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Embla Software Innovation at a brainstorming session
“The software professionals need to understand the customer expectation to offer solutions,” – Chandimal Wickramaratne
By Shanika Sriyananda
Sri Lanka’s software industry, which has been awarded the ‘Outsourcing Destination of the Year’ by the National Outsourcing Association, UK for the last two years , needs to stay competitive but also needs to change the competitive edge to maintain ‘quality’, Chandimal Wickramaratne, CEO of the Embla Software Innovation Ltd., which won the prestigious NBQSA award recently, said.
“Present outsourcing to Sri Lanka is mostly dependent on the cost. We are in competition with other nations like Vietnam and East European countries, which will have lower cost structures. Staying in competition means having a different competitive edge. It is the quality,” Wickramaratne, who is in the software field for over 15 years said.
Commenting about the National Best Quality ICT Awards Sri Lanka (NBQSA), he said the country’s software industry needs competitions like NBQSA to set standards to maintain the quality of the industry.
“The NBQSA is the country’s most distinguished ICT competition that gives awards for companies which meet the highest quality standards. It has become the ‘Oscar’ equivalent in the software industry in Sri Lanka. Every year all the software companies from start-ups to well-established companies are looking forward to compete in the event to showcase their capabilities. We have been participating in this competition for the last two years and have won awards,” he said.
According to Wickramaratne, quality is the most vital aspect in the software industry but this has been misinterpreted by many software professionals in Sri Lanka.
“What is quality? This is one of the first questions I ask from potential candidates during their interviews. Nearly 50% of them get it wrong. Most of them think that software quality is something different from the general term ‘Quality’. They get more uncomfortable if I ask them to explain ‘what is quality?’ as if they are explaining it to a six-year old kid. ‘Quality’ is the customer expectation and most of the professionals in the software industry don’t seem to understand this,” he claimed.
Winning an award at the NBQSA competition gives recognition for outstanding achievement of individuals and organisations in Sri Lanka. It also helps to showcase the capabilities of the winning software companies internationally.
“Most importantly, the NBASA improves standards of the software industry in Sri Lanka. Especially it helps to improve the quality of ICT products and services. As a company, we have to align ourselves to the global trend and expectations and as a nation as well. This is where NBQSA will come in,” Wickramaratne told the Daily FT.
He said that the award winning product application – Dignio Prevent – developed by Embla Software Innovation, is not only aiming to reach the Norwegian market, but also internationally, with China being one of the countries where Dignio plans to expand.
“The award does not only consider the technical aspect of the application but also given much attention to the market potential of the product. This is Dignio Prevent’s strength, which is a crucial tool for both public and private health sectors to reduce expenses and resources while increasing efficiency,” he said.
According to the CEO, the company has a qualified team to handle the tasks efficiently to save time and money of our clients.
“Since its inception, the company is fully focused on delivering high quality products on time, and this award supports their efforts,” Wickramaratne said.
Explaining about the challenges in the software industry, he said that the software professionals need to understand the customer expectation to offer solutions.
“In general, most of them are either too technical to understand their customers or don’t have a good technical background even if they understand the customer,” he said adding that the developers of the Embla Software Innovation will have a direct contact with the customers to make sure that the developer understands the customer and his expectations clearly.
He said that this method has been able to bridge the communication gaps between the developer and customers as there are no several layers of communications between the two.
“Some will think it’s a bold approach, in which software ‘Geeks’ can’t interact with customers. But our plan is for the long term sustainability. Even for client or customer interaction, training is important and we make sure that we go through all interaction with the customer and identify what not be done the next time and what are the things that we should promote. Each of our customers is unique, so we go through each person their thinking pattern to identify the best solution that customer expects,” Wickramaratne said.
He said that the NBQSA would boost the team understanding of the customer and the product. “For an example, one of the criteria checks in the NBQSA is the uniqueness of the product. This is the time that teams will have to dig deep to find out about other competitors and why our product is so unique and what our product offers. This is the understanding any customer would want from their development team,” he explained.
With becoming an NBQSA award-winning software company and also a nominee of the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance the client of the Embla Software Innovation has expanded the product to China, which is a significant achievement for them.
“This indicates the capability of our company as well as the capability of the Sri Lankan ICT industry to the global community,” he said.
Embla Software Innovation, has won a prestigious ‘National Best quality ICT Awards (NBQSA)’ in the ‘Healthcare (e-Health) Applications’ category at the NBQSA award ceremony held in Colombo, recently.
Dignio Prevent – the novel product application, which aimed to assist seniors to chart medical measurements in their homes and to give an overview of treatment plans and schedule medication, has been in the development process since December 2014 in Sri Lanka.
“This new software product version will be launched in December 2015. It is not only helping the seniors to have easy access to their health records but also save their lives in case of an emergency,” says Chathuranga Bandara, team leader of the Dignio Prevent developers. According to Bandara, the product is developed using robust open source technologies to ensure stability, reliability and security.
“Winning this award means a lot to the team, as they have developed this product-version from scratch. It will motivate them even more,” he said.
Embla Software Innovation is offering resource outsourcing since 2009 and is now providing Extended Office services to many clients in Norway.
