Q: How would you introduce Millennium Information Technologies Ltd to the public?

A: You could say we are a very innovative company that has created its own products and technologies which the world has not seen before, which have innovated and introduced things in a different way. So we are a very innovative company which has come up with new ideas to help the business community in our field, to do things much better and more effectively.

Q: Could you specify some of your projects?

A: Well, we have come up with this tool called BID – Business Innovation Dynamically. It is a business tool which we innovated, whereby the business community could write, in an English-like language, and the software automatically adopts it. We are the first company to do that and we have got at a patent on it as well.

Q: How do businesses gain by this tool?

A: One of the reasons is that if you go to a company today, you will find that its environment changes very quickly. So traditionally, what a business does if they want something new done, is go to the IT company which builds the products and solutions for them. In our case, what you want done, the software automatically adopts it.

Q: So it is applicable to any technology?

A: It is applicable, but we are marketing it specifically with our capital market and telecom products at the moment. We might decide later to release it as a tool to other markets as well.

Q: In what ways are you contributing towards Sri Lanka’s development?

A: Being a Sri Lankan company, we have brought in much-needed foreign exchange. We are also creating a very intelligent work force. We are giving the Sri Lankans the ability to showcase their talents. MillenniumIT is quite different to other organizations. What we do is we give them the tools; we don’t tell them how to do it. And we ask them to be creative and find better ways to do it. We also build entrepreneur skills in this company, and we are happy to say that more than five persons, who joined MillenniumIT, have gone on and now have their own companies and are doing well.

Q: Would you, therefore, call yourselves a training ground for CEOs?

A: Well, one thing that we do is foster the culture that it is okay to move on and be an entrepreneur. Even among the lower level staff we try to cultivate the ambition that “it is within them”, so that they think for themselves; they are not afraid to assess and take risks

Q: Is this then a entrepreneur training organization?

A: It is not an entrepreneur training organization, but rather a very creative organization which produces new softwares for the world. Within that process we also build the comfort factor that people could go forth and launch something of their own if not in conflict with MillenniumIT’s products.

Q: Does your organization train many young people?

A: We don’t do a training course as such. We train them for our business. 
Today we are about 500 people in the company and our average age is still under 25 years.

Q: In which direction would you like to take your organisation?

A: We are very project–oriented at the moment. We do a lot of large projects around the world. We are now coming into a new arena where we are going to get transaction–based revenue. Though we are big in Sri Lanka, we are still quite small internationally. We believe this would enable MillenniumIT to be a big global player.

Q: Do you have a presence internationally?

A: Yes, we have offices in London, the US, Mumbai and Singapore. 
 
Q: So you could call yourself a multinational?

A: A Sri Lankan-based multinational company. 
 
Q: Are you active in the stock market?

A: We are very much known for the capital market products we are building. But now we are also moving to the telecom industry quite strongly.

Q: So you are very much a development–oriented organisation?

A: In Sri Lanka we have two lines of business. One, is our own products which we develop and sell. In this respect, we have developed our own brand which is recognized worldwide. The other, is where we build infrastructure for Sri Lankan companies. Examples of such installations would be Sri Lanka Telecom, Dialog, SriLankan Airlines, etc, where we have done a lot of infrastructure and system integration work. We are probably responsible for moving Sri Lanka Telecom, from their traditional business, to the IT-based solutions they are providing today.