Informatics Celebrates Two Decades of Business

Year 2003 is a significant milestone for one of Sri Lanka's pioneering IT giants, Informatics who celebrates its 20 th Anniversary. A simple ceremony was held at their new plush office complex in Borella recently to mark this occasion. Informatics, established in 1983 with a mission to be a leading Systems Integrator providing quality innovative IT solutions to its customers has since recognized the importance of being a software solutions provider, and today is proud to be the largest software house in Sri Lanka.

Informatics was quick to identify that the IT human resources available in Sri Lanka is of the highest quality, and set its sights on the lucrative markets in other countries for software exports from as far back as 1987. Today they are one of the largest software exporting companies in Sri Lanka. The company's software export revenues were so good that in 1988 the Informatics received the coveted "Pioneering Status" from the Export Development Board of Sri Lanka. Due to their continuous growth in volume and foreign currency earnings, they received an award of "Certificate of Merit" in 1989 for creditable performance in the export of software. In the same year, the company acquired the rare distinction of been the only winner of an award in this category.

The company's record of successes in the IT industry in Sri Lanka is overwhelming. With a varied clientele ranging from Government Institutions, State & Private Sector Banks and other Private Sector establishments of varying sizes, Informatics have provided quality solutions that have far exceeded customer expectations over the years. IT solutions provided have covered diverse vertical market segments such as banking & finance, e-governance solutions, hotel, retail, consumer billing, insurance, trade & manufacturing to name a few. In the Banking & Finance sector, Informatics has provided front-end & back office solutions to over 350 private and public bank branches including a similar number of Automated Teller Machines throughout the island thus making Informatics the market leaders in bank branch automation in Sri Lanka. Informatics have also achieved unparalleled success in the implementation of e-Government solutions in Sri Lanka.

In the International arena, Informatics can boast of a number of success stories in several countries including UK, USA, Germany, Holland, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Norway, Sweden and Pakistan. Its flagship product AvaBill - a Telecom Billing & Customer Care System has installations in a number of countries in the Asia/Pacific region and has been adopted as a preferred solution by the industry giant Cable & Wireless. In addition to this, Informatics have established three joint venture projects for software development and R&D in Sri Lanka with leading software product companies from Sweden, Norway and Australia employing over 300 talented software engineers in Sri Lanka.

Informatics realized the importance of quality in all its offerings very early in the day and became the first ever Sri Lankan software company to obtain ISO 9001:2000 certification from Det Norske Veritas Certification B V (DNV) of Netherlands, which is an international accredited certification body.

Thirteen year ago, realizing the requirement and demand for quality IT professionals, Informatics pioneered the award of foreign IT Degrees in Sri Lanka. The Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT), a fully owned subsidiary of Informatics, embarked on a project in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University of U.K. in 1990 to conduct B.Sc./B.Sc. (Hon) degree programs in Applied Computer Science and Business Administration. Ten years later, in the year 2000 IIT enhanced its education offerings by partnering with Keele University of the UK to inaugurate the first ever British MSc program in Information Technology in Sri Lanka. IIT is thus the largest privately owned campus in Sri Lanka.

According to its Managing Director, Gamini Wickramasinghe, Technology companies rarely survive 20 years unless they are prepared to effectively strategize and re-align themselves to adopt new technologies, new markets and new trends. The secret of its record of successes has been their ability to innovate, add value and work on the widely accepted theme that "a satisfied customer ensures a win-win situation for all". Mr. Wickramasinghe wishes to thank to all its customers and well wishers for keeping them in business for the past 20 years and offers special thanks to its entire staff that according to him has been the 'key' to its success throughout the 20 years.