万成奎,天津工业大学物理实验中心,元智快递
现在广为热议的是，在产业领域至少有五个新的趋势。尽管这些趋势不是能被大家接受，但是最近的发展表明了这些趋势的显现。当这些趋势逐渐蔓延整个产业领域时，政策制定者和投机资本家很快就能认识到这些趋势出现。由于受发展的本质和节奏的影响，这些趋势在不久的将来即将出现。下面将列举这些趋势并作出简单的解释。
趋势一：向国内市场的转变
这个产业里最引人注目的趋势就是收入突破从国外主导型向国内主导型转换。不久前软件出口收益和国内市场收益比率是60:40。这一比例在仅仅三年里颠倒过来了，在IT和BPO市场上，国内市场就占了总收益的几乎60%。产业专家为这次收益分解转变援引了一些理由。还有一些专家为软件出口业存在的障碍发出信号，其他的把这些改变归功于对外国人在巴基斯坦的旅游限制。此外，2006年的互联网停运超过十二天也是使外国人对本地市场不信任的另一个理由。然而，由于像银行业，公共企业等行业以及业务外包在本地市场变得趋于稳定，所以国内市场已经跟得上节奏了。
There at least five trends that are emerging in the industry and widely talked about. Although these trends are not well established but some developments in recents past have indicated the presence of these trends. The time is near when these trends will shape up the whole industry and will be recognized by policy makers and the venture capitalists. Owing to the nature and pace of developments these trends are imminent in near future. The trends are listed below with brief explanations.
Trend # 1: The Shift towards the Domestic Market
The most noticeable trend of the industry is transformation of revenue break from foreign majorly foreign to majorly domestic. Not long ago the ration of software exports revenues to domestic market revenues was 60:40. This ration has turned upside down in just three years with domestic market contributing almost 60% to the total revenues from IT and BPO market. Industry experts quote a number of reasons underlying this shift of revenue breakup. Some have signaled the blockades that exist in export of software industry and the others attribute this change to restrictions that foreigners face for travelling in Pakistan. Moreover, the 2006 fiasco when internet went down for no less than twelve days is another reason for distrust of foreigner on the local market. The domestic market, however, has picked up pace as the industries such as banking, public sector etc and outsourcing became prominent in the local market. Automation of the whole banking industry with most of the banks choosing to re-engineer on the lines of IT solutions are under spotlight.
In public sector, a number of major projects were executed all across Pakistan. The most prominent names in the pulic sector who have embraced organization wide IT base solutions include Central Board of Revenue, NADRA, Project to Improve Financial Reporting and Auditing and Punjab Information Technology Board. International economic reformation bodies such as Asian Development Bank and World Bank have shown interest in automation of these public sector organizations. In near future, a $48 million project is imminent for PBR.
Although the domestic market has shown rising trend in revenues but the trend is vulnerable to decline if distressful situation of foreign market is not addressed in time. The domestic market currently is limited to a very few sector mentioned above. For full throttle of growth and more importantly its sustainability, development on both the fronts is inevitable for industry to flourish.
Most of the companies have now adopted risk minimization strategy by broadening their products and services portfolio and effective risk management. Foreign industry is known to have proven high margins in the industry with high risks always looming whereas the domestic market is relatively low risk market with moderate margins. Currently the approach in the current economic downturn is to minimize risk while maintaining constant cash inflows. The approach is now transforming from ONLY DOMESTIC to FIRST DOMESTIC.
Besides all the risks and pitfalls foreseen, the software industry is likely to undergo capacity building in the days to come. All this industry needs at the moment is perseverance and continual address of the key issues lying the way of software export front.
趋势二 系统整合的未来时代——Trend # 2: The ‘Coming of Age’ Of Systems Integration
The second most prominent trend in the software industry is the of emergence of Systems Integration. Although the concept has been around for years but its dominance is being felt greatly in recent years. Systems integration has been part of the businesses of giants of the industry such as IBM but it has also remained among key activities of mushroom software entrepreneurs who are yet to claim their identity on national level.
There are a number of factors which can be attributed for this trend to have set in place. The most notable of all is the inclination of IT professionals towards development of something on their own rather than buying or licensing and implementing readymade solution. The trend of systems integration is also attributable to demand supply dynamics the industry has seen in recent past when Pakistan’s economy took leap in last government and public sector organizations such as NADRA with its state of the art computerized ID card and passport identification solutions ventures were inevitable. Similarly, the wave of banking industry automation called for integrated systems solutions to stay competitive in the market.
In the context of supply of the industry, the industry had undergone maturity with the same technological solutions to address ever-changing IT industry demand. The supply maturity of the industry can be observed by looking at the fact that SAP consultants used to be very few in the local market when Abacus thought of starting venture of SAP consultancy in the local market. They only found a handful of SAP consultants in the local industry. Today with demand of giant companies such as PSO, PARCO, SHELL PAKISTAN, Unilever and many other compnies, the industry is getting rich with SAP consultants who are well capable of providing solutions on big international projects.
As a result of system integrators emergence, there are a couple of effects that have been observed in the industry. Firstly, small software firms started becoming business partners of multi-national players of the industry. These multi-nationals included IBM, Siemens, Oracle and Microsoft to name a few. The second effect that was observed in the industry to emergence of system integrators was shift from ‘create your own enterprise resource planning solution’ to ‘off-the shelf solutions’.
趋势三 理想企业家的出现——Trend # 3: The Emergence of the ‘Idea Entrepreneur’
The third most noticeable trend in the industry is emersion of idea based entrepreneurial ventures across the industry. When the industry started to deepen its roots in the Pakistan’s market in the beginning of twenty first century, people were of the view that a software house can be operated by having a desktop computer and an internet connection. Everyone started to follow the same course and provided the same services all across the market. Then, a realization in market started to take that the rapidly growing and ever-changing market of software industry required idea based entrepreneurship where copy cats were not required anymore. There came a time when intellectual proprietary solutions were offered by the people and rules to sustain in the market changed. Now, the industry has seen human capital development on the lines of specialization rather than generalization of expertise. Now the niche markets are being ruled by the specialists of respective domains.
The industry is now open to entrepreneurs who have capability to strike with accuracy rather than following hit and trial approach. Environment of the software industry is not conducive for new comers and one has to face a lot of head on collision with the market players who have strengthened their foundations in the industry with identity of being specialist of their domain. Nevertheless, the industry is generous enough to entertain new ideas with technologically updated system solutions. |
