Phone Fury

Acision, the world leading messaging company, announced that over 660 million smses were delivered across its messaging system during Eid in 48 hour period in Pakistan in October, 2009, a mind-boggling figure indeed.

Pakistan according to Acision is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world. It is becoming very common of sending smses during festivals, mainly it is inexpensive, easy to use and supported by 100 per cent of all mobile sets in the market. Another reason is the introduction of SMS bundles in the market for the prepaid segment. Now SMS has becoming the most preferred choice for communication and is set to remain the most dominant area of revenue for mobile companies.

Take as a whole, one of the amazing growth in the telecommunication sector is due to number of factors, one of which is definitely the relentless and highly aggressive marketing activities by telecom sector who bombardment us with messages about their products and services from every direction.

There are five major players in the market and each one of them has come up with enticing and competitive packages. Let have a look at each of the company’s package offerings and of the users of these packages on how economical these packages are and whether they deliver on their promises.

Zong

As a late entrant is wisely focusing on converting customers from other networks and has also aimed at positioning itself as a ‘second SIM’ option by offering competitive packages and rates. Zong claim that they offer a lowest call rates in the industry, at 45 paisa only. In addition they have flexible ‘happy hour’ packages which claim is the only one of its kind in Pakistan.

Telenor

With Aniee, Sonia Jehan as their brand ambassadors, Telenor tool on the market leader, Mobilink. By introducing the catchy ‘talkshawk’ as its brand extension, it has captured lot of chunk of the market.

Warid Telecom

Crazy seems to the brand mantra for Warid telecom for they have packages titles ‘Voice Craze’, ‘Infinite Craze’ and ‘Sunday Craze’. Unfortunately all this craziness has failed to depict the clear cut image for the brand and perhaps Warid is the weakest in term of brand recall where telecom advertising is concerned.

Ufone

In the market having lot of clutters it took a brave player to make a mark with advertising that definitely stands out. Ufone’s Slapstick comedy is hard to miss. Ufone, too, claims to offer lowest services available and has scored a major success with its SMS bundle offer.

Mobilink

As the market leader in Pakistan, huge customer base has become its biggest asset as for many users it proves cheaper to remain with Mobilink since the most of their contacts are on the same network.

Though each service is doing best to outdo the other in the ‘rate race’, as some users use ‘jazz ladies first’ to call to their family and friends and talk to them for an hour as it charge them only Rs10 per hour.

It is obvious that the phone war are not going to end anytime soon- and if it results more benefit to the consumer, so much the better.

Track Your Car

Recession has given rise to price hikes and unemployment and thus to committing crimes as well. In addition to all the robberies, car snatching is perhaps the most common menace.

Out of the thousands of car stolen every year-expect for a few that are taken by teenagers for a joyride- most are stolen by professional thieves who sell them onwards or sell the valuable parts to mechanics or second-hand spare parts dealers. This risk of car stolen can not be completely stopped but by taking few preemptive measures can prevent it from happening- GPS system is one such solution.

GPS or global positioning is a device which helps in tracking, immobilizing and recovering a stolen vehicle, thus giving the car owner a sense of security that his valuable possession is safe and sound.

GPS determines the precise location of any object to which it is attached. It records the position of the assets at regular intervals-the recorded data can be stored within the tracking unit, or it ma be transmitted to a central data base using a cellular, radio or satellite modem embedded in the unit. This allows the object’s location to be displaced against a map backdrop, either in real-time or when analyzing the track offline.

There are three major categories of GPS tracking units- data loggers, data pushers and data pullers. The categories are divided on the base of how data logged and retrieved.

Data loggers; Data loggers are the most basic type of GPS. A GPS data logger simply logs the position of the object or asset at regular intervals and retains it in an internal memory. Usually they are used by the sportsmen in order to track their location during hiking, biking and jogging.

Data pushers; Data pushers are commonly used by companies that need to manage the large fleet of vehicles. If goods transported or sorted in a specific place, they can constantly monitor to avoid risk of being stolen.

Data pullers; Data pullers remain ‘switch on’ all the time and allows the user to ‘pull’ the information as frequently as needed. It is less common than data pusher but can prove to be useful for tracking down the stolen property.

In Pakistan some of the renowned companies offering tracking system are Trakker, Tracking World and SimTrack and the technology was introduced in Pakistan by Jameel Yusuf, owner of Trakker (Pvt) Ltd, in collaboration with South Africa’s DigiCore Holdings.

The irony is that in spite of all attempts criminals are always smart enough to find ways to beat the protection. The came case is true to car tracking system. Car lifters have devised new ways to disable the tracking system.

Many people have the view that car tracking system doesn’t give 100 per cent guarantee and they also do not afford the fee charges by the tracking companies.

The car thieves are using GSM jammers for disabling trackers installed in the vehicle. These jammers can block the communication transmitted between the tracking company and the vehicle and in this way the car’s whereabouts simply vanish from the monitoring screen of the tracking company. But GSM jammers are too expensive to be affordable by most unprofessional thieves; therefore they are not great threat. Most of the tracking system has a power back. If the main power source is cut off, the device switches to its backup and notifies the control room immediately about the main power cut. Therefore is the thief disabling the tracker, even then the tracking device can help track the vehicle. The tracker is easily to locate in small cars and diesel vehicles. Car thieves can easily locate the tracking system by opening the bonnet and making the vehicle ignition system direct. But now a lock system has been designed for the bonnet so that the car lifters cannot open it at once the vehicle has been immbolises by the tracker.

C-trackker system by Trakker Company cost of Rs50, 000/- at the time of installation and pays Rs11, 000/- annually.

‘Tracking device’ if affordable by the car owners, can really prove to be helpful as they minimize the risk of asset from being robbed.

War by America in Afghanistan

After the air bombing campaign had routed the Taliban in 2001, joyful shouts of victory resonated in the United States, and the loudest coming from the white house and the Pentagon.
But these were short-lived as the characteristics afghan resistance began. The reason was that United States and his military has under estimated the enemy.
Not only that, they have also committed two strategic blunders, the consequences of which are being not only suffered by the American but also the Pakistani people.
The first blunder was to allow the Taliban to escape to Pakistan. Had they secured the Durand line crossing sites prior to initiates the air bombing campaign? The second blunder was to put their military effort in the wrong direction, Iraq which left the main theatre, Afghanistan, undermanned.
Instead admitting the mistakes, whit house blames to Pakistan for their failure in war against terrorism, even though Pakistan had done far more than them.
The new appointed commander namely Gen Stanley McChrytal just in one operation concludes that “the situation is serious”, and that he would need 40,000 more troops. He has thus placed the president in a serious dilemma.
The situation has become more serious all these years because of serious imbalance in the mission assigned and the resource allocated- only Gen McChrytal has found that out now. The mission assigned to the US military when it was first deployed in Afghanistan is yet to accomplish eight years on. Why? The pentagon needs to ponder over this.
All military planning begin after the mission assigned. The mission analyzed in several factors, the main ones being the enemy (size, strengths, weakness), and from these emerge the resources that would be required to accomplished the mission in the given timeframe.
The pentagon’s appreciation of the enemy was the serious flawed. Taliban fighters are highly motivated as they are fighting got freedom from foreign occupation like the American Partisan Patriots did during the War of Independence. They are skilled, tenacious, resilient, battle-hardened, cunning, and masters of surprise and improvisation. Since time is always on the side of guerrillas, their strategy to war sown the enemy by making them bleed from a thousand wounds. History records that almost all military defeats were caused by one factor alone- misappreciation of enemy.
What was the mission assigned to the Gen McChrystal when he was appointed to the top post in Afghanistan? He was expected to defeat the insurgency, or at least create condition that allows the US troops to withdraw gracefully, which his predecessors fail to do. That the US high command is taking their time on his request for more troops, clearly suggestion hat he was to make do with the resources already there.
Gen McChrytal declared priority to secure Afghan population centers until Afghan forces are ready to assume responsibility for their country by 2013. Four to five years more? What would he do when his battlefield, which is presently confined to the southern and eastern parts of the country, is extended by the Taliban to the rest of the country?
How many more troops would he ten ask for?
A defensive counter-insurgency strategy can never succeed as it leave initiate with the guerillas. Finally history would repeat itself when are forced out Vietnam style. The only way Afghan population centers can be secured and people’s support won is through an offensive strategy that aims to dominate, and then defeat the insurgency. Thus, a sequence of operational movements would have to be initiated to up for the lost time: first, to secure the Durand line crossing sites to prevent the Guerillas from escaping to Pakistan; second isolate the area selected for the operation to prevent their escape from it; third to secure the mountains to deny their use as sanctuaries; and finally, to force them into the valleys for taking hem out by ground and air –delivered firepower.
An offensive strategy would need far more troops. The Americans went to Afghanistan to fight a war. They should plan to win it- unless they want to be known as superpower defeated twice by Guerillas. Blaming Pakistan and prodding it to ‘do more’ would not win the war for them.

Downfall of SME

Small and medium enterprises- no less than four million in number- are waiting for broad economic recovery to resume their operation in full swing.
In the last fiscal year, the SME sector grew 7.5 per cent but thousand of SMEs had to cut production, suspend business and sack employees as large-scale manufacturing (LSM) declined by 8.4 per cent, resulting in huge job orders. In addition, a 2 per cent plus inflation and almost equal bank interest rates couples with electricity and gas shortages hit them hard. Now as LSM has begun crawling up, inflation has decelerated and interest rates softened, business opportunities are opening up for SMEs. Some large-scale industries that have picked up pace, like automobiles, electronics, light engineering, edible oil, chemicals and paper board, outsource a lot of ancillary items from them. If they keep growing- and chances are that they will- it will lift sagging output of SMEs in manufacturing sector.
However, revival of textile industry that accounts for one third of LSM is still not insight and this may impact many of the SMEs’ productivity.
An executive member of the Union of small & medium enterprises (UNISAME) said, “Many of our colleagues who suspended work in the last fiscal year have reinstalled sacked employees and restarted production”.
“initially we have seen activity in downstream for automobiles, electronics and light engineering,” but “Banks have almost stopped lending to SMEs and that can block growth of this sector.” bankers say they have restarted making fresh loans to the private sector but they admit that lending to SMEs is still negligible. In October 2009, banks gave Rs72 billion fresh loan to private sector.
“The problem with SME sector is that its non-performing loan (NPLs) as percentage of net loans almost doubled in the last fiscal year which forced us to halt lending and see what went wrong and where. Some banks are still in that process while others are past this exercise and would soon restart lending to SMEs.
Representatives of SMEs say lack of access to bank credit is a perennial problem for almost all small business insisting that banks mostly lend to medium-sized enterprises that employ 50 or more people in their business and not to small business units.
The state bank of governor has launched a pilot programmed for training and development of SME portfolio of Rs383 “out of the total SME portfolio of Rs383 billion only Rs38.3 billion (or 10 percent) was being channeled to business entities having less than 20 employees.”
The causes of it probably be “unorganized way of doing business of small entities.” Most banks do not have tailor-made credit products for SMEs nor do they have the systems, tools and the expertise to examine SMEs credit proposal professionally and monitor their loan portfolios efficiently. These factors compel banks to regard SME loans as riskier and charge a higher interest, thus restricting SMEs’ outreach to bank credit.
The SBP has lately allowed commercial banks to lend up to Rs3 million to SMEs without collaterals and is encouraging hem to introduce cash-flow based methodology instead of relying on traditional collateral-based lending.
The SBP step towards giving training to credit officers based in SME clusters in Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Sialkot, and Gujrawala. The central bank is also establishing a Credit Guarantee Fund for Small and Rural Enterprises with the help of DFID of the UK.
These measures along with better economic environment may help SMEs revive their business. But the government will have to offer sector –specific incentives for SMEs keeping in view the origins of growth in our domestic economy and the areas that may show increase in domestic consumption. SMEDA officials named various areas where immediate action plan need to be implemented.
These include fruits and vegetable processing/packaging ; edible oil extraction from local oilseeds; cotton ginning; yarn; grey cloth making, manufacturing of readymade garments and other articles of textiles excluding towels and bed wear for domestic consumption; sports goods particularly gloves making and jewelry and furniture manufacturing etc.
In service sector, businessmen point out that SMEs catering to or involved in construction, transport, storage and communication, wholesale and retail trade are well-positioned to grow during this fiscal year. But thy say that unlike the SMEs in manufacturing sector fins it even harder to seek financing facilities from banks.
One of the reason that restrict SMEs access to formal financing is that foreign banks are simply averse to lending this sector and Islamic banks are yet to find ways to enhance their exposure. Foreign banks have around 0.5 percent shared in SMEs financing and Islamic banks about five per cent.
Major economies including China and India are now focused on driving domestic demand amidst a slow reversal of global recessionary trend. Pakistan also needs to continue a minimum stimulus spending to revive its own domestic consumption.
Some concrete steps to revive the SME sector like, providing seed money for setting up workers’ training institution and allowing duty drawbacks on machinery can help.
Businessmen suggest that part of export development funds can also be diverted to the SMEs with backward and forward linkages with export-oriented industries. Also SMEs in SMEs cluster cities must get maximum electricity and gas- and if load shedding becomes inevitable it must done under a per-announced schedule so that SMEs could rescheduled their work hours.