Pakistan: In The Line Of Wire

What’s on the mind of one of the most networked professionals of
Pakistan’s IT Industy? Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA,
shares her insights!

Why do you feel so passionate about promoting the local industry?

The Pakistan IT and ITES industry is such a vibrant and exciting industry. There is a lot of cutting edge work being done here and companies have been growing and achieving their own levels of success. However there has been no concerted effort to support them, highlight their achievements or assist them in scaling up. There is a lot of creativity, passion and expertise that exists in this sector. I feel, however, that we have not been very successful in marketing ourselves to the extent that we can and should. Hence my focus on creating a brand and getting it out there.

I have always felt that our industry’s strengths and its overall contribution to the country has been, and continues to be , underestimated. This sometimes leads to a loss of faith and despondency. What we need is to bring to the fore all the good work that has been done and continues to be done in the IT sector in this country – to talk about the success stories, to talk about the entrepreneurs who came up with an idea and made it work despite all odds, to talk about the young people without whose hard work and ability, this vibrancy would not exist.

I believe that if we can bring all this to the fore and promote what exists, it will not just be hype. It will be well-deserved recognition. I am passionate about ensuring that credit is given where it is due. Success breeds success and as I promote what exists, I think it spurs on others who realize that it can be done.

Local ICT has always been criticized, often by its own citizens, of being too small and having joined the ‘bandwagon’ much too late (especially when compared to India). How do you justify this?

I have never thought that there was ever any purpose in comparing ourselves with any other country. We have our own niche, areas of expertise, talented people.

We need to focus on developing and expanding on what we, as an industry, do well. Yes India has the first mover advantage in the IT services space. They have a large pool of people that they have used well and the Indian diaspora brought back business and expertise that helped them develop as a sector when no-one else was in this space. They are a big country and whatever they do, will always be several times bigger. But is that a reason for us to be overwhelmed or underestimate what we can do?

When people say we are ‘too small’, I would like them to define that. Too small as compared to what? We are a US$2 billion industry – independent research has already proven that. Let us now build on this instead of looking over the wall and seeing how everyone else is doing. There is enough business out there for all of us.

The Indian IT industry should be congratulated on their achievements. We should learn from their successes and from their failures – because there have been failures too and some of the cracks have begun to show.

Let us not repeat their mistakes but let us indeed learn from the intelligent decisions they have made over the years.

Having said that, I think it is about time that we stopped focusing on them, and focused on ourselves. That would be more productive. Admittedly we were late coming to the party but now that we are here, let us look around, assess our strengths and weaknesses, look at the opportunities, and dance to the beat of a different drummer.

Let us not try and replicate what others have done because there was a time for that and it’s passed. There are new opportunities out there that require different strategies, different skill sets, a different size of company, a different focus. Let us not underestimate what we have done, and what we can do. Let us not be distracted by the past. Let us instead celebrate the present and walk head-on into what the future holds for us.

The industry thought leaders seem to change our niche offering or value proposition every few years. First we started off being mass producers of Java or Cobol, next this was shifted to Software Exports, then we thought Call Centers were it. Is it really a healthy sign to have our ‘identity’ changed every so often?

Our identity is what we make it. There is no need to brand ourselves as a Java haven or a Y2K solution center or focus on a particular segment of the industry. The IT  and ITES sector is very diverse and new technologies, and new ways of doing things, is what is responsible for the brilliance and excitement in this sector. It is not stagnant. It doesn’t stand still. It evolves and re-invents itself every few years and we have to be ready to evolve with it.

I am not saying we have always made the right decisions in terms of starting businesses or following the Pied Piper but we have learned from our mistakes and we have matured.

Creating hype and focusing on just one language, just one sector of the industry, and expecting a transformation, is not visionary. Let us instead strengthen the roots, develop talent, focus on the foundations and make sure they are strong.

Trends can be capitalized on as long as we have strong companies with good business models and a resource pool of youngsters with the right grounding, strong analytical and technical skills and the versatility and confidence to walk steadfast and true and deliver on the promise that we have proved time and again that we have.

What do you think Pakistan’s IT and ITeS’ true value proposition is? What area(s) and why?

Our true value proposition is that we have talent, passion and technical and business expertise. We are good at looking critically at a business problem and providing solutions no matter what it takes.

Professionally we have grown over the past 5-6 years and we are now a good mix of local talent and foreign-returned Pakistanis. So our knowledge of the needs and requirements of local and foreign customers is now substantial. That is also our strength. We are 30% more cost effective as a destination. We have a growing talent base of can-do professionals who are now part of our industry.

Despite the instability over the past few years, we have shown our customers that their projects have stayed on track, that we have not allowed the situation to impact on their business. In fact it is surprising how some of them have not even known when big tragedies have befallen us. We have just picked up the pieces and carried on. Adequate and implementable business continuity and disaster recovery plans have been in place and have been tried and tested more times than we would have liked.

Our domain expertise is diverse – from Financial Services, Healthcare and Telecom, to Content Management, Mobile and social networking applications, Virtualization and Web 2.0.

You’ve been a member of P@SHA long before you became part of its CEC – How have the kinds of problems which plague the industry, changed over the years?

When I joined P@SHA in the early nineties it was a much smaller group of people mostly focusing on Y2K and services. That has changed and now we have both product and service companies, we have large companies and many small and medium sized ones.

Some of the problems remain the same. We still need better office space; we still need to form clusters of expertise in software technology parks; we still need to focus a lot more on the development of our people; we still need to market ourselves better as a country. We still need to address the problems of uninterrupted power supply, access to capital and branding.

However, what has changed is that our infrastructure has improved. We have better and faster connectivity, redundancy in terms of our fiber optic links with the outside world and many more options in terms of broadband. We have a growing number of professionals – both local and those who have returned from overseas.

They are adding to the pool of professionals that are representative of this industry and will take it forward.

An eco-system has begun to form that will be of long term benefit to the industry. Mentoring, angel funding, entrepreneurship development are all areas of focus now.

We have started to understand that we can only grow as an industry if we nurture younger companies and individuals and collaborate to go after a bigger piece of the pie.

You can now hear murmurs of mergers and acquisitions. You also hear about consortia being formed and people referring business to each other. These are things that have brought a glimmer of hope to an industry that has so far only focused on building individual capacity as opposed to building clusters and looking at using its combined strengths for the development of a larger more solid industry.

We are on track and I am optimistic that we can only go one way from here – forward towards greater achievements and growth.

How do you aggregate and balance all the voices representing companies large and small, when the association has to make a stand on a specific issue?

Each voice is important. No member company is too large or too small. Most of the issues that we have to address are common to all. The only difference is that there are varying degrees of importance. We need to prioritize so that we do not get lost in a a plethora of issues. It is better to focus on 3 or 4 key issues so that we can pursue them.

Having done a survey of our members, we know what the key issues are. They include Market Outreach & Business Development, Infrastructure, Capacity Building, Access to Finance and Image of Pakistan.

How active are the association’s members?
Some are very active because they believe that a strong association that is representative of the industry will continue to give them a voice and will be able to offer them support whenever they need it. However, there are a number of companies who are not as active either because they are too busy tackling challenges, fighting fires and growing their business. However, as we an Association become more effective, I am sure more members will become increasingly active.

There are events at which we see a great turnout whereas there are other occasions when people don’t show up in large numbers. This is a challenge for us. We need to make sure that the events and activities that we hold are of relevance to member companies.

For instance, the P@SHA Annual Awards attracts large numbers as does the P@SHA Career Expo or seminars that promise market outreach or learning opportunities. We just need to do more of the kind of things that companies are interested in.

In terms of its mandate, what are some “marketing” or perception-related issues that P@SHA members want to have addressed?

Well, despite the fact that we are a US$2 billion industry and have been growing at 50% per annum, we are viewed to be small domestically and have until recently not appeared on the radar of research firms internationally.

It is only recently that Gartner, IDC, McKinsey, Technomics, Bearing Point etc have started noticing that we are an up and coming second tier destination in the IT sector.

In addition, and just as important, is the fact that the image of Pakistan has an extremely negative impact on the companies’ ability to procure business. Potential customers perceive that the country is unstable and therefore companies will not be able to deliver projects on time or on budget. However, this has been proved time and again to be a fallacy. No matter what happens in the country, the resilience, the versatility and the Disaster Recovery plans of companies in the IT and ITES sector has been seen to be extremely effective with no impact at all on their ability to deliver services and support to customers in any part of the world.

However, it would certainly help if the government and the industry got together to develop a strategy to market that fact, to create a Public Relations campaign around it to put the customers concerns at rest. There also needs to be a sustained campaign to market the capabilities and successes of the IT industry as well as a crisis management cell that addresses all negative publicity that emerges in international media on a consistent basis.

Not addressing it is tantamount to accepting that it is true.

Generally speaking, do local companies understand how to ‘market’ themselves? What are some issues that have been brought to your attention and where do you think some solutions can be derived from?

A significant number of companies do know how to market themselves effectively and have done it through web campaigns and Public Relations programs. However, most of the companies do not have the kind of budgets that are necessary to market not only their own organizations but also the country.

The mid to small size companies need to brand their companies, their products and their services. They need assistance with that as was seen during a recent Brand Workshop in Karachi that P@SHA organized in partnership with CIO Pakistan. Advertising and PR agencies in Pakistan rarely understand the IT business and are not willing to work creatively with small budgets so it is often very difficult for companies to develop programs that project their organizations and their products and services.

P@SHA is therefore considering offering assistance providing ‘capsuled’, customized packages for these companies to assist them in creating advertising and PR strategies that are cost-effective and result-oriented.

We are also planning to use the P@SHA website to highlight successful case studies of Pakistani companies that have delivered effective solutions to organizations in diverse markets.

Should it really be the association’s mandate to better the image of a sector? The perception of the country seems to be struggling on all sides.
How do you think your contribution will have any kind of longevity?

It is the Association’s mandate to do whatever is needed to grow the sector so if bettering the image is what members need, then certainly that is one of the things that is needed and we will work on doing what we can.

Yes the perception of the country is negative and P@SHA cannot change that but by focusing on the successes that continue to take place, the young companies that continue to emerge, the older companies that continue to reinvent themselves, the innovation that continues to take place, the products and services that  continue to find markets locally and internationally, we hammer away at that perception and show people that despite the pockets of instability and violence, there is a thriving and exciting sector that should not and cannot be ignored.

Take for instance the CIO WebStudio and the impact that has had. Shows like “In the Line of Wire” create a virtual cluster so that visitors can see what this industry is involved in and where it is headed. Similarly other content on the WebStudio creates an environment that is real and yet results in the development of the Pakistan IT brand.
Your member companies represent only one part of the industry. There are also other associations and platforms that have their own members. Do you think there will ever be one collaborative marketing effort to uplift the image of the industry?

P@SHA represents the IT and IT Enabled Services sector and increasingly other than software and service companies, BPO companies, Consultants, Call Centers, Animation companies, New Media companies and System Integrators, we are finding that more ISPs, web hosting firms and telecom companies are showing an interest in becoming a part of the Association. We are the only Ministry of Commerce registered association for this sector.

There are societies that represent computer professionals and some of our members are also members of those. Then there is the government arm – the PSEB which registers all IT firms. We don’t compete with them. Instead, we try and guide them and work with them to ensure that the members of the industry benefit from our collaboration. Perhaps more work needs to be done to make this collaboration more effective. We are working on that.

Additionally, you see the eco-system developing with organizations like MITEF and the Technology Angel Network becoming an important player. We work closely with them because we believe that their programs are needed by our sector – the mentoring and guidance is important and the angel fund has been long overdue. More power to them, is all I can say.

Do you really think there is enough diversity in the local companies the kinds of projects they engage in, for the media to pick up and create hype with the ‘content’ they have access to?

There is a lot of diversity and a lot of innovation that is happening in the sector. The media needs to pay attention so that it can create and assist with the creation of the Pakistan IT brand. “India Shining” worked, didn’t it? Do you think all of India was shining or is shining? No but if they had not focused on the niche sector that was, they would not have been able to create the hype which resulted in creating more opportunities for business and attracted a lot more investment.

Could you highlight some of the really successful Pakistani companies?
Look around and you will see them all around you. Whether it is Karachi-based Etilize – one of the largest content management companies in the world, Mixit Technologies which provides solutions that are running on the New York Stock Exchange and 250 brokerage houses in the US, Lahore based Sofizar with revenues of US$25 million dollars (and an employee base of 30) , Systems Ltd that continues to reinvent itself to offer solutions to the apparel, mortgage and government sector, Techlogix with offices in Lahore, Karachi, China, Dubai and Boston and clients like General Electric, PixSense with customers like Vodaphone, China Mobile and Telenor.

Folio 3 has produced a successful environment like Secretbuilders.com, Trango Interactive having created an animated series for the Discovery Channel, TPS who have changed the way the financial sector interacts with its customers, Scrybe having been interesting enough for Adobe to take an interest in them or websites like Brightspyre and Rozee.pk who have changed the way recruitment is done. There are so many that I can tell you about.

I would ask your readers to open their eyes and discover these innovative firms and the many like GeniTeam, Chopaal, See’nReport, Confiz and others who are young startups providing solutions for the iPhone, the Android, Blackberry Storm and the web.

How come that despite such companies, the media still hasn’t been able to create a regular hype or buzz regarding the industry?
I can only venture to guess that they cannot see beyond the textile, banking and telecom sector to see where the development and innovation really is. I don’t blame them. Perhaps we need to drag them in kicking and screaming so that they can discover us.

When it comes to conferences or mentoring activities, there are a handful of names that always seem to make a recurring appearance. Since every member of an industry is an ambassador of its image, how come there isn’t as much diversity as there could be?
Whether it is the IT sector or any other sector in this country, marketing and image building is something that we do not take very seriously. We don’t see the advantage or creating our presence over a sustained period of time. Take for instance the economic downturn, which budgets are slashed immediately – the marketing and advertising budgets although those are the budgets that need to be retained if not increased.

I guess it will take some learning, some awareness, seeing how others have benefited because of the money they have spent and their participation and sponsorship of industry activities. It is happening but it is a slow growth.

What are the biggest challenges in spreading the awareness amongst the national or international audience?

The perception of Pakistan, the security issue that keeps more customers from visiting us, the perceived and real instability, the perceived risk of sending work here are some of the biggest challenges.

How effective a role has the media played in spreading the success of the local sector?
The media hasn’t played much of a role at all although there certainly has been the occasional story here and there. With the launch of CIO Pakistan, CMO, CSO, CEO this is changing.

The blogosphere might be very active, but it will still take a while before reaching any kind of corporate maturity to assist companies in the way they need help. How, in your opinion, can bloggers be used to the advantage of the booming sector?
Bloggers are independent media. I don’t think we can or should use them but many of them do talk about the exciting developments in our sector simply because they themselves find these developments thrilling. A large portion of the blogging community is made up of young people for whom, technology is important. If we continue to create products that they find interesting, they will continue talking about them.

What’s the experience been like bringing your blog, In The Line Of Wire, to life as a webcast?
My blog started off as a personal space but with me taking on the role of President of P@SHA, it has by default become a space that many visit to find news of the IT sector.

Its new life as a webcast has been thrilling for me because now in addition to my voice, it has suddenly become the voice of the industry with many CEOs talking about their innovations, their successes, the challenges they face, their aspirations. Many of these people would never have started a blog themselves and their stories might not have come out – at least not in their own words.

The webcast has also managed to bring the many faces of the industry into the open.

These techies and entrepreneurs who are normally never in front of a camera or in front of a large audience, are talking to an unlimited audience locally and internationally.

I am extremely thrilled with the webcast and am thankful to CIO Pakistan for suggesting it. Maybe this experience as an anchor will open up a new career for me after I retire!

You can find out more details about P@SHA at
pasha.org.pk