Formerly known as Ceylon, the land of gems is attracting the attention of the BPO world. The father of BPO in Sri Lanka, Kris Canekeratne along with other BPO gurus in India and with the support of the local government is working hard to build a strong BPO base in Sri Lanka. Learning from the success story of India, the policy makers and other stakeholders are aiming at making Sri Lanka a very attractive BPO destination. The article provides insights into the prospects, problems and challenges of Sri Lankan BPO sector and offers a few suggestions to select stakeholders how to design a better future for the sunrise sector.

Mayukha, meaning first rays of the sun touched the land of gems. Just then an executive who logged out of his work has raised his head, looked at the sun and returned to his home with a lot of hope on the sunrise sector. Recall the words of an eminent writer and novelist, "He who works when the whole world sleeps and rests, will undoubtedly succeed". Who is he? He is an English speaking graduate and a computer literate. He is young, energetic and enthusiastic. He is a Sri Lankan.

If a work can be performed with equal efficiency in two parts of the world, there is a chance of two events occurring. The first is, the work force will move to a place where it gets more wages and the second is, the work will move to a place where it is done cheaper. Throughout the previous decade we could witness the first event occurring and henceforth we will witness the second one occurring.

BPO is an act of contracting a specific business task to a third-party service provider. It has been a phenomenon which can be highly beneficial for many reasons, including concentration on core activities and partnering with outside experts which can help in accelerating growth. Operational costs are also reduced as outsourcing provides access to the external provider's lower cost structure. Some of the common drawbacks of the BPO could be selecting a wrong vendor, poor contract construction and high costs of exit. There could be certain infrastructural and operational problems which can be country specific like under developed power generation capacity and poor communication systems.

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