Bringing transparent system: Lessons to learn from delayed verification process

Govt must bring laws for businesses looking for opportunities in the country.

LAHORE: Re-verification process of SIMs has left a lot of question marks over the start-up of large-scale businesses in Pakistan.

Telcos have done really good in reviving Pakistan’s economy. They created the need and then fulfilled it efficiently in the Pakistani market. They successfully converted the niche into need by following good global business practices.

However, the role of governments has to be questioned and redefined. Had they done a proper homework before allowing telcos to do business, the people, the state and the telcos would not have faced this chaos at their business centres.

Be it network shutdown or activation of SIMs through 789 and biometric, telcos have always welcomed government’s initiatives. But the slow-paced and reactive approach to resolve problems has led the business and state to incurable damage.

State has already paid a heavy price of the delay in introducing a foolproof system of verifying SIM users. This exercise can help improve other existing and new businesses as well.

Along with the re-verification process, the government needs to reinforce existing laws for other important and existing businesses, especially food, health and education. They should introduce new laws for the businesses which are new for the Pakistani industry. They must hire professionals to evaluate the threats related to that business and do legislation before the business hits the market.

Responsibility lies with the organisations as well who must discuss possible threats with the government to ensure safety of people in general and customer in particular.

By learning from mistakes, the government should do legislations proactively for any business that is looking for opportunities in Pakistan. Waiting for things to happen and then doing legislation could cost lives as well as hurt the flourishing business. Absence or delay in legislation can also raise undue expectations of the investors and the customers.

Unclear laws

It is said that unlike telecom, most of the businesses are coming to Pakistan because they find it a great market with no or less clear legislation and rule of law. Government should not only hire good brains for legislation and approval of products but it should also do regular spot-checks to avoid any disaster.

Cellular industry in its early days did not have local competitors. Thus, the industry did not get much of the inspiration from the local market. PTCL and its technology were never a threat for cellular industry.

The industry was unaware of threats associated to GSM and AMPS technologies. Both the technologies have had a successful run in other parts of the world. They never threatened security and safety of the state. Industry imported almost everything including the ideas and somehow things worked well for them here. Government did not pay required attention to counter possible threats of the technology at the early stages and it turned out to be a fatal error later on.

Finance-telecom model

Combination of micro-financing and telecom is producing good results because of its business model and mature processes of banking and telecom industry. Customers are getting real time benefits of Mobicash, Easy Paisa and other similar kinds of products at the same time too. This model must be replicated and encouraged for other emerging industries.

Foreign and local investors of food industry have been taking serious interest in Pakistani market since long. They know customers’ behaviour of different locations of the country. They have also turned niche into need successfully in recent years.

However, to avoid a crisis they should start working with government closely on their internal processes to improve product and its perception.

Pharmaceutical industry’s “incentives” for doctors are a serious threat to their business as well. Any wrong product can cost both the beneficiaries with the same kind of unavoidable restructuring.

Media industry has recently faced a counter attack by the government on legal grounds. Same has happened with a renowned media group in Britain. “News of the World” had to close its business after a long journey of over 150 years.

To develop ownership of the business in multinationals, government should do contracts which engage maximum number of local population and ensure that the transfer of technology to local organisations is also done after a specific time. This will develop responsible behaviours and ownership of the organisation amongst the employees.

Prime minister’s loan scheme is a good example of giving opportunities to the local businessmen. However, government should facilitate the business by giving them low-priced fuel, electricity and gas until the business stands tall and becomes profitable.

Organizations need to focus on “Good Profits” and long-term gains to stay in the global market instead of focusing on short-term bad profits which earn them good money initially but shrink their revenue in the long run.

The writer is a corporate training specialist at Mobilink

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd,  2015.

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