Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, has placed Pakistan amongst the top countries of the world in terms of suitability for offshore outsourcing.
Pakistan has been recognized by the global community as ‘Market Leaders and Challengers’ and has been placed in the First Category countries in 2007. In 2006, Pakistan was placed in the Third Category countries. This was stated by Mr. Yusuf Hussain, MD of PSEB in a press statement.
Gartner, in its recent report ’Analysis of Pakistan as an Offshore Service Location’, said the major factor behind the progressing status of Pakistan is the lower cost of salaries and better infrastructure advantages than other offshore destinations. “The salaries of IT professionals in Pakistan are approximately 30% lower than those in India, while telecommunication costs are also low as compared to any other offshore locations, which make Pakistan an attractive outsourcing destination.”
Based on a total of ten criteria, including language, government support, labour pool, infrastructure, education system, cost, political and economic environment, cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, data and intellectual property security and privacy, Gartner rated Pakistan as ‘very good’ in cost, ‘good’ in language and ‘fair’ in most of the areas despite the prevailing political environment.
According to Gartner research report, Government of Pakistan has devised a comprehensive national IT policy, designed to encourage the private sector. In order to drive development, plans are underway to develop new IT parks in major cities while 750,000 square feet of space in PSEB-designated parks has already been leased to IT companies. One of the things that the study outlined however was the need for the government to take concrete steps to improve the brand image of Pakistan as an offshore destination.
It may be mentioned here that a number of Pakistani IT companies have developed world class softwares in areas such as car leasing, enterprise application integration, mortgage lien processing, stock market order management, mobile convergence, data and web content management for some of the top most corporations of the world.
Assigning a ‘good’ rating in language, the Gartner research underlines that with “English as a widely spoken language in the urban areas, Pakistan can also be leveraged for Arabic language support to Middle Eastern countries.” Observing that Pakistan’s IT revenue grew 59% in 2006.
According to PSEB, the Pakistani IT industry is worth over $2.8 billion, including annual exports exceeding $1.4 billion, Pakistan is eyeing to increase the size of this sector to over US$ 11 billion by 2011.
Gartner Inc. is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company and delivers the technology-related insight necessary for the investors to make the right decisions. Being the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct organizations, Gartner was founded in 1979, with headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 3,900 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 75 countries.
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January 20th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
No pariticular work of any significance work done by Gartner.They just did a cut and paste work and simply get rewarded by PSEB.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:26 am
This news item is not regarding the Gartner study commissioned by PSEB. This is an independent report that was written by them on Market Leaders and Challengers. It has no connection with the PSEB commissioned study
January 21st, 2008 at 1:52 am
I am writing a paper on Pakistani Software Industry for presentation in Academy of World Business, Marketing & Management Development 2008 Conference. I would be grateful if you could send me this report. I don have access to Gartner’s website.
Regards
.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Well probably the time has came that we show our dependence and create demands for a better salary + fringe benefits package! along with job security. That probably is missing for out-sourced firms. The sister concern companies here normally dont pay as their counter parts in other part of the world. We might be loosing valuable human resource, like good doctors/consultants move out of country today, IT professionals shouldn’t. A suggestion came, that we (Pakistan IT Professional) should be the leading resource for “open source.” If that is possible we may have demands at will!
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“The salaries of IT professionals in Pakistan are approximately 30% lower than those in India, while telecommunication costs are also low as compared to any other offshore locations, which make Pakistan an attractive outsourcing destination.”
February 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Thats no such superb thing to know. 3rd world countries are outsourcing rapidly. However it is not good to know that:
“The salaries of IT professionals in Pakistan are approximately 30% lower than those in India”
It may increase market value but simultaneously decreases personal value.
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 am
Good work Pakistan. Keep it up. Show the world what you have got.
March 9th, 2008 at 5:44 am
It is good to know that Pakistan is competing in IT sector with other major players like India.
Having 30% less salaries comparing to India does not decreses the personal value. Indian IT professionals salaries were also very low few years ago, but it was a great competitive advantage to India. I hope Pakistani IT professionals understand this and bring forward their country.
I also would like to warn that, the competition we may encounter from Central Eastern European (CEE) nations in the near future. Geographically and culture wise those countries are more attractive to European markets than South Asia.
Best Wishes,
Satish
March 24th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
It is just a beginning. give it a few more time and the world will start to respect us. I would just like to say to my fellow Pakistanis, “please be loyal to our nation. speak, think, and do anything and everything respectfully for the country. and please if you had a bad experience, dont make a fuss out of it. Shit happens in life, atleast the country is progressing.” thanks alot for reading my lecture.
regards to all
Pakistan Zindabad