International clients lose trust in IT companies

Industry experts ask govt to optimise resources, prevent losses, improve infrastructure

KARACHI:

After suffering heavy losses of millions of dollars and being fed up with the deadly low internet connectivity, IT professionals have suggested to the government to optimise resources, prevent future losses, while prioritising infrastructure improvement and ensuring a better regulatory oversight to address the burning issue.

They said frequent internet disruptions were severely damaging the reputation of the IT sector as international clients had lost confidence in regional companies' ability to meet deadlines due to the recurring outages.

Additionally, freelancers and small businesses are hindered by being marked as "out of office" or "unavailable" on international platforms.

Internet outages hit every sector which relies on internet for communication. Every digital company from IT and e-commerce to medical transcription, transportation, banks and others have suffered. P@SHA and FPCCI Cybersecurity Committee Chair Muhammad Azam Mughal, who is also the CEO of SecureBeans, said, "Early involvement of the tech industry would have significantly improved the system rollout. Our experienced professionals possess a deep understanding of enterprise software testing and can implement changes seamlessly, minimising disruptions to the production environment.

"By including us in planning stages and providing clear testing schedules, our resources can be optimised and future issues can be prevented. Unfortunately, the current situation is suboptimal, and it's crucial to avoid similar disruptions going forward."

He said there were more than 1,500 active IT and IT-enabled services' companies which were part of P@SHA. Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has more than 13,000 members while as per freelancer association, the number of freelancers in the country is more than 2.3 million. Some 80% of the community or more has suffered.

Cubix Founder and CEO Salman Lakhani said, "The government should prioritise infrastructure improvements, implement consistent backup measures, and ensure better regulatory oversight to mitigate this issue."

He estimated that losses due to poor connectivity could reach millions of dollars daily, impacting IT exports and productivity across varying sectors. All businesses, especially banks, utility services, and e-commerce platforms, face substantial operational disruptions, which severely impact day-to-day transactions. He said international clients were increasingly reluctant, which was damaging Pakistan's reputation in the global IT market.

Leading AI strategist Khawaja Fahad Shakeel, who is the CEO of Workforce Commerce, a Lahore-based IT company serving international clients, said, "I would suggest to the government that instead of persecuting the public, it's better if they spend the same amount of money on welfare and well-being of the country." He called internet the earning backbone of the country, which shouldn't be ruined. "Since we generally don't work on freelance portals and have more corporate connections, so our client interfacing is fine. However, companies/ freelancers relying on portals are suffering." He said almost 100% digital houses were impacted, which was not limited to software companies but also companies relying on social media, WhatsApp and portals like Amazon, Daraz, eBay and Alibaba were hurt badly due to the poor speed.