Kickstarting his career expedition amidst his university days, Shamal Abeyrathne’s initial job role was in the retail chain market working for global brands such as McDonald’s and KFC. After stepping into the IT industry with his outstanding customer relation skills, currently he holds the position of Chief Operation Officer at Connex 360 with his exposure and expertise over eighteen years in the industry.
After graduating from the Open University of Sri Lanka with a Bachelor’s Degree in Technology and an MSc in Strategic Management from Asia University, Shamal continued to sharpen his professional skills in Sales and Marketing at SLIM, where he obtained a National Diploma in Sales Management. “Having a background in IT has helped me to fall into technical sales. I don’t have to hire a separate IT-qualified person to help me with my sales, I can do both from my end and discuss all matters and give a solution to the client on the table itself”, he states. Shamal has constantly felt his customer’s pain points, allowing him to propose solutions with this technical knowledge applied from a sales perspective.
Talking about his time at Connex, Shamal says, “Having worked at Connex for 8 years, I started from sales and moved on to marketing. I oversaw the entire marketing of Connex and Operations. And moved on to Connex360 as the Chief Operating Officer. The entire operation is handled by me here”.
Despite taking up space in the market as Connex IT, the company still had space for growth through untapped marketing means. Low-Level Home User was one of the main markets that were yet to be tapped into. Connex IT had mostly tapped on enterprise partners and enterprise solutions. Under this, they have 8 pillars and over 50 vendors working for the 8 years of Connex IT. And so, giving a thought on how best to diversify the SME market as an extended arm, the company brought to life Connex360.
Connex360 covers security in more ways than one. From small to big offices, SMEs, and households. This startup for surveillance solutions was initiated through an outof-the-box thinking attitude. “Rather than just giving a client CCTV camera, ‘how can we provide them with a complete surveillance solution?’ was the main target we had”, Shamal explains, “As of now, there is no distributor who provides a complete surveillance solution to the market. Everyone is just providing the client with what they want. For example, if he wants a camera, they just provide it, and that is not the solution”.
Constantly putting their client’s needs first, Connex360 focuses on providing value addition such as access controls, barrier gates, etc. Bringing forth an example, Shamal says, “For example, if it is a mini banking system, our system should be able to identify and alert if the same person keeps walking in more than once or twice. This suspicious behavior should be triggered. There’s no point in trying to find and implement preventive measures after the damage is done. We must be able to receive the alert and a trigger warning beforehand to avoid damages”