Dear Anwar,
Thanks for responding. Out of curiosity what tactics do you deploy to pre-empt this?
My strategy is to talk about the risk about Pakistan in the context of risks associated with the Philippines and India. On a factual basis, i.e number of homicides per 100,000, Pakistan doesn’t rank any lower or higher than other outsourcing destinations. I also highlight the fact that despite ethnic riots, religious bloodsheds, prime minister assasinations and far devastating earthquakes, companies still outsourced to India– because it made business sense. So this becomes an issue of risk diversification.
The other more important aspects to bring up is the fact that globalization does bring good and bad– some of the good things are jobs and prosperity. One way to combat crime (of all sorts) is to eradicate poverty. And that can only be done through the spread of jobs. At the aftermath of the earthquake it is more of a reason/mission to bring jobs into Pakistan. That emotional tie with customers does work too, sometimes. And of course, I believe in using this only b/c the group I am associated with has an angle of social engineering (not to be mistaken by social entrepreneurship).
I would love to hear your thoughts and other people’s thoughts on this. I firmly believe that if we individually and collectively continue to promote Pakistan in all ways possible, we will break the mindset of large corporations.
The second cable, SEMEWE 4 should help establish Pakistan as a viable place to do BPO/Call Center work as well.
Kind regards,
Imran