Infomate: A relentless pursuit of innovation, excellence, and growth

Jehan Perinpanayagam, Chief Executive Officer at Infomate, a pioneering BPM company and leading BPM export earner that is part of the John Keells Group, shares insights into the unfolding economic and political crisis, and how Infomate is positioning itself as a pillar of strength for its investors, people, customers, and the community.

Can you briefly take us through the company’s journey and its role in establishing the tech industry and enabling a modern economy?

Infomate started 17 years ago, providing shared services to the John Keells Group companies, but we had much bigger ambitions. We wanted to be a significant player in the BPM industry of Sri Lanka and a significant contributor to the national economy as an exporter. Whilst we commenced our journey providing finance and accounting services to the John Keells Group, we have now progressed significantly in leaps and bounds and are ranked among the top 6 BPM exporters in the country today with significant exports to Australia and Europe serving some of the biggest international brands.

We expanded our range of services, from finance and accounting to other back-office services, including shipping documentation, data analytics, robotic process automation, HR services, helpdesk and many more. We were the first to pioneer the concept of rural BPM. We are very passionate about Sri Lanka and in terms of employing youth developing their careers, creating rural employment opportunities, and contributing to the national economy, and despite the unfolding challenges we are committed to growth.

How do you see the unfolding economic crisis panning out?

It is, concerning for sure on multiple fronts. There is the delivery side making sure that we continue to deliver to expectations, looking after our employees in the face of this crisis and continuing to grow. While the macroeconomic conditions are challenging, we have continued to lobby with the authorities to ensure that our companies can continue to function optimally. We have as an industry released a statement expressing the industry’s view and asked for stability, and we are working diligently with authorities and all stakeholders. From a company standpoint, we have taken several measures. First, we want to safeguard our employees’ well-being. In that respect, we are looking at assisting employees by rolling out a care package that will counter the effects of inflation. This is an initiative across the JKH Group. We keep our clients closely updated and have briefed them on the many measures taken including plans for eventualities and I must say with deep gratitude that all our clients have been incredibly supportive. Incredibly, we migrated one of our biggest overseas projects over the last month and this shows that we can not only continue to perform optimally but continue our growth trajectory.

We hope that this current crisis can be resolved quickly. We are encouraged by some of the reports of friendly countries reaching out, as well as institutions like the ADB and World Bank coming to our assistance, and the positive feedback from the IMF. We think that this may be a great opportunity for a reset and to address some of the long-overdue governance and fiscal issues that had been neglected for decades.

In the short term, we are going to have a lot of challenges, particularly over the next 12 months. We have been following economists, and believe that by 2023, things should start getting better. We need to take careful measures to go through the next 12 months, such as taking care of our employees, ensuring delivery excellence to clients, and creating growth opportunities.

How do you propose to unlock new growth opportunities?

We are undertaking an overseas mission over the next couple of days. There are some big promotional activities planned for this year, which we are continuing. We want to continue to invest in the industry, invest in our staff and our customers, and roll out new services. Right at this moment, as mentioned above, we are in the process of migrating our biggest overseas project. We grew during the pandemic, and we are confident of continuing along this trajectory.

During the outbreak of Covid-19 Infomate proved to be a dependable partner to all our global clients, many of whom were experiencing tremendous anxiety and uncertainty as the pandemic unfolded in their home markets. Infomate, in many cases, was one of the few constants throughout those tumultuous months providing reliability. We not only maintained our service levels but surpassed them to the delight of our clients, as their positive feedback has shown, and we will continue to be that force of stability going forward.

How will Infomate contribute to driving the tech industry forward?

We play a vital role in the IT BPO industry. I currently serve as Vice-Chair of SLASSCOM, and a lot of our staff are involved as volunteers in different programmes. Members of team Infomate are engaged in the ESG and BPM forums of SLASSCOM.

We continue to share our feedback inputs so that the industry can shape its response to stakeholder concerns. We also continue to bring in new business and also encourage new investment into the country. As part of the industry initiative, we have met with several companies looking at directly investing in Sri Lanka. We have shared our feedback based on our experience, the current situation, access to talent, and stability, As part of the IT BPO industry, I have been privileged to be part of several of those discussions where we have seen those discussions come to fruition.

How is Infomate helping businesses reimagine themselves to face the unfolding crisis and emerge stronger?

Our customers are in different industries. If you look at the revenue mix, we are supporting the John Keells Group subsidiaries as well as several other leading conglomerates and corporates in Sri Lanka representing several industries from apparel to logistics, leisure, real estate, construction, financial services and more. So, we take care of their back-office needs and we give them the comfort that they can focus on their core business uninterrupted.

How is Infomate shaping the future of this country?

Infomate is a significant contributor to the foreign exchange earnings of the country, and we are looking at growing our contribution while we continue to empower local businesses to reimagine themselves for the future, tide over this crisis and scale up for growth.

We also work well with small businesses. I think one of the things that we have learned is that small companies should not despise the day of small beginnings. In other words, you may start something in a small way, but that can grow and take a complete life of its own. Do not downplay that, or do not underestimate the power of those efforts, because that can grow. We started our rural BPO with two people, now after 13 years, we have employed over 250 people through this model.

Continuing our ESG commitments is critical because everyone wins from this. Among our ESG initiatives is a programme to upskill orphan girls in IT and the English Language and provide employment opportunities at Infomate. Our programme benefits the country, individuals, and the business. It creates a very loyal, stable workforce. It creates new talent pools. So, it is not just charity, it is a sustainable business. And the biggest thing that you will give them is hope. They will see that there is a career for them. We give them inspiration and a vision.

In conclusion, what I like to say is that Infomate is committed to growth so that investors, employees, customers, the tech industry, and the community, the people of this country, are benefitted from our efforts, because we are in this together, and together we can overcome any challenge.

Incredibly, we migrated one of our biggest overseas projects over the last month and this shows that we can not only continue to perform optimally but continue our growth trajectory