March 2005
Connected to: Imran Qidwai, Director OPEN
by Salman Siddiqui
Q. What are the objectives of OPEN?A. OPEN stands for Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs in North America, which we started in the Boston area about five years ago. At that time we felt that while there were other organizations working on cultural and social activities for Pakistani-Americans, there was nothing focused on entrepreneurship. What we do is basically help each other through networking and other events in order to promote entrepreneurship.
Q. What do you think would be the buzz in IT for this year? A. I’ll give you some perspective on where the technology is today. Two or three years ago Java was very popular. Although Java is still very useful, now Microsoft’s .Net technologies are certainly giving it good competition. Now broadly, in terms of what’s been happening, IT-outsourcing has been occurring for a few years now. For the past year, you could not pick up any magazine in the US without a reference to jobs being outsourced or BPO (back processing office) functions. As we know, our neighbor to the east got about US$6 to 8 billion last year, with US$10 to 12 billion in revenue expected this year, and in another 5 years, a projected US$57 billion per year. As you can see, that’s potentially a lot of business.
Q. Why is there so much focus on call centers and not on other BPO areas?A. Well part of it is because of what we call “a low-hanging fruit”; it’s something which exists, which is happening and is very often outsourced. Also call centers don’t require a whole lot of work or forethought. So what you need are good entrepreneurs who are able to roll up their sleeves, take a little risk, and sell this idea to people abroad. However as you get into high-value processes, where there’s a risk of things going wrong, or of faith and trust, a lot of people may not be willing to part with certain business processes within their organizations right away. You need to have a credible base here and only then can you sell your capabilities to get the business.
Q. Besides call centers, what other areas in BPO should Pakistani entrepreneurs look into?A. They have to start thinking about moving up the value chain. The areas where high value and high revenue opportunity exists are where there are more skilled, more talented people that add value to a business. For instance, right now I’m aware of one such company in Islamabad that is actually doing accounts for a US-based company. Now if you get a fresh graduate or a non-CPA in the US for the same job, the salary that you pay is significantly higher than for a chartered accountant here. In this way, you can get highly-qualified people managing and running the accounts business here compared to what would be happening in the US. Similarly let’s take tax preparation. While individual tax preparation in the US is moving more and more to PC-based software, there’s business tax preparation that still needs human involvement. So that’s another area. Then there is BPO in medical areas that may include relatively simpler stuff such as interpreting lab results and then creating a layman’s version of it. Potentially you could do clinical drug trials since there are certain kinds of illness that don’t depend on ethnicity, so it doesn’t matter whether you do those trials in the US, UK, Australia or Pakistan. So there are potentially several areas that can be looked at. The key thing is to look at capabilities that may exist in any particular area, identify talented people within that area and then create the business opportunity from the market abroad.
Q. Do you see a ban on outsourcing that specifically targets Pakistan because of its security and political conditions? A. Unfortunately, I cannot speculate on what may or may not happen. But, yes, there are all kinds of political forces in the US and someone there might propose such a bill. However in the current circumstances, when Pakistan is considered as a US friend and ally, I don’t think it’s going to happen. But the security concern does remain, because at the end of the day you have to justify good business and if you go talk to companies in the US they do bring up the issue of security in Pakistan. To counter this idea that Pakistan is not a secure place, the government and other organizations should work hard and perhaps should launch an aggressive worldwide PR campaign. In terms of just the general concept that outsourcing is going to be outlawed, there is talk. But beyond a certain point in a free-market economy, competition is going to drive BPO forward and not legislation.
Q. Even though we lack a state-of-the-art infrastructure, why do you see Pakistan as a favored destination in the face of stiff competition from its immediate neighbors?A. The counterpoint to India being a favored destination is what I hear and it is an almost bubble-like frenzy in centers like Bangalore and Madras. The prices of hotels in these technology centers have doubled, compared to what they were six months ago. We also hear stories of people moving jobs every two three months, so there are people there who accept a job on Friday and then don’t show up on Monday. So when there is so much frenzy in that area ultimately prices are going to be driven higher and there is going to be some degree of instability. On the other hand, there is no such frantic activity in Pakistan, more people and resources are available, and can be tapped into as a nice alternative.
Q. But the alternatives also include China, and Russia right?A. Absolutely! And we should not ignore them. But the one advantage we have over them is language. In Pakistan, there’s relatively high English literacy, and China suffers from this problem. So depending on the kind of BPO or other work that you are trying to do, language may be an issue. This is like in any other business where you have to look at your strengths and sell those strengths. Don’t try to compete where you are already weak. Where you have the skills, and language is considered important then I think those are the areas to capitalize on.
by Salman Siddiqui
Q. What are the objectives of OPEN?A. OPEN stands for Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs in North America, which we started in the Boston area about five years ago. At that time we felt that while there were other organizations working on cultural and social activities for Pakistani-Americans, there was nothing focused on entrepreneurship. What we do is basically help each other through networking and other events in order to promote entrepreneurship.
Q. What do you think would be the buzz in IT for this year? A. I’ll give you some perspective on where the technology is today. Two or three years ago Java was very popular. Although Java is still very useful, now Microsoft’s .Net technologies are certainly giving it good competition. Now broadly, in terms of what’s been happening, IT-outsourcing has been occurring for a few years now. For the past year, you could not pick up any magazine in the US without a reference to jobs being outsourced or BPO (back processing office) functions. As we know, our neighbor to the east got about US$6 to 8 billion last year, with US$10 to 12 billion in revenue expected this year, and in another 5 years, a projected US$57 billion per year. As you can see, that’s potentially a lot of business.
Q. Why is there so much focus on call centers and not on other BPO areas?A. Well part of it is because of what we call “a low-hanging fruit”; it’s something which exists, which is happening and is very often outsourced. Also call centers don’t require a whole lot of work or forethought. So what you need are good entrepreneurs who are able to roll up their sleeves, take a little risk, and sell this idea to people abroad. However as you get into high-value processes, where there’s a risk of things going wrong, or of faith and trust, a lot of people may not be willing to part with certain business processes within their organizations right away. You need to have a credible base here and only then can you sell your capabilities to get the business.
Q. Besides call centers, what other areas in BPO should Pakistani entrepreneurs look into?A. They have to start thinking about moving up the value chain. The areas where high value and high revenue opportunity exists are where there are more skilled, more talented people that add value to a business. For instance, right now I’m aware of one such company in Islamabad that is actually doing accounts for a US-based company. Now if you get a fresh graduate or a non-CPA in the US for the same job, the salary that you pay is significantly higher than for a chartered accountant here. In this way, you can get highly-qualified people managing and running the accounts business here compared to what would be happening in the US. Similarly let’s take tax preparation. While individual tax preparation in the US is moving more and more to PC-based software, there’s business tax preparation that still needs human involvement. So that’s another area. Then there is BPO in medical areas that may include relatively simpler stuff such as interpreting lab results and then creating a layman’s version of it. Potentially you could do clinical drug trials since there are certain kinds of illness that don’t depend on ethnicity, so it doesn’t matter whether you do those trials in the US, UK, Australia or Pakistan. So there are potentially several areas that can be looked at. The key thing is to look at capabilities that may exist in any particular area, identify talented people within that area and then create the business opportunity from the market abroad.
Q. Do you see a ban on outsourcing that specifically targets Pakistan because of its security and political conditions? A. Unfortunately, I cannot speculate on what may or may not happen. But, yes, there are all kinds of political forces in the US and someone there might propose such a bill. However in the current circumstances, when Pakistan is considered as a US friend and ally, I don’t think it’s going to happen. But the security concern does remain, because at the end of the day you have to justify good business and if you go talk to companies in the US they do bring up the issue of security in Pakistan. To counter this idea that Pakistan is not a secure place, the government and other organizations should work hard and perhaps should launch an aggressive worldwide PR campaign. In terms of just the general concept that outsourcing is going to be outlawed, there is talk. But beyond a certain point in a free-market economy, competition is going to drive BPO forward and not legislation.
Q. Even though we lack a state-of-the-art infrastructure, why do you see Pakistan as a favored destination in the face of stiff competition from its immediate neighbors?A. The counterpoint to India being a favored destination is what I hear and it is an almost bubble-like frenzy in centers like Bangalore and Madras. The prices of hotels in these technology centers have doubled, compared to what they were six months ago. We also hear stories of people moving jobs every two three months, so there are people there who accept a job on Friday and then don’t show up on Monday. So when there is so much frenzy in that area ultimately prices are going to be driven higher and there is going to be some degree of instability. On the other hand, there is no such frantic activity in Pakistan, more people and resources are available, and can be tapped into as a nice alternative.
Q. But the alternatives also include China, and Russia right?A. Absolutely! And we should not ignore them. But the one advantage we have over them is language. In Pakistan, there’s relatively high English literacy, and China suffers from this problem. So depending on the kind of BPO or other work that you are trying to do, language may be an issue. This is like in any other business where you have to look at your strengths and sell those strengths. Don’t try to compete where you are already weak. Where you have the skills, and language is considered important then I think those are the areas to capitalize on.
posted by Salman Siddiqui | 8:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home