Pakistan exported worth $ 1 bln IT services in 5 years

[shuntmaster]

Just a few years ago, pakistanis used to claim that they had better software skills and spoke better english than Indians..

 

[Jazzbot]

Well, PTCL is a private company. Its primary interests are to earn profits for its shareholders. An internet infrastructure requires a lot of investment. Why would a for-profit company invest in small towns and villages when people over there are more interested in meeting their basic living needs than browsing the internet. So it's not so much PTCL's fault. They're doing what they do to keep their business profitable. It's the government's job to provide basic living needs for people so they can provide some value to the economy, which would incentivize private corporations to invest more.

As far as I know, its semi govt as of yet, no fully privatized. I was talking about PTCL on behalf of govt. because PTCL did nothing when it was fully under govt. any tiny little development done recently is after its shared got privatized.

Just a few years ago, pakistanis used to claim that they had better software skills and spoke better english than Indians..

That is still true, we are talking about the infrastructure and facilities that are available for IT industry here in Pakistan. I have experienced this personally, any company or individual who is outsourcing his project and wants QUALITY work, will always prefer Pakistani, Bengali or Phillip over an Indian.

 

[Counter-Errorist]

As far as I know, its semi govt as of yet, no fully privatized

I stand corrected. 62% of PTCL is owned by the government
http://www.ptcl.com.pk/uploads/pattern_of_shareholding.pdf

 

[JanjaWeed]

There needs to be a boom in Pakistan's IT industry. It's for the govt to encourage such move by investing effectively in IT infrastructure. I'm sure the talent is in abundance in Pakistan... but opportunities needs to be provided to explore that talent!

 

[madooxno9]

I am thinking exactly who has gone insane to outsource jobs to Pakistan ?

 

[Luftwaffe]

People may hate it but the truth is we should and must learn and cooperate with hindustan in IT field.

Pakistan's IT sector is next to nothing, poor performance every year, independent developers are sidelined, small companies are heavily taxes and their proprietary software stolen by Government. Pakistan should have been by now earning atleast $10B per year from IT sector but poor policies since mid 90's destroyed it, no credit to musharraf government it was all blatant lies that musharraf's government has done miracles, his government was nothing but dirty filled pampers.

Hell even Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia has a better IT industry.

 

[Contrarian]

But later, following a temporary nationalistic kick-in, I decided to up my preference for Pakistanis. That turned out to be a mistake. The guys were surprisingly talented and intelligent. I, frankly, had not expected them to be. But appallingly unmotivated and unreliable. I was constantly making excuses to the upper management to cover on their behalf. It's amazing how much embarrassment I endured for these guys. I takes a long time to develop a reputation for delivering things on time, and my preference for these guys was fracturing the trust my managers had on me.

First of all, happy that you took the time out to post in detail. You would find that its somewhat uncommon.

I was however told by some Pakistani members living in UAE in the IT sector(Asim maybe?), that most of the manager level positions of IT companies in Dubai are filled with Indians.
And they try to make sure that only Indians are hired in for any position. They also deliberately avoid hiring Pakistani's. So its become sort of a vicious circle for other nationalities - notably Pakistani's.

What is the extent of this problem? Are most Indians behaving like this ?

One find day, after a long heated meeting, we decided to cease working with Pakistanis and Indians. We had enough trouble from the Indians as well - they're notoriously difficult to work with. They won't tell you about showstopping issues until its too late and pretend everything was in order. You had be excruciatingly specific with the requirements or they'll end up building incomplete stuff without batting an eyelid.

Sorry for the wall of text. Please note that whether you're Indian or Pakistani, my intention was not to insult you. I merely stated the facts as I found them from my personal experience as a means to explain some of the issues we face as freelancers / wanabe entrepreneurs.

No offense taken at all. I get you are simply conveying personal experience.

I would however like to tell you how IT employement works in India.

There is Tier 1 colleges - IIT's(there about 18 of them) along with NIT's(again many of them)
The Google's, Microsofts, Facebooks and Twitter's, Investment Banks, Big corporates like Unilever, McKinsey, etc of the world hire from these campuses. The graduates from here are generally exceedingly bright and work in the best corporates globally.

Then there's Tier 2 colleges - Govt colleges and half the private colleges
Generally they are intelligent. Their caliber and professionalism varies from very good(like Tier 1 colleges) to very bad(Tier 3 colleges). They can be easily moulded.
They generally form the major part of the IT export industry in India.
Companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Accenture, etc hire in mass from these colleges

Then there's Tier 3 colleges - about half the private colleges
They are generally least sincere in college.
It takes a lot of training to bring them up to par with the others.

So it depends on which level of people you work with. As you (rightly) said, the professionalism and talent in India varies a lot. It is however segmented. Its the companies choice and their budget regarding what segment they hire from.

Im just trying to tell you what is what in case you have to work with them again.

Best of luck for your endeavors!

 

[Counter-Errorist]

I was however told by some Pakistani members living in UAE in the IT sector(Asim maybe?), that most of the manager level positions of IT companies in Dubai are filled with Indians.
And they try to make sure that only Indians are hired in for any position. They also deliberately avoid hiring Pakistani's. So its become sort of a vicious circle for other nationalities - notably Pakistani's.

That's partly true for both nationalities. Whoever takes the reign will try to hire donkeys they can curse in their own language. But these kind of conditions exist mostly in companies where the atmosphere is heavily political. In smaller IT companies and dynamic media companies, people are much more cooperative. It also depends on their exposure. Someone educated in the west is much more accepting of a multi-cultural environment then someone educated in their own country.

I appreciate you explaining the Tier system. It makes some sense now. As a smaller company, we probably were only exposed to the Tier-3 workers then.

People may hate it but the truth is we should and must learn and cooperate with hindustan in IT field.

It's very risky for businessmen. The relations with India are too fragile and the public opinion chaotic. If I start a company cooperating with an Indian company, it would be just one pak-india incident away from being labelled as an anti-Pakistani Indian-loving terrorist company spying for the Jews.

 

[my2cents]

That's partly true for both nationalities. Whoever takes the reign will try to hire donkeys they can curse in their own language. But these kind of conditions exist mostly in companies where the atmosphere is heavily political. In smaller IT companies and dynamic media companies, people are much more cooperative. It also depends on their exposure. Someone educated in the west is much more accepting of a multi-cultural environment then someone educated in their own country.

I appreciate you explaining the Tier system. It makes some sense now. As a smaller company, we probably were only exposed to the Tier-3 workers then.

It is usually the Tier 3 workers that small companies target and hire because they are available dime a dozen. My cousin who has a s/w company here in Hyderabad tells me that he get tons of candidates from these Tier 3 schools. He is very selective and conducts exam for about 100 people and hires only 5 of them. He can hire them at low pay during the training period. His company has grown to about 500 employees and attributes this success to their hard work and high productivity.

So the talent is there only you need to tap and hone it.

It's very risky for businessmen. The relations with India are too fragile and the public opinion chaotic. If I start a company cooperating with an Indian company, it would be just one pak-india incident away from being labelled as an anti-Pakistani Indian-loving terrorist company spying for the Jews.

You are overly cautious. You can bid for projects from all over the world and get it done in house. How is India relevant in this? It is truly level playing field.

 

[shuntmaster]

[quote="Jazzbot, post: 4986940, member: 26661

That is still true, we are talking about the infrastructure and facilities that are available for IT industry here in Pakistan. I have experienced this personally, any company or individual who is outsourcing his project and wants QUALITY work, will always prefer Pakistani, Bengali or Phillip over an Indian.[/quote]

Inspite of high QUALITY of paskistani IT, they are averaging $200million per year, while low quality Indian IT industry makes $70,000million per year. How do you explain that? Don't give excuses of infrastructure, since we all know IT Industry is one industry that is least depandat on power and capital investment..

 

[Jazzbot]

Inspite of high QUALITY of paskistani IT, they are averaging $200million per year, while low quality Indian IT industry makes $70,000million per year. How do you explain that? Don't give excuses of infrastructure, since we all know IT Industry is one industry that is least depandat on power and capital investment..

That's because of the size of your market, and because your IT market is established. Ours is not at the level of your and its still years behind. Whatever I said was based on my own personal experience, a lot of clients come to me when their site / project get messed up by Indians just because the indians are usually available at cheap rates.

About infrastructure, I was mainly referring towards electricity and internet, the 2 main things required for IT industry and we are lacking on both of them..