Mr. Lakshman Hettiarachchi is a Chartered Management Accountant, member of the British Computer Society and an Attorney at Law who joined IBM as a Finance and Administrative Manager in 1979 and had been involved in Accounts and Budgets. He later moved into the marketing arena and eventually became the Country Manager of IBM Sri Lanka.
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Mr. Lakshman Hettiarachchi is a Chartered Management Accountant, member of the British Computer Society and an Attorney at Law who joined IBM as a Finance and Administrative Manager in 1979 and had been involved in Accounts and Budgets. He later moved into the marketing arena and eventually became the Country Manager of IBM Sri Lanka.
Before joining IBM Sri Lanka, Mr. Lakshman Hettiarachchi had been involved in computing for over four years for an employer in Zambia where he had managed a system that supported thirteen sales branches and two factories on IBM System/ 370 Model 115 machines. When he returned to Sri Lanka he realized that even IBM had no in-house computer – a computer was obtained only two years after Mr. Lakshman Hettiarachchi joined IBM. This was a very basic system which was followed by a System 360. Prior to IBM obtaining a computer, he states that there were computers at the State Engineering Corporation (an ICT 1901 computer), at Walkers and at Associated Management Systems (AMS) in Colombo 03, headed by Mr. Chandi Wijesekera. During this period, IBM had leased out computers to the Government sector including the Insurance Corporation, the Petroleum Corporation etc. In bringing technology to the country, Mr. Hettiarachchi states that IBM leapfrogged from the 360 range direct to the 4300 range. He also recalls the changeover from large systems to personal computers and the competency with which these were adopted and used. An interesting fact which he recalls is that IBM came to Sri Lanka on the invitation of the then Prime Minister. The reason she had invited IBM in 1962, while other Companies had to leave was because the insurance business had been nationalized and there were major issues when handling the data relevant to all the insurance policies etc. Subsequently, the Indian insurance company whose assistance had been sought had recommended that the data be computerized and the first step was to capture the data which was done through data entry machines. The data entry machines had captured the data into cards which were sent to India for processing and thereafter the results were returned.
Mr. Lakshman Hettiarachchi was also on the Board of the .LK Domain Registry, where he says his contribution was to carry out a financial review and advise accordingly. In this regard Mr. Hettiarachchi states that he greatly admires Prof. Gihan Dias for his achievements which have greatly surpassed the norms.