Misconceptions about Pakistan as an outsourcing destination

There are numerous potential customers that we deal with daily. A lot of them have a misconception that Pakistan is a really backward country where people lock up women and there are Taliban all over the place. Well, this is simply not true. In this article we will show that Pakistan is indeed a better destination for doing business (outsourcing or otherwise) than India or Russia (two of the main outsourcing destinations).

Security

Pakistan is one of the key allies with the US on its war against terrorism. What that means is that we have to bear our share of bomb blasts and similar activities. However, to say that Pakistan is the least secure country in south Asia is not true. For example, bombs in Lahore have been less frequent than in London. Ethnic violence on the scale of Gujrat (see Human rights watch website here: http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/06/india070103.htm) or violence on the scale Beslan school hostage crises in Russia, is somewhat unheard of in Pakistan. Yes, there are “extremists elements” but statistically speaking they are in much lesser number than in India, Russia or other countries. Also just because people are against the US policies, they aren’t necessarily all suicide bombers or terrorists.

Stability

A lot of people have misconception that because Pakistan has a military ruler, that’s less stable than Russia or India. The fact is, in Pakistan there are fewer separatist movements than in Russian and India. Also a military dictator by no means show that the country is instable (a little less democratic for sure, but not instable!).

Business environment

See the following table for a comparison between India, Pakistan and Russia on various business indicators (as determined by World Bank, source: http://www.doingbusiness.org/)

Criteria	Pakistan rank	India rank	Russia rank
Ease of starting a business	44	102	38
Ease of dealing with licenses	93	154	38
Ease of employing workers	120	113	88
Ease of registering property	57	108	40
Ease of getting credit	59	96	160
Ease of protecting investors	18	33	58
Ease of enforcing contracts	163	173	25
Overall doing business	66	138	97

This research clearly shows that Pakistan is a much better destination for business than India and Russia.

Update: We recently came across an article here: http://www.resourcepad.com/blog/2007/07/03/why-alternative-outsourcing-destinations-arent-real-alternatives/ mentioning that Pakistan has real infrastructure problems. Actually, it’s true that Pakistan has infrastructure issues but so do ALL developing countries. It would be wrong to say that India has no electricity shortages, in fact, India has one of the worst energy crises anywhere in the world. See a news article here: http://www.hindu.com/2007/04/01/stories/2007040120850500.htm. I am sure, other developing countries have the similar problems.