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Here’s an interview we conducted with Zia Chishti, Managing Partner and CEO of The Resource Group (TRG), back in 2006. Here’s a Flashback for you to see just how far we’ve come… or have we?

 

Talk about your background?

I was born in the United States to a Pakistani mother and an American father who was a convert to Islam. My father passed away when I was two; his dying wish was that he be buried next to his Sufi Murshid near Faisalabad. My mother and I returned to Pakistan and my mother, a PhD in Education from Cornell, took a position as professor in Lahore.

I grew up in Lahore, where I went to the Lahore American School. On graduation, I went to Columbia College in New York, where I majored in Economics and Computer Science. After Columbia, I worked at Morgan Stanley in both New York and London, before going to Stanford Business School for my MBA.

While at Stanford I founded Align Technology, a medical technology company. I ultimately took it public on the NASDAQ where it grew to be a billion dollar business. Along the way, I established the first significant offshore operation of an American company in Pakistan, employing over 700 people in the “first of its kind” facility in the Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore.

Align’s rapid growth in Pakistan was cut short as a result of 9/11; the Align board and I differed over whether we were to continue our operations in Pakistan, a difference which ultimately led to my departure from Align and Align’s withdrawal from Pakistan. This was quite a personal and professional setback for me â€" my dream of continuing to scale our Pakistani operations was quite rudely shattered.

TRG was essentially built on Align’s ashes in Pakistan. A loyal group of Align employees joined me to try to make something out of what Align left behind. So we bought out what remained of Align’s operations and managed to save one piece of a marger larger operation. This was the call center piece that then became the nucleus of a much larger effort.

Today TRG is quite an amazing success. We are the largest offshore IT-enabled services company in the world â€" ahead of all the Indian and Phillippino companies. We have over $170 million in revenues, over 5000 employees, and are very profitable. We are now approaching one thousand staff in Pakistan, are clearly the fastest growing company in Pakistani history, and we account for approximately 0.1% of Pakistani GDP! In the United States itself, we are are among the Top 10 call center operators and are uniquely positioned for rapid growth.

When you sit back and think about it, it has been a remarkable run. I am one of the most fortunate individuals on the planet to work with an amazing group of people who have the transformation of Pakistan as their core mission.

You are a Pakistani company. Few companies, if any others, have enjoyed the success that you have been able to achieve. How have you managed it?

The key here is that from day one we built ourselves to be a globally competitive company. Most of Pakistani industry is simply not that way: it is the product of protective tariffs, subsidies, restricted licenses, directed credit, or other Government driven programs that result in deeply inefficient industries that are hard to scale beyond the domestic market. We started from the reverse position: we knew we had a team that could take on the very best around the world and we executed to that vision.

Along the way, many, many people came to help us. Atiq Raza and Asim Abdullah, two prominent and successful Pakistani entrepreneurs were among our earliest investors. Syed Babar Ali and the Packages Group invested heavily in us to get us off the ground. Minister Atta-ur-Rahman took a board seat and lent us enormous credibility. Shaukat Aziz, then the Finance Minister, made multiple calls on our behalf to help establish our credibility and bona fides. Awais Leghari, the IT and Telecom Minister, repeatedly made calls to potential customers on our behalf. A key role in our success was also played by Jahangir Siddiqui, who repeatedly put their own balance sheet on the line in order to help finance us.

All success, ultimately, is from the Grace of God. In this world, though, the key factors were a world class team, a birth as a globally competitive company, and a lot of support from individuals who wanted first and foremost for us to succeed.

Call centers are essentially a service which is very demand driven. How much demand is there for such services and what countries/companies are these services primarily catering to?

There is enormous demand for call center services worldwide. Call centers probably account for as much as 5% of all U.S. Employment! We are just getting started with the opportunity; the next few years will see about $10 billion in business moving offshore.

The primary destinations so far have been India and, to a lesser extent, the Philippines. We are working very, very, hard to get Pakistan its fair share.

Does a country like Pakistan have a future in such a service-oriented industry?

Absolutely. We have superb human resources, an English language base, solid telecommunications infrastructure, and a deeply supportive Government willing to cut through bureaucratic hurdles to get us going. Pakistan probably has the healthiest mix of policies and resources of any offshore destination in the world.

What, if anything, stops the world from working with a Pakistani company, and, based on this, what needs to be changed/transformed?

The primary factor is a perception of political and personal risk. As is commonly known, there is a deeply disturbing travel advisory on Pakistan put out by the US Department of State that frightens a great many potential customers. In my opinion it is totally unwarranted by the circumstances on the ground, but it is a perception we must contend with.

The other factor is telecommunications costs and quality which continue to be a major bottleneck. The Government addresses the latter by forcing PTCL to provide satellite backup to their single international fiber cable, but this is a stopgap solution, not a preferred one. Sadly, PTCL’s costs for bandwidth continue to be the highest among the group of countries that are potential offshoring destinations. Our costs are at least three times those of India and the Philippines.

What kinds of skills are required for younger Pakistanis to help lift up the local industry?

At the agent level, the most valuable skill is English fluency. Other factors such as customer orientation, interpersonal ability and problem solving can all be tought in short order. It is most important, though, to start with a good English language base.

The sore spot for Pakistan is in mid- and senior- level management talent. We really have a very thin bench here, and this is a tremendous opportunity for our youth to take up.

Of course, at the corporate level, what we sorely need is a new breed of entrepreneurs. We have to kick away our legacy of state-managed competition in which the entrepreneurial class were essentially rent-seekers that depended on political influence or outright graft for their survival and growth. What we need is world-class, globally competitive people that can meet the challenge of the international marketplace. We need to think BIG.

How much of an image problem stops business from being conducted in and with Pakistan?

This is the primary factor. If today we managed to shed our US travel advisory, within six months we could have ten thousand people employed. Within a few years, several hundred thousand.

How, in your opinion, will opening up trade relations with India, help the local IT industry?

We need to open up trade relations not just with India but with the entire world. Perhaps the single most beneficial thing we can do is drop all our trade barriers. Let anyone who wants to buy something from abroad do so. Let anyone who wants to sell something abroad do so. We should be the freest trading country on earth.

What is your opinion of the local skill pool available to you?

The English language base is not as strong as I had initially hoped. While we have an overwhelming number of applicants, we wind up hiring less than 1% of those that come to us. The management pool is very, very shallow.

You entered the world of entrepreneurism early in your academic career. What kind of support or incentive needs to be given to students to bring their projects/ideas to life?

The most important thing is that we need to learn how to THINK. Not just follow orders or memorize texbooks, but to THINK. Ask questions. Wonder about the world. Take the words on the pages of our textbooks and turn them from ink and paper into tools that we can apply.

Also important are the more profound questions. Who are we? Why are we here? What do we believe in? How do we know it is true? Is it faith or knowledge? Is it something someone has told us, or is it something we experience? The exploration of the self is a powerful motivation towards becoming and entrepreneur.

Then, once we have cut through the questions to the core of who we are, are deeply honest with what we want to do, and don’t hesitate with making the courageous decisions, that is when we will succeed.

Though there might be many, however, could you identify a few problems which local IT companies are experiencing, which stunt growth progress?

The overall context is very very positive. We have an abundant labor pool, the telecommunications access to bring us on line with the world, and a motivated Government, with aggressive policies.

The key is to make a great leap forward along this path. Intensify education. Liberalize and demonopolize telecommunications. Continue to assist the entrepreneurs in the sector by breaking down bureaucratic walls and by helping to market Pakistan.

Additional comments you may wish to add?

Pakistan is really at a major crossroads. We have the opportunity to take the initiative and radically transform our economy. We need to firmly and finally abandon the economic policies of the past: State intervention in the economy, trade barriers, and a paternalistic attitude towards business. Lets truly set the markets free and then we will see a revolution not just in our sector, but in the whole Country.

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