E-Panorama

(For PC World Pakistan)

Zong Appoints Sajid Mahmood as CCO

Soon after promoting Usman Ishaq as the Head of Marketing, Zong, China Mobile Pakistan, has now promoted its Chief Information Officer, Sajid Mahmood, as the Chief Commercial Officer of the company. Before the appointment, Sajid Mahmood was heading the IT, Corporate Sales, Legal, Regulatory and OAS functions of Zong. Now, apart from the afore-mentioned departments, the Marketing, Customer Services, Sales and Distribution departments will also be reporting to the new CCO. Sajid Mahmood is already a member of China Mobile Pakistan’s Limited Board of Directors and Executive Management Team (EMT). Furthermore, he has vast experience in leadership, product/process development, strategic planning and organization operational efficiency.

Startup Weekend coming to Lahore, Pakistan

The Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs who have made it their mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. It is a 54 hours long event that starts on Friday with open mic pitches and innovative ideas. However, on Saturday and Sunday, the teams aim at customer development, validate their ideas, practice LEAN Startup Methodologies and build a minimal viable product. The three-day event was hosted earlier this year in Karachi at the main IBA University Road Campus from October 21 to October 23. This time round, Startup Weekend will be held in Lahore at the Lahore University of Management and Sciences (LUMS) in February-2012. It will be supported by Google Pakistan, Microsoft Bizpark, Amazon Web services, Twilio, Startup Labs, oDesk, and Open Tok. Startup Weekend Lahore also plans to focus on building an ICT (web or mobile) application and will invite software developers, graphics designers and business people to develop applications for it.

Pakistan’s Imports of IT Services Up 18.5% in Jul-Nov 2011

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) statistics has shown an 18.5% growth in Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled service (ITES) imports in the July to November 2011 period. The imports are reportedly to go up from $54 million in the same period in the previous year to $64 million in same period of the current fiscal year. Pakistan’s IT imports have witnessed an increase in multinational solutions and applications providers in domestic companies across different sectors. Big firms such as SAP, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft and TRG have been providing multiple advanced applications and tailored solutions to tens of companies. These companies are from different sectors including the telecom, banking, media, textile, energy and insurance industries. Industry experts claim that IT firms install softwares depending on their needs of increased efficiency, cost saving incentives and to enhance productivity. Then again, the overall IT industry benefits when foreign IT companies now help provide employment opportunities as well as trainings to the local workforce in the country.

PTCL Brings Out SMS Complaint Service Using Mobile Phone

PTCL has launched its new service that will enable customers to register complaints via SMS from their mobile phones. PTCL is now providing the latest SMS-based Complaint Management System (CMS), also named the 1218 SMS method. PTCL aims at eliminating customers’ wait time at call centers for complaint registrations and instead offering them a swift complaint registration channel. To register the PTCL Landline complaint via SMS, one has to type ‘CMP’ followed by Area code and landline number. Then the customer would have to type Product code, i.e. LL for Landline and BB for Broadband, and send the SMS to 05 1218 1218. For example <CMP>Space<Area code>Space<Landline number>Space<Product Code> or ‘CMP 021 3583 XXXX LL’. Once the SMS has been sent, customers will receive their complaint registration number. For more details, just type “HELP” and send it to 051 1218 1218.