Sri Lanka should be modelled on an economy based on human capital, driven by technological advancements. The country should be ready for tomorrow by embracing technology, says Murali Prakash, Group CEO Ambeon Holdings PLC.
With technology one can do so many things that will forge the country ahead as a nation, he says. For starters, Sri Lanka can export value added labour. We have the bandwidth to do this with tech centered human capital development. “Technology will also improve the Total Factor productivity, which is paramount in increasing real productivity” he says.Being a smaller country, Sri Lanka has the ability to make a technocentric economy which is sure to attract many at the global level to invest here, according to Mr. Prakash.
Mr. Murali Prakash is currently the Group Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer of Ambeon Capital PLC and Ambeon Holdings PLC. Ambeon Capital PLC is the Investment company and the parent of Ambeon Holdings PLC, the Investment Holding and Management Company of Ceylon Leather Products Limited, Colombo City Holdings PLC., Dankotuwa Porcelain PLC., Millennium Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd., Royal Fernwood Porcelain Limited, South Asia Textiles Limited and Taprobane Capital Plus (Pvt) Ltd. Mr Prakash serves as a Director on the respective boards of all of these private and public quoted subsidiaries within the group.
He also serves as a Non-Executive Director of LAUGFS Holdings Limited, LAUGFS Gas PLC., and several other subsidiaries of the LAUGFS Group.
With over 35 years of experience handling key management positions in the areas of general management, strategic restructuring, investments/credit management, manufacturing, marketing / sales and business consultancy, some of his previous roles include serving as the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Browns Group of Companies, a public quoted conglomerate involved in trading, manufacturing, finance, leisure, plantations, healthcare and strategic investments, the Chairman of Galoya Holdings (Private) Limited and the Sales Director of Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC. He has also served on the Boards of Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC., Singer Finance (Lanka) PLC., and Singer Industries (Ceylon) PLC.
Mr. Prakash holds an MBA from the University of Southern Queensland and is also a Certified Professional Marketer (Asia Pacific) and a Certified Management Accountant (Aus.). He also holds an Executive Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Colombo and is an Alumnus of the National University of Singapore and the Asian Institute of Management, Manila. He is also a Fellow Member of the Chartered Management Institute (London) and Certified Professional Managers, Sri Lanka.
He notes that in a future that is so uncertain, the next best thing companies can do is to try and understand how they can be resilient against future challenges. “At a time when you need it most, a strong business resilience strategy can save you time, effort and money.” Instead of typical strategies and execution for recovery, with business resilience strategies in place, your business can be ready—right from the start, he says. “It is important to be future proof. This is why we have geared our strategy to be based on technology and to guide our human capital to be in-sync with technology,” he reiterates.
The company is forging ahead with its restructuring and Mr. Prakash adds that with the change, the group now has three main focus areas. Governance with risk management, compliance and safeguards is one area. Stakeholder wealth creation is another area. As the third area, the group wanted to be more relevant to their customers.Further, with the restructuring, the group has clearly clustered its businesses into three areas, namely the financial sector, technology sector and investments.
Mr. Prakash is happy that Ambeon’s technology cluster is progressing well. “We are experimenting into many areas – blockchain, Internet of Things such as chat bots, etc. We have developed chat bots for Sampath Bank and the Digital Ministry and we are cottoning on to many new experiments and executions, such as machine learning AI projects at large commercial establishments,” he says, noting that Ambeon is trying to integrate these technological advancements into their manufacturing cluster as well. Eventually the company plans to develop such platforms for other firms as well.
Mr. Prakash who calls himself a ‘situational manager’ says that he is also a transformation agent. “I can be the toughest and the nicest boss, but more often than not the latter as in most situations I am able to get the congruence in thinking.” He calls his style AFM. This corresponds to Architect, Facilitator, Mentor.
He’s very concerned about the local education system and says that it needs more soul-searching. “Our education system needs to be geared toward producing employable individuals.”
This is because tomorrow’s world requires a ‘different kind of a person who can innovate, explore and grow amidst turbulent and disruptive conditions’. Mr. Prakash expresses doubt on the readiness of many local university graduates, saying that he doesn’t know how ready they are for employability in tomorrow’s technocentric world.
“Technology driven areas need more focus. This area should be built into the educational system,” Mr. Prakash explains. He was of the opinion that now the education system trains the students to look at things in a ‘closed box ‘. “Now as we have it, creativity doesn’t come into play. The system should not place students in a closed box. They need to be trained and encouraged to think out-ofthe-box.”
Leaders in his opinion should cultivate a three-pronged action suite under the areas of Personal, Business and Results. They need to build trust and empathy under the personal suite, develop positive and visionary thinking under “business” and be firm and impactful in executions under “results”. His advice is one that his father had imparted when he was a teenager. “Please don’t take advise from a philosopher. Instead take advice from someone who has been through that experience or whom you see as successful.”
There will be many to say why it cannot be done but a few who will, if at all, find ways to achieve dreams. When you have nothing to dream of, you have nothing to look forward to. So, do not stop dreaming and work your way to achieve those dreams, he concluded. bmd