wi-tribe Director Wins HRM Award in India - ProPakistanis

The 11^th edition of the Asia Pacific HRM Congress (held in India) saw wi-tribe Pakistan’s Director Human Capital, Alia Zafar winning the ‘HR Professional of the Year’ award.

The Congress was held on the 6^th& 7^th of September, 2012 at Vivanta by Taj, Bangalore, India. Asia Pacific HRM Congress Awards recognize individuals and organizations for bench marking HR practices.

A council of board members and jury set the criteria for nominations and selection.

The award recognizes individuals and organizations for a professional cause in various award-categories. Given that the theme of the 2012 Conference was ‘HR – Building Future Leaders’, it is a laudable fact that one of Pakistan’s very own from wi-tribe received the prestigious award in a ceremony that recognizes individuals and organizations for benchmarking HR practices.

Alia Zafar happens to be a versatile strategic Human Resource Professional, Lead Trainer, Management Consultant and certified Hays’s Job Evaluation Professional. She has 17 years of hands-on experience in diverse industries operating over multiple jurisdictions.

Alia is a certified Human Resource professional from NUST Business School and HRIT professional from SICF, Hokkaido, Japan. Prior to wi-tribe, she has served in large financial/hospitality organizations including Internal Revenue Service Pakistan, Habib Bank Limited Pakistan and at Hashoo Group Pakistan at various senior strategic positions within Human Resource Function.

Alia is also the co-author of the book ‘Directory of Terms – HRM’, a popular reference book at educational institutes for HR Management students.”

Ufone Reaches Out to Flood Affectees - ProPakistanis

Ufone announced today that it recently distributed a consignment of relief items worth hundreds of thousands of rupees in the flood hit areas of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur. The purpose of the activity was to reach out to the plight of the flood affectees in the area.

The relief goods contained 500 tents and hygiene kits to cater to 1500 families which were distributed equally in both the districts. Alongside, a number of Mobile PCO’s have also been set up in both areas so that flood affectees can make free calls to their loved ones and remain in touch through this testing time. This activity shall help give relief to the bereaved flood victims by providing shelter and save thousands of flood affectees from various health hazards. The distribution of relief goods was done in collaboration with Rescue 1122 in DG Khan and RDPI in Rajanpur.

Abdul Aziz, President and CEO Ufone in his message said “Ufone is committed to help the flood hit people of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur and wanted to convey to them that Ufone is fully aware of the difficulties the people of DG Khan and Rajanpur are going through.  Ufone would like to assure them that it will always be there for them, whenever need be.”He reiterated the commitment of his company and employees to utilize all available resources for rehabilitation of the flood victims.

This comes in continuation to the first of its kind flood awareness campaign taken up by Ufone. Being sensitive to the safety of people during the rainy season; Ufone had redefined its long standing partnership with Plan Pakistan and embarked upon a mission to carry out flood awareness campaigns to help spread basic pre and post flood information in 7 districts across Punjab and Sindh.

During the campaign, Ufone set up an IVR service which gives easy access to information for floods simply by dialing 3733, alongside Ufone in collaboration with Plan Pakistan distributed communication material in the form of booklets and posters in all 7 districts as part of the awareness drive to help spread messages on health and hygiene, child protection, evacuations to safe places and linkages with key stakeholders like district government functionaries, humanitarian organizations, local philanthropists’ etc.

It may be recalled here during the floods of 2010 and 2011 Ufone took part in the crises management phase and provided relief items and survival kits to the flood victims. This time around, owing to the early flood warning, for the first time the company decided to venture into an awareness drive which proved more beneficial and indirectly helped save millions of lives.

The scale of the flood disaster has overwhelmed the government and flood victims had urged the non-government sector to come forward to help them in flood hit areas as early as possible to strengthen the relief activities.

Member Finance of PTA Gets Suspended Again - ProPakistanis

Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, recently reinstated member finance of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, today got suspended again, told us sources from regulator’s headquarter.

Sources confirmed ProPakistani that cabinet division has issued the notification for the suspension of Mr. Ghaznavi, who was already facing an inquiry for causing heavy losses to authority.

Financial advisor to Cabinet Division, Mr. Sarwar, has replaced Mr. Ghaznavi as acting member finance of the authority for now.

Mr. Ghaznavi was recently reinstated on Prime Minister’s nod, after facing a service suspension for an year and a half. He was earlier suspended amid an inquiry for causing authority heavy losses. If sources are to be believed, a recent case against Mr. Ghaznavi hit the cabinet division, alleging him for granting Rs. 28 million waiver to a telecom company, which eventually got him the suspension.

Mr. Ghaznavi was given a service extension for four year term in 2009, after which hisdifferences with former Chairman grew that ended up with his suspension. Service term for Mr. Ghaznavi as member finance will expire in January 2013, during which he is likely to remain suspended to face inquiry.

Service suspension of member finance, the third member of PTA board, has surfaced at a time when authority is preparing to auction 3G licenses.

In a related news, Mr. Khurram Mehran, the former director for public relations at PTA, was today given the responsibility of commercial affair wing at authority (to replace Zeeshan Gul), within 24 hours of his appointment as director PR. Mr. Mehran had just returned after completing a long term leave.

Mobile and The Cloud: Sky is The Limit - ProPakistanis

Our mobile devices are pivotal in keeping us connected at all times. We look to our devices for everything from simple calls and text messages to instant GPS navigation; to checking the posts on our Facebook accounts.

New gadgets with richer features, technologies, and apps are coming out every day and keeping consumers on the edge of their seats to get a hold of that next cool app. As we become more and more dependent on our mobile devices, it’s no doubt these numbers will only continue to climb.

By 2014, general mobile Internet usage will overtake desktop Internet usage. Already in 2011, 91% of mobile Internet access has been used to socialize (compared to only 79% on desktops). In fact, mobile commerce is expected to soar to $200B by 2015.

In Pakistan alone, there are close to 120 million mobile subscriptions according to Pakistan Telecommunications Authority and 12.5% of these users access internet through their phones as per the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan.

As this trend escalates, we see cloud computing playing a key role in the next wave of personal computing, augmenting or even eclipsing the personal computer in some cases — and it’s these cloud services that will be the reason many people use a device at all. Mobile and cloud are kindred spirits – both offer unprecedented flexibility and a means for reacting faster than ever before to business changes.

Behind the surge in cloud activity: a growing population of mobile customers and small and medium businesses (SMBs) who increasingly want their content and software available on all of their devices at all times rather than tied to specific computers, phones or tablets. SMBs need to be agile. They want quick access to business applications, where they can approve requisitions or view customer orders on the fly, to keep their business moving. As more SMBs turn to mobile devices to conduct business, technology providers such as managed service providers (MSPs) see the cloud as a powerful enabler for SMBs to turn to in order to address this growing business need.

And it seems that SMBs are really hitting their stride with everything cloud computing, thanks to the tablet’s ever growing popularity. RingCentral’s 2012 mobile survey reveals that there is an explosion in tablet PC ownership, from 28 percent in 2011 to 62 percent in 2012 – a staggering shift!

And then there are some of us who are perpetually hunting for apps for our mobile devices – to squeeze every ounce of functionality out of it. It is clear that any mobile application that adequately supplants an old way of doing things – is worth embracing. That is ‘true convergence’. Using tablets to take notes, check email and browse the web, present at a sales meeting, turns your iPad into your most important business tool.

Furthermore, the surging demand for storage in the cloud is also being driven by camera-equipped smartphones and tablets that take photos and video. Each new generation of phones and tablets takes images needing denser files. Newer models backup content automatically to the cloud and synchronize it with the user’s other devices, which also drives up usage.

Today, employees are motivated by the fact that they are allowed to work off-premise and bring their own device to work. With core business applications in the cloud, employees can now plug into their small business cloud wherever they are, whenever they want – remotely. This leads to flexible work arrangements, as well as increased productivity. Take for example, construction companies are building better, faster, cheaper because they can push plan changes more quickly into the field. Healthcare organizations have tighter control over cash flow and inventory with mobile devices that enable them to order replacement supplies at the point of use.

The Cloud: Safer Than Ever

With these devices, security remains top of mind, having data and critical business functions in the cloud. However, several significant advances in authentication, authorization and auditing, and the rigorous security controls with advanced technologies have made the cloud secure- prompting small businesses to lean increasingly toward cloud as not only a platform that reduces cost, but also one that now enables them to focus more in business growth and strategy rather than managing IT.

It seems that SMB owners are embracing the fact that running a business remotely using mobile devices will become the new “norm” in today’s era of computing. And SMBs’ who want to stay ahead of the competition will be turning to the cloud to quickly make that their business reality.

Writer is Country General Manager, IBM Pakistan and Afghanistan

SMS Traffic To Decline - ProPakistanis

Many may find it surprising, but the Short Message Service (SMS) has been around for 15 years now. It has revolutionized the way inhabitants of Earth communicate.

Advertisement campaigns of bloggers, mobile phone operators, religious motivators, and now even the “Alerts” are put across via SMS. But researchers say, this convenient medium of communication will soon give bay to a new era of text communication which involves almost no cost at all. A good $1, data connection and you’ll be good to go.

A research published by ABI Research in 2011 showed there were slightly more than 7 trillion SMS sent that year. The trend replicates in Pakistan too and 176 billion text messages were exchanged by Pakistanis in 2010.

Experts at Strategy Analytics predict, 2012 is the year when expenditure on SMS from consumer end will start to decline. Further, they go on to show that the combination and easy access of simple text messaging applications coupled with the intense competition between operators in major markets will push a fall of 12% in global consumer spending on SMS over the next few years.

It’s a no-brainer to use the modern texting applications. With BlackBerry Messenger BBM pioneering the road, the likes of Kik, WhatsApp, Viber came along. In October last year, WhatsApp announced that it has crossed over 1 billion messages a day. Similary, Twitter issued in June 2011, there are 200 million messages posted in its system every day. With mobile versions of Facebook Messenger, Skype and Twitter easing through, it’s pretty much obvious which way the data world is shaping up.

Only thing that may save SMS for quite some time is fragmentation. SMS, as we know it, work on every mobile phone. Text messaging applications, however, are handset specific. You don’t need an inspector’s eye while investigating around that all major app developers are focusing to overcome handset-specific barrier and make their app as universal as possible.

One example is the recent “Check-in” by NASA’s Martian rover named Curiosity. Here’s a snapshot from NASA’s website.

On a serious note, take Foursquare for example. The application gets as glamorous as you want it to be depending on your mobile phone. Same is the case with Twitter and Facebook.

This all has to come a long way still. SMS is the king in markets where it’s cheaper. Ours is the prime example. But for North America and, especially  Western Europe, use of SMS to do point-to-point communication has taken a dip. Argument is not whether or not it is a good thing; presentation is about how the world of wireless data communication is now shaping up. It crossed the bounds of literacy, wealth and fanciness way back.