IT industry of Pakistan, like most
of other industries is played down
at, some even questioning its
existence. It’s true that the
glittery spot lights received by
India are a far cry for a late
starter like Pakistan; it can still
place itself amongst 2nd tier of
emerging countries in world of IT.
Language - Technical Aptitude -
Government support, everything is
there Yet it seems to miss the mark.
So what exactly is the problem? Is
it another one of the races where
Pakistan instead of getting the top
spots, would land into the “Also
ran” status? Let’s take a quick
peek.
Since Dr. Ata-ur-Rehman took charge
for IT, the long due push that he
made to the IT scenario was
commendable. More than a decade of
tax breaks for software exports,
huge investments in telecom
infrastructure, subsidies in
technology parks are some of the
steps that have shown the government
was serious to support IT industry.
This goes to his credit that
thousands of students were
mesmerized to choose IT as their
dream career.
Not everything went in the right
direction though. As thousands had
been poured into the market to take
advantage of the labor arbitrage in
global market, the local industry
went nose down after the wake of
September 11. True to their image,
young aspirants panicked and ran in
all different directions to other
fields, leaving a big hole in
quality human resource. Although
companies are coming strong in post
9/11 era, the human resource
scenario is far from ideal.
Having diagnosed one of the
important problems, there are lots
of things to cheer for! Local IT
industry is getting matured
day-by-day. There are corporate
players like Elixir, LMKR, NetSol,
Ultimus, Si3 that add some value to
Pakistan’s image as a viable and
serious marketplace. While corporate
companies may get Pakistan’s name in
international news, yet these are
very few in numbers and may be
counted on fingers. The future of
Pakistani IT industry lies in hands
of SME sector.
SME sector currently seems to be
serving the corporate companies by
indirectly providing trained
resources at it’s own cost and
working inexpensively for
sub-contracted projects. They bubble
up every now-and-then to present a
pitiable picture of local IT
industry enticing government to
allocate more and more funds for IT;
that are directed yet again to the
corporate companies.
Angel investment in Pakistan, as
compare to US is non-existent where
in USA approximately 30,000 startups
get funded by 250,000 active angels.
Neither banks are open to invest in
startup IT companies nor any
considerable government investments.
Venture capital companies’ existence
is also negligible. Given a level
playing field, I still think that
entrepreneurial skills of local
talent along with technical
competence can deliver better than
what India has to offer.
We do inherit some of the issues
from our society that needs to get
washed out. This includes
under-selling ourselves for low
quality and not understanding value
of time; but time itself and
productivity have been teaching us
well. Our industry has started to
understand the international and
local market and it seems to adapt
quite well.
Some of the indicators point towards
the bright side of the picture. Some
of these are:
-
Huge demand for more space in
software technology parks
-
Sharply increased spending by
government and local market in IT
-
IT exports increasing rapidly to
reach a billion dollar mark soon
If we can resolve some of the
striking issues being faced by our
industry and give some time to local
industry to flourish, then we are
bound to see revolutions in
international IT market. If you
would doubt me then recall Bill
Gates as saying “Any kid with a
computer in a garage can put me out
of business”.
The writer is CEO and Sr. Software
Architect of Digital Prodigy (Pvt)
Ltd, an IT consulting and
Outsourcing Partner company. He is
an ambitious young entrepreneur
specializing in healthcare and
e-commerce industry. He can be
reached at syed@dprodigy.com
