Osman Asghar Khan is the Country Manager of EMC for Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is also the Vice President and Member Executive Committee of the Pak American Business Council. Osman has been working with EMC over the years in audit, finance, operations and sales. Being associated with the financial industry, Osman explores different financial perspectives of Pakistan aligned with Information Technology. What does it take for Pakistan to step up in the global market? Let’s see it from Osman’s perspective.
Can you tell us a little about your professional background and career development?
I started as an internal auditor in Ernst & Young in the US, after graduating as a Certified Public Accountant from Brown University. My family asked me to pursue my career in Public Accountancy but I was more inclined towards travelling around the globe than settling into one place – and I realized it soon after I got a job. I worked at Data General which was acquired by EMC in 1999. As a result, I moved in to EMC and led the internal audit department. After one and a half year, I was asked to take the CFO role in one of their operations, which I refused. Later, however, I accepted to work in Netherlands as the Finance Director for three years till 2003, before I moved to a regional role in 2007. Soon after, I was assigned to setup EMC’s operations in Pakistan. So, my experience with EMC has been very diverse as I have worked in audit, finance, operations and now in sales for the last few years.
Being associated with the financial industry, how do you compare the development of the local industry to other industries?
In terms of financial services, I think development in Pakistan has been amazing. In the banking sector, just 10-15 years back, there was no focus on long term development growth and no system for Information Technology – it was just a legacy process. There has been a remarkable growth in the overall marketplace ever since the banks have been privatized. The competition has put forth a huge space for banks to compete, build new systems, and proceed keeping themselves aligned with global standard as their focus. In the next few years, I think there will be significant investment into the banking sector, as we now also have microfinance banks coming up, which will give out new systems and automated processing, as well as accelerated and effective monitoring.
The way Pakistan is developing in ICT; do you think it will prove to be an ideal market in the near future?
Pakistan is a fast growing country in numerous ways but there are things that still need attention and these are the things playing a major role in the development of an ideal market. There is quite a contradictory behavior of local market in general. On one hand, there are advanced services in telecom, while on the other hand 3G services have still not been launched even though we were one of the first to launch 2G in Pakistan. Some of the banks do have first rate systems installed but there is a lot which still needs to be done. There is a mindset which feels no desire to innovate and do things differently to experiment and learn– and it is because they think the work is well done with whatever they have. But it’s a rapidly changing world and the market needs to keep pace with modern trends and keep learning.
How has EMC served and bettered the local business IT needs?
I think we have introduced efficiency to the market and introduced different things by bringing competition to the market place. Generally, competition in the past would be submitting very high prices with no value for basically gauging the customers. But with EMC coming in, things have changed a lot. Now, the market needs to be more competitive than before, offering valuable services for ideal clientele because with technology the competition has grown immensely. Moreover, it has been realized that these companies have overcharged their customers in comparison to our services and quality.
Worldwide, I think we have 40-45% of the market place while we are focused towards the private crowds. We have been driving the space and here we can educate the customers and partners, as we bring a change in the market place where we can help them rappel their growth over. If you observe, the market is emplacing roughly 100% a year. It is a very critical space and customers don’t know how to manage and use all this information. You have to win their confidence to get them to be comfortable with this growth and make them understand what the long term future holds for them. By doing so, you give them the level of reassurance that they did not have before.
Since you were the Vice President and Member Executive Committee of the American Business Council of Pakistan, we would like to know, how much collaboration and investment the association has yielded towards the development of the local enterprise market.
American Business Council of Pakistan has been focused on building growth locally. We have 65 members and all are among the Fortune 500 companies. Substantial growth has been our prime focus at the Council and the majority of our members are large companies, which include major American brands. We are partnering with friends in the US Embassy and US Consulate where we are planning initiatives for training CSR at the grass roots level. Our objective is to build sustainability in Pakistan, whether we are doing this as individual companies or collaborating together to ensure a wider footprint with good sales. Additionally, we are funding schools and training programs for people, providing them with internships with the help of our partners in the US. There has also been local investment for small and medium businesses in Pakistan. Overall, there are several productive initiatives – and on a very broad scale!
While heading the sales team, what are the major issues that you come across in dealing with local customers? Do you face any lack of knowledge on their part or miscommunication etc?
It’s a long journey which you cannot cover overnight. You need to ensure that the customers get local training programs organized quarterly, or biannually, allowing customers to get their hands wet in order to understand your systems, because these same customers are people, who in a year or two, could be working somewhere else. If they have familiarity with your systems, they will eventually push you to other locations as well. We ensure there is local and foreign training so customers get to know our systems comfortably – it allows them to understand what our technology can do.
At EMC, we also emphasize on our systems, basically, from a value perspective which is very beneficial for any institution. Then, with a total cost of ownership aspect, we explain how we simplify processes for customers and automate them in a way that saves their money on a long term basis.
Our services and work models are very cost effective and helpful for our customers; and they are very content with the value and quality they are served with. We explain the work frame to our customers and help them understand their benefits. And because of our rapport and quality, we have gained over one hundred customers in the last few years.
How would you compare the progress of the public sector with the private sector, in terms of technological innovations utilized in each?
Public sector grows in spurts, while the growth in private sector is more consistent. Private sector has a long term defined roadmap for future objectives, which is quite contrary to what you may observe in a public sector. Public sector invests in its growth mostly while trying to compete with the private sector but it lacks proper funding. Public sector has funds, which they utilize as they understand what they need to do for growth. Both these sectors have advantages as well as disadvantages in terms of investment, while coping up with their limitations.
Do you see Pakistan among the top IT markets in the coming years?
I believe it depends mainly on the education system in the country. Yes, there will be investments in Pakistan but the number of users is still quite low due to lack of education. We have the system, we have the processes, but what we really need to build is a strong base.
We are reaching that middle class threshold and therefore there are changing trends with online businesses. There is innovation, but overall the number of people utilizing these resources is quite low. For Pakistan to emerge as an IT driven market, it has to be a long-term and sustainable growth.
Taking count of the number of people with a market perspective, there is no spending power. We are moving ahead in the right direction but it will take its own time with a hundred and eighty million people. The question is whether it will be now or five years later? If I knew the answer to this question, I wouldn’t be sitting here.
Lastly, what, in your opinion, is needed to be done to improve the business scene locally and to bring more investment in the country?
Businesses grow when there are profitable prospects as well as security. The key is to provide security to people. And by security, I mean physical security as well as security and protection of assets.
Secondly, we need to reduce the complexity of rules and regulations. If we look at Pakistan in the last few years, it has gone down in the worldwide ranking of the competitive countries. We will have further investments coming if we get back to the top 50. Otherwise, further investments can divert to countries other than Pakistan. If you take Africa as an example, you will see there is a remarkable growth rate in Africa because their business policies are very simple. So, we need easy opportunities to do business in Pakistan and use our resources properly. Institutions like Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF) if utilized properly can encourage business investments and create more space for business growth in Pakistan.
