‘Poor technology, skills block growth of companies’

[Naveed Yaseen]

KARACHI: Companies in Pakistan are far behind in using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), because of which poor technology and poor skills are hampering their growth, said Hanif Ajari, Vice President Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMAP).

He was speaking at a seminar on ‘Essence of Competitive Enterprise Resource Planning in Turbulent Times’ organised by ICMAP on Saturday.

He added that “this globalised world is not changing, it has changed already and those who do not meet today’s challenges, especially technological challenges, will lag behind. We are not willing to change our mind. We need to learn from India and Bangladesh who are taking the technological challenges seriously and bringing in latest technology in the financial world also.”

He cited the example of his pharmaceutical company, adding that “our company’s ERP systems are so efficient that even international transactions appear on our balance sheets in a matter of hours.”

Pakistani companies are some of the worst off in the world when it comes to honouring commitments, not because they lack the technology, but because they lack soft skills and management.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Syed Saleem Raza also spoke on the occasion and lauded the services of ICMAP in the financial sector of the country.

Zubair Tufail, an industrialist by profession, praised the role of SBP in regulating banks, because of which no local bank has defaulted during this financial crisis. Tufail hoped that more and more SMEs would adopt ERP systems in future to improve their capacity.

ICMAP President Hasan Bilgrami informed participants that ICMAP is bringing in a new syllabus keeping in mind modern challenges, with statistics and calculus making up more than 25 per cent of it.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=179158