IBM with their recently announced partnership with PMsquare Sri Lanka is looking to offer products in the Sri Lankan corporate market. The partnership will use IBM Business Analytics Partner PMSquare which was operating an office in Sri Lanka providing managed support out of Sri Lanka to the US, Australia, and ASEAN to cater to local and international players.
PMsquare has already invested US$ 300,000 in Sri Lanka and is generating positive foreign revenues for the country. The team in Sri Lanka currently consists of 18 members. Expansion of the team to 25 members was delayed by COVID-19. If plans are successful, the team will exceed 50 members in 3 years.
Director, PMsquare Sri Lanka Kaveenga Wijayasekara said, “We have a unique blend of IT, accounting, and mathematics.” The team is expected to develop and manage applications for Sri Lankan clients.
The company has already approached leading banks and telecommunications providers. Wijayasekara said “no one has baulked at the prices put forward. We can offer a localised rate as well. Implementation can be done by someone locally who you can contact.”
Companies will be able to purchase software and services on a license/subscription basis which they can host on their hardware or lean on IBM’s infrastructure for the services.
The announcement was made on 8 September at a joint press conference with representatives from IBM India, IBM Sri Lanka, and PMsquare representatives globally.
Country General Manager IBM Sri Lanka Riza Wadood deemed Microsoft Excel legacy software. Wadood said of Sri Lankan corporate planning “there are thousands of excel sheets that need to go around in these plans.”
IBM has been globally acquiring and investing in the data analytics space. IBM acquired RedHat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions to corporates.
IBM also developed Watson and acquired SPSS. The firm’s technology is being used to monitor clinical trials of drugs and make decisions dynamically in multibillion-dollar organisations.
CFO PMsquare Jason Rankin said IBM had invested US$ 6 billion recently into data software. The company has now driven down the cost of analytics even compared to Microsoft Excel. Artificial intelligence and cloud computing remain at the core of the IBM PMsquare offering.
