Returning to Pakistan - A Guide - Opportunities

Opportunities
As far as the social and environmental factors are concerned based on the above guidelines, that is a personal matter of choice for each individual and I am not going to provide any further insight into those factors. Instead, I am going to focus on ironing out the financial and professional factors in subsequent sections

Professionals
Professionals are broadly divided into 2 categories, management and skilled (IT, engineering medicine, accounting, etc.) not that management is not skilled, this is an arbitrary division for simplicity’s sake. In order to secure a high profile job with good growth opportunity and good earning potential, the professionals need to have a graduate degree from a top school. If the assumption is to get a well paid job, you are almost certain to need a management position. If you don’t want a management career track, as a professional, you stand little chance of landing a job that you would like. The acceptance of foreign trained executives in the financial, telecommunications and IT sector has improved dramatically. There is also recognition of the value that foreign trained executives bring to the overall management culture. If you are a skilled professional, you still have a chance provided you are coming from a blue chip company in USA and are willing to enter the management ranks. In such cases, executive management position may be a little difficult to come by but senior management positions will be plentiful. Management professionals, the ones with MBAs from top schools are slotted for executive management ranks while the rest can easily land a senior management position.

Type of Employer
The type of employer is perhaps the most important aspect of defining good employment here in Pakistan. Following are some examples
1. Top of the list are MNCs (multi-national corporations) including foreign banks. It is not easy to land a senior position in these companies because of well defined local and regional management and HR practices. A lot of executives from Middle-East and Far-East are typically ready to slide into a top spot as they are at the regional head quarters

2. Next in line are joint venture and start-up initiatives lead by the enterprising business groups of Pakistan in partnership with a foreign corporation. These business groups, even though are family owned, have learnt to recede management control and handing it to trained professionals. Leading this charge are actually groups coming from the brokerage industry. Groups like AKD, Arif Habib, JS and KASB have covered tremendous mileage in becoming true capitalists. There is a lot of opportunity in this category as joint ventures are being launched in numerous areas including
a. Hotels & Resorts including recreational parks
b. Real-Estate development, both residential & commercial
c. Financial (banking, insurance, mutual funds, equity investment, brokerage)
d. Telecommunication
e. Retail
f. Consumer Packaged Goods
g. Dairy and Agriculture farming

3. NGOs, Privatization and Government Reform initiatives are well paid and high profile jobs but may not have the longevity of a career. They are typically short-lived initiatives funded by donor agencies or large institutions in some shape or form. Getting into these at a senior position typically requires either strong connections or strong profile. The government reform initiatives are right now under way in institutions like State bank, CBR, and some other low flying departments like bureau of statistics, census, etc. The privatization activity (in some cases the organizations are stepping up with corporate culture to fight getting sold off) has opened up the door to new-corporatism at KESC, Sui Southern & Northern, Pakistan Steel, PSO, etc. if you visit their websites, you will find a lot of information about the Boards, Management as well as open positions. These organizations are redefining themselves and provide excellent opportunities for professionals willing to build something instead of becoming a part of something already functioning efficiently

4. The last category is of the employers involved in some kind of outsourcing work, they typically only require IT staff in senior and junior positions. Professionals having the ability to travel bank n forth between USA and Pakistan can also play roles like sales, project management and business analyst but it is difficult to join these outfits in an executive capacity as their operations are fairly small and executive spots are taken up by founders or the initial start-up team

Outside of these 4 categories, you better have a very good reason to enter a company where all executive positions are held by Seth Sahib and his brother, son, nephew, etc. They tend to have very poor vision, extremely short-termed, no recognition for employees and an overall mistrust with the employees in their dealings. The name of the game is maintaining two sets of books to avoid paying taxes, conducting all business on rough paper or no paper at all leaving them with very poor visibility of product, customer, distribution, opportunities, expansion and overall survival against the onslaught of corporations entering some select industries. Very soon, no existing industry and no Seth sahib will be protected from some enterprising investor willing to bring a foreign corporation and taking the business away from Seth Sahib. They have no appreciation for quality human resource coming from abroad and they will never entertain sharing equity with an employee

Entrepreneurs
The real land of opportunity is now Pakistan ironically for people willing to return to Pakistan with an entrepreneurial spirit from US, which was supposed to be the land of opportunity. This is not only true for Pakistan but for the entire market segment now known as emerging markets or SAGE for the south Asian region specifically. The returns on investment are phenomenal and in quick turn-around as well. The mature markets of the developed world have a scarcity of untapped opportunities but in SAGE markets, proven ideas from the developed world need implementation. The opportunity in Pakistan, therefore, does not involve lengthy R&D cycles for product development, costly production and supply chain hiccups or surprises of a new customer segment. All an entrepreneur needs to do is look at the basic functioning of the society and areas of opportunity for simplicity, convenience, cost saving and better value within the existing market and then tailor an idea from the west

Type of Business
The opportunities are abound in every sector for entrepreneurs. It turns out that the product and customer are the least understood or cared for concepts in the business in Pakistan. This leaves tremendous untapped opportunities for profitable business by fine-tuning the product offering or improving the service. Banking and telecom are the only sectors that have started to directly interact with the customer. In the branch based deposit banking, the relationship was not with a bank but with a branch. Now with consumer credit launch (abundance of credit cards, auto loans, etc.), finally, banks are beginning to interact with the customer as a centralized entity. However, CPG (consumer packaged goods or FMCG in Pakistani terms), healthcare, insurance, transportation are all in their very primitive state. The service sector also has tremendous opportunity for product and service innovation. My summary assessment of the business culture in Pakistan is that it is not capitalist at all. Ownership of physical assets is the prime concern of the business like that of hotel, commercial plazas, shops, factories, etc. Once they own the actual infrastructure that houses the business, they focus on the day-day running operation and as long as that remains cash-flow positive and provides enough for a decent living, they will not look to further innovate, improve or enhance their business potential. Grand daddy had a medical or garments store, father ran it and now the son is running it. Online businesses, the successful ones in North America, can all be launched here with a local flavoring and if executed appropriately can be very rewarding. Those of us, who missed the dot com boat in USA, have another shot in the areas of media, advertising, marketing, sales, retail, automotive and other small business facilitation type services. The one thing needs to be clearly understood is that any business proposition that has “cutting HR cost” as one of its primary selling proposition, will not work in Pakistan. At least for another 10-15 years, people don’t realize the lack of skilled labor, they just see make-do labor and that is enough.

Operational Hazards
Investment in Pakistan and actually owning and operating a business has its challenges. The worst of these challenges relate to the corruption and bhatta mafia that charges money for legitimate tasks and blackmails on frivolous accounts to continue to extort money out of honest businessmen. In addition to this corruption, the lack of service from other interacting departments from power and water to suppliers and landlords on office space, all score high on cost and low on delivery. The best way to launch a business in Pakistan and yet avoid these hazards prevalent in our society is to join a major business group. This is the same group that I was referring to in the previous employment section under category 2. These enterprising business groups are always looking for good ideas and people with ideas and some experience to run a business coming from USA are always valued higher. These groups are also open to giving complete management control to experienced professionals who are willing to invest some of their own money in the venture as well. This approach helps utilize the brand name of these groups to stave off the unwanted elements in the society looking to extort money out of you. This also simplifies access to quality employees, middle managers, vendors and suppliers who are conscious of their image within the group and therefore act as professionally as possible. Government licenses, permits and other external agency NOCs, certificates, passes and clearances also become easier as someone within the group of companies knows somebody. These groups respect professionalism, KPI based management and efficient execution with extra emphasis on running a business with honesty and integrity. You may be able to work out an equity sharing deal with them.

Human Resource
For setting up the business, a good team is essential. Unfortunately, this will be the biggest challenge for entrepreneurs to find good reliable people for a decent market price. The cream of the crop is too expensive, has too much attitude and has a high turn over. The best bet is to find people who are ambitious, appreciate professional management and value what they will be learning in a start-up. It is advisable to get some ground work done in this area related to policies and procedures as I find the HR policies archaic however they are a requirement in this culture and society. Managers will have to truly demonstrate leadership and mentoring abilities in order to build and retain a good team. Employee retention through respect, learning opportunity and perks is a cheaper to do but require support and help from locally trained managers especially ones in HR and office administration. Using office staff as personal servants is very common even in large blue chip banks and therefore managers tend to do the same things when they work for you.