03 November 2004	Wednesday	19 Ramazan 1425

ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Tuesday said the government was utilizing all resources to create the infrastructure needed to jump-start growth in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector so that the industry itself could concentrate on marketing their services abroad.

Speaking at a meeting with representatives of the IT-enabled services companies, the minister said: "While I understand that there is an immense potential of growth in this field, the progress of the sector has not been really up to the mark and it is high time for the BPO industry to focus on various sub-sectors of the industry such as accounting, outsourcing and insurance claim processing."

The meeting was organized by the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) to identify the issues faced by the BPO industry and to brainstorm on possible solutions.

Over 15 CEOs participated in the meeting, representing companies across the BPO spectrum. The industry association, PASHA, was also represented.

The participants held a unanimous opinion that the BPO sector offered the most potential for Pakistan to generate jobs and earn foreign exchange in the shortest possible time.

They also identified shortage of appropriate office space for setting up new operations and the lack of awareness among the educated youth of the career prospects in the BPO industry as some of the major impediments to the growth of the sector.

They urged the government to focus its attention on travel advisories against Pakistan, and an increasing domestic demand for outsourcing.

Shahid Azim, who runs a major call centre in Islamabad, said his company was desperate to hire people, but in spite of offering high salaries and a very comfortable working environment, the quality of applications being received was not up to the mark.

Nasser Lone representing the largest offshore controlled call centre company in the world said his company had expanded rapidly by opening new offices in Karachi to cater for the growing demand.

PSEB Managing Director Dr Aamir Matin said the board was striving to improve the quality of manpower available in the country, and had already launched projects to improve the quality of the management of IT-enabled service companies.

Business Process Outsourcing is a term that is used to explain how companies that would like to concentrate on their core business often engage other companies to carry out their back-end functions.

Such back-end functions include customer support through call centres, accounting, order processing, insurance claim processing, procurement and other logistic functions.

Medical record billing, transcriptions and call centres are also considered to be a part of the BPO sector, and nearly 1,500 individuals are employed in providing such services to customers abroad. The market is growing rapidly with the expected annual growth rates in excess of 100 per cent for the next few years.