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Teetering between chaos, hope
IN THE 1990s, several Pakistani companies began providing internet and other IT-enabled services. Since then, the IT industry has grown at a fairly good speed.
Data collated by Sci-tech World reveal that today there are more than 500 software companies in the country, which employ more than 75,000 professionals. Our educational institutions produce more than 5,000 IT graduates every year.
And if the federal minister for information technology and telecom, Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, is to be believed, the sector saw tremendous growth in 2005. According to him, “The industry has grown aggressively and the size of the IT market now stands at well over $700 million, which is a respectable figure by any standards.”
Jehan Ara, president of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (PASHA), has also been saying that the sector is growing appreciably. “We are growing at about 50 per cent a year. We see growth escalating to 100 per cent per year.
“We believe that there will be more growth in the IT-enabled services as compared to the software sector. The government is doing a lot of research to further the developments in these sectors.”
However, there are some experts who don’t agree with the minister. According to them, growth has always been slow in the IT sector. Saqib Ilyas, a former professor and currently a PhD scholar at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, is among such professionals.
When Sci-tech World asked him about the sector’s performance in 2005, Mr Ilyas said: “The problem is our mindset. Investors are very short sighted as they have a tunnel vision about IT. Today all they can think of are call centres.
“Our IT engineers are doing jobs at tiny software houses, doing impossible hours and mostly getting paid in peanuts. On the other hand, the talent pool is quite shallow. Excepting perhaps ten or 20 students every year, what comes out of our computer science/engineering programmes is not fit to deliver right away.
“The IT organizations are mostly unable to invest in these individuals properly. Things just drag along as the new kid learns the tricks of the trade the hard way. The mindset needs to change if we want to see a proper growth in the sector.”
Adnan Farooq Hashmi —founder and director of Voiceability, a company that has been developing speech technologies — was of the opinion that before competing globally Pakistan must build a strong local market. The man who won a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award for 2005 remarked: “For the IT industry to flourish in Pakistan, we need to have a local IT industry and local technology consumers. In such a situation, the local ISV will have a local customer to cater to, before it can take on larger competitors globally.
“In this regard, a clear distinction has to be made between the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry and the software/IT industry, since our government has not been able to outline which it wants to focus on.
“A large part of software development in India is being done in research and development centres of foreign companies such as Microsoft, IBM, HP and SAP. But they also have a domestic software/IT market, which is valued at $5 billion.
“I think Pakistan is better than its neighbours in terms of human resources and motivation. But it is important to understand that three factors play a key role in attracting investment from abroad. These are perception, innovation and a local research culture.”
Speaking of Pakistan’s potential another well-know professional, Hammad Rajjoub, said: “I am an optimist. I believe that there is a bright and sustaining future for the IT/software industry of Pakistan, but we will have to work hard.
“There is no easy going, there has never been. We have to really work hard, and (we) need to come up with quality and efficient solutions. We need to have people with vision who can think beyond the line and can deliver on time the software that meet customer requirements.”
Meanwhile, many noteworthy developments took place in the industry during the last 12 months. Our analysis cannot be deemed complete without the mention of the important ones.
Pakistan-India ties
The seed of cooperation in IT between India and Pakistan, sown in early 2004, started to give fruit this year when a delegation of Pakistani professionals led by the president of PASHA, Jehan Ara, attended the NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) Annual Conference 2005 in Mumbai. The conference provided a great opportunity for Pakistani professionals to network with the leading players from the Indian IT industry and to sign deals on some projects that are expected to be implemented soon.
This indeed was a very important development, as the relationship between the two countries is crucial if progress has to be made in IT. Describing his views on the issue, Hammad Rajjoub said: “India’s IT industry is huge. I mean I really don’t feel comfortable comparing our IT industry to theirs. India has already established itself, which we haven’t been able to do.
“If BPO comes to your mind, India is the place where you would want to find solutions. See, we still haven’t been able to come up with such specific skill areas.”
Agreement: A 20-member Indian delegation visited Pakistan in December last year to attend the Pakistan-India ICT Summit in Islamabad and to sign a memorandum of understanding between PASHA and NASSCOM. The agreement was aimed at enhancing trade and cooperation in the IT and ITeS sectors.
Commenting on the initiative, Kiran Karnik, the president of NASSCOM said, “(We have) been working with PASHA to contribute to the growth and development of the ICT industry in both the countries and the signing of the MoU will help put together a framework of cooperation for continuous interaction between IT companies in the two countries.”
Better cooperation: In another sign of increasing cooperation between Indian and Pakistani companies, Tata Consulting Services (TCS) announced that it would shortly open a centre of excellence in software engineering in Pakistan. The first such centre would be set up in Lahore under a joint initiative with Techlogix.
The focus of the proposed centre would be on turning IT graduates into successful professionals, through a state-of-the-art learning environment. “The way to build anything sustainable is to focus on the foundations,” said Jehan Ara.
“The main focus of TCS is to provide training, but we are hoping that it will be the beginning of a long-term business relationship between the two countries and will enhance the possibilities of further developments in our IT sector.”
Other events
Annual awards: PASHA held its Annual ICT (Information Communications Technology) Awards 2005 in Karachi recently. The objective of the award was to recognize the software and service applications developed in Pakistan, and also to provide an opportunity and an ideal environment for companies to gain local, regional and international exposure through the on-going promotional activities.
IT village: A developer of proprietary software applications and a provider of information technology services — NetSol Technologies — has built a state-of-the-art facility for software development called “NetSol IT Village”. It has been declared a “Software Technology Park” by the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB).
Inaugurating the IT village in Lahore recently, the prime minister of Pakistan said: “The government understands the importance of the IT and ITeS industry and would do all it can to ensure that the policies and initiatives implemented by it continue to be industry-friendly.”
Conferences: Professional conferences provide a platform for interaction between professionals from the industry and those from the academia. Events such as the Pakistan Developers Conference, Conference on OSS Adoption in Pakistan and ConnectIT have not only showcased the latest technologies but also have served to spread awareness about the future needs of the industry.
Microsoft Pakistan and INETA (International.NET Association) Pakistan were at the forefront in offering training on the latest technologies through seminars and workshops in the major cities of Pakistan throughout the year. These events targeted both students and professionals.
About these training sessions, Hammad Rajjoub remarked: “Many companies are adopting the upcoming MS technologies and have started using these technologies in their solution development lifecycles. I am amazed to see this kind of pace and enthusiasm.”
All said, the IT industry in Pakistan has finally started to grow at a good pace. The numerous developments taking place in the last 12 months are a case in point. However, in order to meet its future challenges, the sector must move, think and act more pro-actively.
Pakistan is full of talented people and in those creative minds one can clearly see hope. Perhaps the only things needed now are a true research culture and a change in mindset. Change, as we all know, is difficult to manage.
The writer <muhammadzeeshan@hotmail.com> is a freelance contributor
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