By Moayyed Jafri
LAHORE: Chairman CII National Committee on IT and ITeS Ganesh Natarajan, who is also head of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Information Technology (IT) CEOs’ Mission during its visit to Pakistan under Aman Ki Asha, has said that Pakistan and India need to identify areas of partnership in the IT sector where Pakistan can benefit from the strong IT standing of India.
Talking to The News after a meeting with Pakistani IT heads and stakeholders at Lahore University of Management Sciences on Saturday, Dr Ganesh identified Aman ki Asha as an important platform for interaction between professionals across the border and said that the mission came to Pakistan with an open mind to talk on all possible areas of collaboration between the proponents of IT industry of both countries.
Talking about their interaction with the Pakistani IT sector, he said, The level of interest of the Pakistani IT company heads exceeded our expectation and even this short visit has resulted in progressive discussions.
Mr Ganesh said that Indian IT outsourcing industry was very strong and during their visit they had discussed ways to channellize its benefits to the Pakistan.
He said that during their meetings, they had identified both short-term and long-term initiatives that could build progressive collaboration between the IT sectors of the two countries.
Talking about the short-term goals, he said that the low-hanging-fruit was to widen a resource pool of professionals at institutions in the country through formal training and development that could make them hot products in the Indian IT Industry. Cooperation and coordination between the CII and the Pakistani IT institutions could also help Pakistani professionals understand the Indian IT market and visa versa, he said.
Ganesh said the Indian National IT Conference in March 2011 would give an opportunity to the market leaders of both India and Pakistan to interact and find common grounds to do business together.
We have agreed on meeting twice every year, once in India and once in Pakistan, he added.
Managing Director ResolvIT Pty Lyd Rahul Mohod said that the first step to substantiate and develop business ties in the IT sector was to create the basic infrastructure and policy for smooth business operation. Pointing out the fact that Indian and Pakistani businessmen could not directly transact money to each other and they had to go through a third country, he said such bars acted as a deterrent to businessmen looking to engage in the cross-border trade. He said that we could overcome the visa constrains by using IT solutions such as Tele-Presence to create virtual meetings to boost partnership in the IT sector.
Chairman NASSCOM Executive Counsel Harsh Manglik said that there were endless possibilities in the IT market for the Pakistani IT companies and professionals to tap into. He said building skills of a resource pool in Pakistan was the first step that needed to be followed by working towards solutions to facilitate education at the mass level through IT. He said that to gain confidence and attract international IT players, Pakistan would need establish a strong infrastructure to safeguard interests of the international entities which included the intellectual property rights and data security.
Mission Manager CII Director and Head South Asia Desk G D Sharma said that they were in Pakistan to discuss and identify the areas where India could benefit Pakistani IT sector through its well-built and internationally established IT industry.
We are here in the true spirit promoted by the Aman ki Asha and are not just exploring possibilities based on give and take but even on helping Pakistan build its IT sector, he added.
The delegation visited the Lahore Fort, Badshahi Mosque and Lahore Museum and termed the exposure to rich cultural and architectural monuments awe-inspiring. The delegates said that Lahore and its people had made them want to come back for more. They thanked eminent businessman Amin Hashwani and Aman ki Asha Project Coordinator Laleh Zehra Habib for making the visit memorable.
The Indian delegates, Chief Executive Global Transformation Services Vivek Gupta, Senior Vice-President and Group Head Human Resources Infosys Technologies Pvt Ltd Nandita Mohan Gurjar, Vice-President and Business Head Zensar Technologies Prameela Kalive, CEO Global Talent Track Pvt Ltd Uma Ganesh Natarajan and Executive Director KPMG Advisory Services Pvt Ltd Pradeep Udhas expressed their gratitude to the Aman Ki Asha and the people of Pakistan, saying that they felt at home in Pakistan and the hospitality of the Pakistanis had made them want to come back for a more elaborate visit.
