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Lankan corporates still suffering from HPPO syndrome: Google rep

13 Sep 2013 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lankan companies are still highly reliant on Highest Paid Person’s Opinions (HPPOs) and are less driven by data for their decision making, according to a top Google official

“No doubt, we still have the HPPO syndrome and not driven by data. People are taking decisions by the likings of their big bosses or because their bosses like a certain colour etc. without getting into real nuts and bolts,” said Sri Lanka Country Consultant, Google Asia Pacific Rohan Jayaweera.

The next wave of Enterprise 2.0 will centre on the expertise and knowledge not just from within the organization but from anywhere that expertise could be identified and gathered because enterprises are increasingly integrated with social networking platforms.

Speaking at an event organized by the Sri Lanka-Malaysia Business Council of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce this week, Jayaweera said blocking access to social networking sites by companies was not the best way forward.

“I am not sure whether blocking sites is a good way if you are hoping to acquire and appeal to young audience. There are some companies now becoming more popular just because of their orientation to ‘online’ and ‘digital nature’ in their workplace,” he added.

In that backdrop, the digital savvy young talent looking for jobs are no longer interested in physical locations and traditional types of jobs, he said

Speaking on the dramatically changing demographics, Jayaweera showed that the average age of an employee working in a S&P 500 company had dropped from 75 years in 1957 to 25 years in 2003.

“Today, it is only 10 years. What does it mean to us? Our children will work for companies that do not exist as of now,” he said.

Explaining why the Sri Lankan SMEs should integrate with internet and in particular with social media, Jayaweera said it was due to the access to much larger scale and market reach.

“The biggest thing in internet for a country like Sri Lanka is the capacity, and the platform that allows achieving scale. That’s a very different proposition for a business start-up that did not exist before. Internet really changed the SME start up environment for the better,”

“You are not limited by the size of your population anymore,” he emphasized.

At present there are 2.3 billion people online at any given point of time and it is expected to reach 5.0 billion by 2020.

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Lankan corporates still suffering from HPPO syndrome: Google rep

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