LAHORE: Salim Ghauri, the leading Information Technology (IT) icon of Pakistan, has urged young IT professionals to renew their commitment to help Pakistan emerge as an IT hub out of the current global economic meltdown.
He was addressing over 500 young IT professionals at the NetSol head office. Salim Ghauri, Chairman & CEO NetSol Technologies Ltd, is also chairman of the Federal Task Force on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
Mr Ghauri advised the audience that in order to develop Pakistan as a source of low cost IT solutions and services, they should identify and weed out wastefulness and even small savings on the front of electricity, travel and resource utilization would make a big difference in IT sector’s fight against ongoing global recession. He further advised them to focus on efficiency and effectiveness instead of letting the rumours grow and distract them. According to him, IT businesses were under pressure to revise their human resource policies to reduce costs. Therefore, they should prepare themselves to give in the short term for a bright future.
On global economic meltdown, Ghauri pointed out that the ongoing credit crunch in the world has resulted into loss of consumer confidence, sharp decline in share values, rising unemployment, spending cuts leading to business decline, bankruptcies and bailouts. He said one can assess the intensity of the situation from the facts that the Lehman Brothers has collapsed, Microsoft has cut 5,000 Jobs for first time in its history, IBM has cut 4,200 Jobs, Nortel has filed for bankruptcy, Citibank share value has plunged and it has announced laying off more than 52,000 employees, and Japan’s NEC is going to lose 20,000 Jobs. Toyota has suffered its first loss in 70 years, General Motors is struggling to survive, Hitachi is cutting down 7,000 Jobs and Glaxo is also following the strategy of cutting thousands of jobs.
He added that the fall out of global crisis can further be judged from the fact that the Iceland is on the brink of collapse, US, Germany, UK and Japan are facing recession, in China 20 million migrant workers have lost jobs. In India, the IT companies are losing business from West. Estimates suggest that global job losses could hit 51 million.
Talking about the implication of world economic recession on Pakistan, Ghauri said that the global situation had further compounded domestic problems with collapse of financial markets, difficult geopolitical situation, affect of global conditions on local businesses, impact on financial and telecom sectors and decline in exports to Western countries. However, he added in the same breath that the situation may also provide an opportunity in terms of cost advantage over India. We have to ask if we can emerge as the new major IT destination, he said.
Ghauri said the current global financial crisis is different from the Great Depression of 1930’s and the IT bubble collapse in 2001-02. In Great Depression, he said, the US economy shrank 14% per year, prices fell 8% per year, unemployment peaked at 25% but the impact was limited to US. The IT bubble burst of 2001-02 involved a major shakeout of IT firms and huge value loss to remaining firms, but still the impact was limited to the IT industry. However, the present global crisis is unprecedented, as global financial systems have collapsed, inviting recession, along with global loss of business confidence and virtual drying up of credit. He said the World leaders are saying openly that there’s no clear map for the first financial crisis of the global age. Ghauri said the economists are trying to asses for how long the global economies would have to suffer from the ongoing recession.
He said the diversification in the recent years has created exciting new opportunities for NetSol Technologies Ltd. However, its focus would still remain towards financial and leasing industry where potential financial and auto customers are suffering from global crisis. According to him, a sustainable revenue growth over next 2 years will be a challenge and the costs would have to match revenue expectations. He said the NetSol management is committed to act responsibly in the interest of the company and its employees. However, he added, the tough situation calls for tough measures, and the management was acting in the best interests of its shareholders and employees by revising its HR policies. He said that the NetSol management is committed to emerge successfully from crisis by 2011 and it would continue to make vital investments in future like it has already done on Research and Development.
Ghauri said the company’s global blue chip customer base, excellent and mature products, world class infrastructure, CMMI Level 5 processes and its people were the strengths of NetSol Technologies.
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Public Relations Department
NetSol Technologies Ltd.
NetSol Avenue,
Main Ghazi Road,
Lahore Cantt. 54792, Pakistan.
Tel: +9242-111-44-88-00
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