July, 5, 2018
Sri Lankan Billionaire Dhammika Perera yesterday (04) suggested that country’s corporate sector should adopt disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and business intelligence (BI) to mitigate risks arising from operational costs due to variances in market environments.
Speaking at the bell ringing ceremony at the Colombo Stock Exchange’s (CSE) trading floor to mark Vallibel One PLC’s inclusion in the S&P 20 Index, he said that Vallibel One PLC would hold the first board meeting utilizing the Business Intelligence (BI) tools next month, along with capitalizing on limited Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. He further affirmed that Vallibel One PLC and other companies would be able to fully utilize the BI tools and AI technology to conduct board meetings in a half years’ time.
“It might be the first board meeting to be conducted in Sri Lanka utilizing AI,” he said adding that in order to fast-track technology adoption, Vallibel One is also recruiting experts and bringing in two data scientists from India and Europe, to Sri Lanka.
According to him Vallibel One PLC and other related companies owned by him are prepared to face 8% cost increase with a five-year cost reduction strategy, capitalizing on the AI and BI technologies, without passing on the cost to the consumer. He further asserted that his companies are confident stay stable for the next five years with the cost reduction programme, despite whatever the challenges that could take place in the economy.
According to him adoption of disruptive technologies at Vallibel One PLC has been able to narrow the gap when compared to the leading multinational conglomerates such as Hitachi, whilst such technology would enable the cooperates to cut down their costs.
Taking out an example from one of his own companies he told reporters that at Royal Ceramics Lanka PLC (Rocell), though they come up with around 200 designs a year, only 60 designs takes off, and that AI tech they only have to create 80 designs to take off 60 designs compared to 200.
“Hence, we will be able to do large-scale cost cutting through this. This is an example for other companies as well” he added. He further said that it doesn’t require a large budget to integrate these technologies into operations of companies.
Speaking on Vallibel One PLC and current equity market environment he said his company is focusing on building the net asset value of the company rather than promoting company equity of the company through marketing tools. He firmly said that Vallibel One’s net asset value has gone up to Rs.42 and that they are focusing on building company’s asset value.
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