A Trip to the Top... that Broke the Mould: An interview with Ziad Bashir

This month we speak to Ziad Bashir about how he stepped out of his family's business and changed Pakistan's IT industry.

Ziad Bashir should have had a relatively easy life. He could have stuck to his family’s financial, energy and textile business in Pakistan. Alternatively, he could have developed an enterprise in a tried-and-trusted business sector in his native country. Or he could have simply offered the same services as other companies in the IT sector.

After all, IT spend in Pakistan is growing at a staggering 30% every year, so being moderately successful in the industry would have been fairly straight-forward.

But just being fairly successful at anything just isn’t Ziad’s style. The founder and chairman of global enterprise solutions provider, Arwen Tech, has taken a few moments out of his busy schedule to tell us how he developed the company into the hugely successful organization it is today, and what he thinks it takes to make a Trip To The Top.

Promising beginnings to end results

“Before Arwen Tech, no one was providing end-to-end IT solutions in Pakistan. No one was taking responsibility for the end result, and no one was offering the breadth of services required. It’s not too easy to do!”

But Arwen Tech and Ziad Bashir are not daunted by a challenge.

“In July 2004, I was working in my family business, when I saw the opportunity of IT”, he recalls. “Technology like that has the power to bring many different, disparate things together. And it affects everyone’s lives. Something of that nature is obviously the shape of things to come.”

But let’s go back to the beginning. What is Ziad’s background? “University and business school in the US”, he explains, “with a stint in the family business during the holidays – which is where I ended up for the first six years of my career.”

Was that a safe option, then? “No – not at all! I always say that there’s no school for entrepreneurship – so I decided to use the opportunity of the family business to launch a textile retail venture and educate myself.”

New Challenges

Having learnt how to incubate new businesses and take them forward as successful ventures, Ziad was looking for a new challenge. His experience of the problems involved in setting up new IT systems for his ventures gave him the idea of providing the end-to-end solutions that Pakistan business lacked.

“I bought a small company – 8-10 people, with a turnover of around $700k. It had small IT agencies for different specialities and was an Avaya partner. It also had a very small call-center operation, affiliated to the fast-food sector in Pakistan.”

Did he make any major changes? “Well – one was to switch from Avaya to Cisco”, he says, laughing. “It was clear that they had the range of products we needed.”

A complete reorientation of the company led to the first year’s profits jumping to $1.2 million. A substantial increase to be sure, but nothing like the $17 million turnover the company generates these days. What allowed him to make the transition to the major league?

“Two major projects really made the difference for us”, he explains. “Our first big contract was with the service provider Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd (PTCL), who is behind the Pakistan intranet exchange. After that, we didn’t look back.”

“The next significant job was the Lahore Expo center. It was important because it leveraged all that Cisco does – and shows how well we put it all together! In fact, you could say it showcases everything under one roof – surveillance, telecommunications, access control, public address – even display and signage.”

Why was the bid successful? Ziad is adamant. “We felt that our Silver certification, plus the breadth of Cisco Products made Arwen the front runner for this project.”

Breaking with Tradition

Did Ziad feel that it was a break with tradition to leave the family business?

“Yes and no. I may have made non-traditional choices by focusing on IT and the economy of tomorrow, and not just tried-and-tested industries. But I couldn’t have made those choices without the advice of my family. So I suppose you could call me a traditionalist in that sense.”

What does the future hold for Arwen Tech? Considering that IT spend in Pakistan is increasing so rapidly, this innovative organization might be tempted to ride the wave. For Ziad, however, resting on his laurels is not an option. His target is to achieve an astonishing 100% growth per year.

Ziad has become one of the most influential people in Pakistan’s IT industry. But despite the long hours he inevitably puts in staying on top of his game, Ziad still finds time for interests out of the office. Asked where most would like to be right now, he replies: “Outside, having a barbeque!”

In fact Ziad if an aficionado of all types or international cuisine – not so surprising for a man who has such a great recipe for success.

Is there one piece of advice that Ziad Bashir would share with any aspiring IT Mover or Shaker?
“The pace of the world is changing so fast – so you need to stay one step ahead and look at trends and anticipate what will come tomorrow.”

Originally posted at Cisco's Blog here

Pakistan, A Popular Outsourcing Destination? : Business Week Artilcle

Pakistan has become the 20th most attractive outsourcing destination, according to consulting management firm A.T. Kearney. Even as concerns increase about Pakistan’s stability and the growing displaced population due to ongoing military operations with the Taliban, the country made a significant jump on A.T. Kearney’s 2009 Global Services Location Index released May 18. Pakistan went from #30 in 2007 to #20 in 2009.

In fact, the report says that as a region, the Middle East and North Africa are becoming more attractive in the ever-shifting geography of popular outsourcing places. Both enjoy large, well-educated populations and proximity to Europe. The index ranks the top 50 countries worldwide for locating outsourcing activities including IT services and support, contact centers and back-office support. Both Jordan and Egypt have entered the top 10 locales.

Countries are measured on 43 different attributes related to financial attractiveness, people and skills availability and business environment. Yet, cost is a huge motivator for many companies and is one reason that places like Pakistan score so highly. When the same index was released in 2007, about 40% of its weighting was given to the financial attractiveness of a country.

This is a global index, so it takes a look at where companies worldwide are outsourcing their work. There are plenty of companies in the Middle East, for instance, that outsource work to Pakistan. I would venture to guess the percentage of U.S. companies outsourcing work to Pakistan is much smaller. Yet, I find it intriguing that even as concern rises about the stability of Pakistan that it can become a more attractive destination to do outsourcing.

CBS News reported on May 19, the day after this index was released, that Pakistan faces a growing humanitarian crisis with up to 2 million people displaced by fighting between the military and Taliban militants in the northern Swat valley. Similarly, Mexico has seen growing violence due to the drug wars since the last Global Services Location Index was released in 2007. Yet, it only dropped one slot in the index to #11 from #10 two years ago.

So, just how much do companies factor in violence and a country’s political stability before outsourcing there? Increasingly, it seems to me if it’s cheap enough, companies are willing to overlook quite a bit in this regard. What do you think?

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/technology_at_work/archives/2009/06/pakistan_a_popu.html?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories