NetSol Technologies Limited Chairman Salim Ghauri told Business Recorder that information on the growth of Pakistan's IT sector was now travelling rapidly that not only made customers realise our potential but also international companies started watching Pakistan as a serious destination for their mission critical projects.
He said the year of 2007, like the preceding one, again registered a robust growth in the IT sector in Pakistan gaining momentum gradually to compete internationally. He said Pakistan's IT sector was highly competitive but problems could emerge if we failed to manage our resources efficiently. "We need constant supply of good quality resources and a gradual growth in it, as if we failed to do so Pakistan's IT sector would lose its edge over competitors that would be counterproductive both for the industry and Pakistan', he added. The sector's exponential growth has turned Pakistan into a decisive destination for many mission critical projects.
Majority of the local IT companies have reached to the requisite maturity level and the buyers' confidence is strengthening fast with every passing day," he said.
He also said, "Pakistan, today, is one of the few countries in the world where good number of IT companies are certified as Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level companies. There are five levels of CMMI maturity. A "5" rating is the highest. The rating is the key because higher maturity levels signify lower risks to successful programme execution.
He said that NetSol Technologies Limited has become first IT company that achieved CMMI level 5 in August 2006. Since then, NetSol has grown by leaps and bound and it is taken as a serious contender for mission critical projects worldwide. Its revenue has crossed Rs 1 billion mark in financial year 2007."
Ghauri said the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) was investing wisely to assist IT companies in certifications, including CMM and CMMI levels. "It has allocated sufficient budgets for this purpose and its efforts would start showing results in next three years. The IT sector has also responded positively to the Ministry of Information Technology and PSEB's efforts. A substantial number of small and medium level IT companies have emerged on the IT scene of Pakistan during the last few years," he added. With the improvement of entrepreneurial skills and entry of fresh workforce was being translated in software exports of Pakistan exponentially every fiscal year.
He said recent "bearing point study" places Pakistan's global IT export revenue in the Financial Year 2004-2005 at $400 million. The basis of the figure was the State Bank of Pakistan's IT export revenue figures of just under $50 million. Bearing point multiplied this figure by two to account for the IT export revenue brought into the country, but not registered as such with the State Bank.
The global IT revenue of Pakistani IT companies therefore added up last year to $400 million. Therefore, for official IT export figures of just under $75 million reported by the SBP for FY 2005, the actual global receipts of Pakistani IT firms should be around US $600 million, he said.
About the size of IT industry in Pakistan, he said it had increased manifold and besides Karachi, the commercial and IT hub of Pakistan, a good number of IT companies are operating now in Lahore, Islamabad and a few in other major cities of the country. Out of 1056 IT companies, over 100 companies are ISO-certified and the industry's total size, in terms of volume, has crossed the mark of US $2 billion and its exports are near to touch US $100 million.
The workforce involved in this sector has crossed the 100,000 mark and an impressive number of foreign qualified youngsters are aggressively returning Pakistan to tap the potential of the sector, he added.
Appreciating government cooperation, he said it was a source of great satisfaction that Pakistan government has become very aggressive on technology front and many of the public sector departments have strongly realised the benefits of automation of their procedures. Thus, the IT companies have become very busy on a number of local projects besides catering for the demands of their foreign customers.
Comments
Comments are closed.