Ushering in New Beginnings Making Ends Meet
By Umair Naeem
And yet another financial year comes to a close, with businesses everywhere wondering how to implement all the talk and discussion about the mean, lean times. Customers, both large and small, will only spend money where they feel they are getting the maximum return on their investment, no matter how small. Vendors have probably reached a situation where they can no longer cut costs, because they’ve done what they could, and now need to be more creative in their selling approach.
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Switch on the Networking and Turn Up the Volume!
IT’S A BRAVE NEW WORLD OUT THERE!
To borrow a tagline from one of Pakistan’s largest community portals, teabreak.pk, I cannot emphasize enough as to what a critical role the web is playing in terms of shaping traditional media. An increasing number of journalists and anchors are looking to the internet to find their dose of breaking news and opinions being discussed on the various forums and a greater interest is being generated by television channels and corporations to somehow learn more about this online world that seems to be ripping apart at the seams.
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Welcome to another issue of CMO
customized marketing content for the C-Level executives, from CIO Pakistan!
The concept of marketing is all about creating the right perception in the minds of your target, in order for the target to appreciate and buy your product. This is something that remains constant, no matter what the product is that is being marketed. In the case of the Pakistani software industry as well, image marketing will help fuel the industry’s growth towards a brighter future. In this issue of CMO, we have a look at how image marketing can work as a complimentary tool to create the right sort of perception in the minds of the buyers and users of the said product: the Pakistan software industry and its constituent software companies, both big and small. We speak to the president of PASHA, Jehan Ara, on the topic, and also hear the perspective of Arif Hussain, the COO of Multinet. Read more
Hello, hello!? Can Anybody Hear Me?!
Accessing the Right Bandwidth
That might be the question you’re asking, depending on the network you’re using! And May celebrates World Telecom Day, we wanted to dedicate this issue of CIO Pakistan to one of the most progressively moving industries in the country.
You’ll find a lot of articles and interviews that have something to do with the industry itself, its history or an idea and concept which brings in value addition. Take Omer Allahwala from IRD as an example. Medical Research probably has little to do with telecoms until you read about the innovation his solution has brought into the realm of data collection and archiving. Salman Ansari, the telecom analyst who can see through most ‘telco strategies’ and tell you what’s backward about them, takes up the OpEd column, which is an extension of his weekly program from the WebStudio. And of course, our Smart CIO interview with the Chief Information Officer of Ufone, Faisal Khaliq, who talks about the changing (and increasingly challenging) role of the CIO for Telcos.
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Getting to the Top and Staying There
A Brave New World!
This has been a strange month and there is definitely a hint of movement in the air. With two more events under our belt, the CIO Pakistan team is getting a lot of hopeful feedback from people talking about change and progress. That’s always a good change of scenery.
Business is still slow with an economy that is still somewhat sluggish which is why we’re so excited about Salim Ghauri being on the cover of CEO Pakistan. Read more
Going Up? The Start of a New Wave?
The question “can things get any worse?” always makes for a hot topic of discussion. While businesses around the world brace for the worst, companies in Pakistan are simply being cautious. Perhaps the fact that we haven’t been as plugged into the global economies as we could have been, has been protected us from experiencing the negative impact. Or maybe the fact that our economy is pre-occupied with its own internal challenges that we’ve managed to keep ourselves from being hurled off the map. Whatever the case may be, we’re here and our businesses are going to continue the struggle. Read more
We’re Hiding! Securing Ourselves Always (SOA)
Ideally, this issue of CSO Pakistan should have focused on the political situation and linked it to the Cyber Crimes law that is in effect. The kind of correspondence and coordination that has been taking place prior to the Long March in Pakistan, would certainly have been an interesting aspect to cover, however most of the ‘stories’ and ‘news’ lacks credible, verifiable facts that can be counterchecked. And since we firmly believe in producing evidence that our readers can, quite literally, bet their lives and careers on, we didn’t want to dwell on that path more than we had to. Read more
Continuity of Business as We Know it Taking it up, one step at a time
I wouldn’t be honest if I said that it was easy to put together an issue of CIO. There are extremely high standards to meet and very specific issues that readers want addressed. But here’s another truth that must be shared: there are a lot of professionals within the IT and Business circles who take the time to let us knowwhat direction to take.
In this issue of CIO, we take a look at Disaster Management and the need for concrete strategies for a robust, virtual presence. Everyone has key learnings to share after the fact, and companies really must put these learnings to use before the next incident occurs. We had a great turn out at the Disaster Management and Business Continuity RoundTable that CSO Pakistan organized on the 29th of January, and we can only hope that the same level of enthusiasm and knowledge-share continues to take place. Do check our website for photographs and commentary about the event.
Ahmed Kamran, Head of Services at Faysal Bank joins us in this issue as the CIO In Focus. Interestingly enough, Kamran made some strategic moves which helped one of Pakistan’s largest, most competitive banks, make a complex, IT-intensive migration, rather seamlessly. Do read some of the insights he has to share and how Oracle’s presence in Pakistan helped the bank to achieve some serious history.
We also take a look at a project which has less to do with technology, more to do with behavior, planning, vision and success. Hashoo Group’s ‘Plan Bee’ won the BBC World Challenge a few months ago and we wanted to highlight the challenges that a project like this has for Project Managers. Additionally, we have Farzal Dojki and Nauman Sheikh, two of our regular contributors to the local edition of CIO, who provide key insights into the local industry. Imtiaz Noor and Mohammad Nawaz who share their experiences in BC and DM planning.
As for taking things one step up, well, CIO Pakistan finally launched Pakistan’s first WebStudio at webstudio.ciopakistan.com. A great program lineup that will hopefully play its role in projecting the local IT industry, is already in place with fresh episodes of each of the shows available every day of the week. We sincerely hope that the web presence will help to provide the local IT sector with a ‘glocal’ platform and bring more benefit to all companies and ideas Pakistani. Do stop by and keep the commenting going.
We’ve got to wrap things up for the next issue and the CIO Pakistan Year Ahead conference, so write in and let us know how we’re doing!
Until the next issue,
Signing out!
Rabia Garib, Editor-in Chief
rabia.garib@ciopakistan.com
Of Mice and Women
There is so much discussion when it comes to gender equality and empowerment, you tend to stop reading the theory and start being practical. A team can be managed and it will barely survive. Lead a team with strong vision and clear purpose, and everyone will be a winner.
I am fortunate to have Samina Rizwan, Managing Director of Oracle Pakistan on the cover and as part of this issue of CEO. She manages her team with dedication and poise that inspires you into being successful. Oracle has played a critical role in representing Pakistan in the international markets and I am proud to have had the opportunity interact with the dynamic team.
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Disaster Management and Business Continuity Survey Up
With so much focus on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Pakistani organizations and vendors want to find out what is happening in the local market. We’ve put together a series of surveys and polls, which will take you about 5 minutes to fill out.
Findings from this survey will be shared in the February 2009 issue of CIO. Read more
