A Framework for IT Industry Development: A Case Study of Pakistan

The software industry in developing countries has received attention in recent years due to two broad factors: i) Developing countries are becoming a significant contributor to the growing global outsourcing of software products and services; and ii) Software industry is seen as a potential catalyst for rapid socio- economic development in these countries.An integrated framework for understanding Information Technology (IT) industry in a developing country is presented and then applied to understand the software industry in Pakistan. This paper provides information on the software industry in Pakistan and analyses the associated organisational management issues. Business strategies and management practices of a representative sample of Pakistan's software companies have been studied. It was found that currently a majority of software firms is trying to adopt better marketing strategies and improve their quality assurance systems and project management capabilities as a requirement for focussing on export markets. The key issues faced by software firms are lack of skilled manpower, inefficient infrastructure, unavailability of financing and non- protection of intellectual rights. Measures taken by the Government, software industry association and recent developments that have led to more than 30% growth rate of the IT industry in Pakistan, are also presented. The proposed framework is utilised to formulate some recommendations for further development of the IT industry.