IFS outperforms industry peers with exponential growth
IFS, a Swedish global enterprise applications company, recently celebrated 21 years of operations in Sri Lanka. At a media briefing held to celebrate the momentous occasion for the organisation, statistics and net revenues were unveiled, portraying the company’s exponential growth and capacity, outperforming its industry peers.
The panel at the event consisted of IFS Research and Development Senior Vice President Thomas Sald, IFS Asia Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa Regional Vice President Stephen Keys, IFS Senior Vice President and World Operations in Sri Lanka Head Ranil Rajapaksa and IFS South Asia Sales Vice President and Managing Director Shiraz Lye.
According to Sald, IFS develops, sells, implements and supports world-leading solutions for customers who manufacture and distribute goods, maintain assets and manage service-focused operations.
“We would not have been able to do any of that without our operations here in Sri Lanka. This is our largest site with one-third of all our employees based here, where we do around 60 percent of the development and 80 percent of the support for our products,” said Sald.
Sald further emphasised on the importance of basing operations in Sri Lanka, stating: “As an example, IFS Applications 10, which was launched earlier this year, has to a large extent been developed here in Sri Lanka. IFS Labs, which is the unit within IFS that investigates new technology and trends, does almost all development here in Sri Lanka as well. Right now, one focus for them is different aspects of artificial intelligence. So, Sri Lanka is of vital importance to IFS and we are looking forward to increasing our investment in Sri Lanka even further over the coming years.”
IFS operates on calendar fiscals, implying that the fiscal period runs from January to December, clarified Keys.
Keys depicted that the company saw an increase in cloud and software as a service revenues, which grew sixfold in 3Q18, versus 3Q17.
Outlining further fiscal growth, he said: “Total revenue generated in 3Q18 was US $ 143 million. That’s an improvement of 28 percent versus 3Q17.”
“We also grew by 53 percent in licence revenues,” Keys said.
“Our consulting revenues grew by 9 percent in 3Q18. Being a product business, we have a service organisation that has primary responsibility for rapid licence adoption and value creation.”
He went on to say, “IFS has been embarking upon a partner-driven growth strategy to be able to form meaningful business relationships with IFS and our customers, combining our technical knowledge and ability as well as their local industry insights and their specific industry knowledge to create value on behalf of our customers.”
IFS saw a year-to-date growth of 27 percent in licence revenues, in comparison to the prior year, generating over US $ 80 million.
Net revenue for the year-todate period totalled over US $ 400 million, which is a 23 percent improvement over the prior year.
“Our business is growing quickly and we are outperforming our industry peers. Across Asia Pacific, Japan, the Middle East and Africa, our licence revenues grew by 25 percent in 3Q18,” Keys added.
Also addressing the audience, Rajapaksa said, “The Sri Lankan business is an integral part of the global IFS group, which is a testament to the great pool of talent we have. Being a knowledgebased company, the importance we place on our people, the great work culture and the long and fruitful collaboration with local universities in building capacity and creating talent, have been key factors in our 21 successful years in Sri Lanka.”