presented a preview
of its intranet and extranet built by Affno - the software engineering
company specializing in e-business.
Smart Media's CEO Rochelle Kannangara, making the presentation at
the recently concluded National Conference of the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) said that the Company's latest
high tech investment would be launched by June this year.
Explaining the rationale for their high-tech software investment,
Kannangara said that every year Smart Media tries to see how they
can add more value to clients. "It is this constant search
for ways in which to add value that led us to realize that we can
reduce some of the pressure our clients experience during the production
of an annual report. In essence this new software system would act
like an intelligent project manager for our clients.
"Once
schedules are agreed upon the system will automatically track the
progress and show the client graphically the status of each task.
So the client can take timely action if any task is running behind
schedule. Likewise a large team from the client's end gets involved
in the annual report production process.
"It is not
uncommon for the Chairman, CEO CFO, head of marketing, head of human
resources and many others to get involved in the process at some
point or the other. So the individual charged with the responsibility
of bringing out the Annual Report can co-ordinate and track the
work of the entire team giving them various levels of access to
the report in development.
"The system will all the
while maintain a comprehensive log of who did what so that everyone
is held accountable. Stringent security measures similar to those
used in electronic banking have been employed. Any text change,
comment or remark made by the client will be channeled automatically
to the relevant people at Smart Media through the system.
"At Smart Media we work in teams. So different people work
in different teams on different projects concurrently. This system
will greatly facilitate this process and makes the teamwork a lot
more productive. There's also a comprehensive document management
system that enables Smart Media to store and retrieve information
in a more efficient and responsible manner".
Affno's CEO Suren Kannangara commenting on the design of software
said that Smart Media had a very good system working very well for
them and there was really no need to change it. So what Affno did
was to study their existing system and build the software for it,
which simply enhances the whole operation at Smart Media giving
it a turbo boost as it were, rather than impose any new systems
on them.
The software design objectives were to enhance customer satisfaction,
reduce operating costs and provide a comprehensive knowledge repository.
He added that the intranet and document management software systems
are Affno's own patent pending software products and hence enable
Affno to build truly customized software solutions.
Ranel T. Wijesinha, outgoing President of the ICASL and current
President of the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants
(CAPA) said that all over the world the production of an annual
report is considered to be a major time consuming task which impacts
on day-to-day running of business. It is therefore commendable to
see Sri Lankan Smart Media having seemed to perfect the 'recipe'
for producing annual reports, which is evident by their world class
work for a large cross section of clients. Their new software system
will no doubt add tremendous value to companies who are increasingly
pressed by demands of greater transparency and timeliness in reporting.
The new President of ICASL, Asite Talwatte commented that this software
system is a great example of how any company, no matter what its
size, can benefit immensely if their software investments are focused
to specific objectives and meticulously executed. This technology
enables corporate CEO's and CFO's to interactively contribute to
enhancing the value chain of the annual report production process.
"We are also fortunate to have world-class software engineering
companies of the calibre of Affno in Sri Lanka to bring such technology
into our market place", he added.
