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Alcatel-Lucent has been in Pakistan since 1980s and claims that over 90
percent of telecom professionals of the country have worked with the company
at some point in time. Adil Rauf, CEO/CSO, Pakistan & Afghanistan, Alcatel
Lucent, believes that imparting knowledge and sophisticated skills to the local
workforce is the key to technology transfer rather than selling mere gadgets
and implements. Alcatel Lucent is manned by Pakistanis from top to bottom
and the local team is equipped to handle every aspect of business; marketing,
administration, presale, post-sale, technical support, etc. Adil Rauf with
TelecomPlus
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TelecomPlus: What expertise did you bring to ALU?
Adil Rauf: I have been in the Telecom Industry for around 18 years. After doing
my engineering from University College London, University of London, I joined
Nortel Networks. I worked with Nortel in UK, India, Singapore, US, and in Pakistan
as well. I joined Alcatel-Lucent in November 2009. I was immediately attracted to
what Alcatel-Lucent has to offer, not only for being such a diverse company but
also for being very strong in this region.
How different do you find working here compared to other countries?
It’s different in some aspects and similar in others. Similar in the sense that we
try to maintain the corporate standards and identities prevalent in Alcatel-Lucent
as a major multinational company. Pakistan can be rightly proud of the fact that
our workforce is second to none globally and that can be seen both globally and
locally. As Pakistan’s economy has expanded over last few decades, so have
the quality of our workforce and business. Pakistan still has a vast untapped
potential and that is one of the reasons why Alcatel-Lucent continues to be so
committed to Pakistan and the business potential it offers. We have offices in
most major cities of the country and a world-class facility owned by us, here in
Islamabad.
Differences between international ways of doing business, especially in the West
and local business norms do exist. At ALU we follow strict ethical policies
regarding how we procure and implement our business. Personally, such
standards give me, a great degree of satisfaction and motivation in working for
such a company. The great news is that the customers we have in Pakistan also
have similar high standards, which is the reason we have been able to win
business based on the strength of our team, our products and the quality of
service that we provide.
Who are your major customers?
We have a number of customers in Pakistan with a varied range of business and
services, which underscores the wide range of products and services available
from Alcatel-Lucent. We have Mobilink, part of Orascom Group of Companies.
We have been working with Orascom globally for a number of years as they
have expanded into the largest mobile network in Pakistan.
CMPak is also a very good customer of ALU. Recently we won the contract for
the phase III expansion of CMPak for their GSM network. Our business included
equipment to civil and professional services with KPI commitments under
comprehensive turnkey responsibilities. PTCL is yet another of our important
customers with whom we continue to do business including DSL and services.
Additionally, there are a number of very important customers. We are supplying
GPON to Nayatel and, contrary to the recent claim of a competitor; ALU was the
first vendor ever to install GPON in Pakistan two years ago. Cybernet is another
of our customer in that space. While these customers are relatively smaller, they
are of strategic importance for us.
We are also doing enterprise business in Pakistan including banking and the
defense sector. Recently, we procured VoIP network for Pakistan Navy.
So, as you can see, we are pretty well spread out in Pakistan both is customer
reach and the type of business we do. Our focus is to continue to grow our
business here with products, technologies and services we lead in. All in all our
business in Pakistan is stable. An interesting aside, according to a recent
industry report on Q2 market shares, ALU share has increased in mobile access
and has passed Huawei! In fact we recently won a contract to swap out Huawei
for 3G with a major operator in our Middle East region which shows our
dynamism and aggression in getting new business. Globally, you can also
assess how the market has recently reacted to our quarterly results by our rising
share prices.
To what extent has Alcatel-Lucent contributed to the Telecom Industry in
Pakistan?
This facility in Islamabad was established in 90s and we are one of the few ICT
companies to have our own land and office here. We also have offices in
Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Karachi. ALU has been here since 1980s and a
large percentage of telecom professionals of Pakistan, 80 to 90 percent of them
if not more, amongst operators as well as vendors, have, at some point in time
worked for ALU. In fact many of them started their career with ALU in Pakistan
and were trained by us. You can say that Alcatel-Lucent has been – and
continues to be – an incubator for the growth of the Telecom Industry in
Pakistan. Of course, we believe that many of the best continue to work with us.
We have a large workforce of professionals and we support many of our
operations in the Middle Eastern region out of Pakistan and sometimes Africa
region as well. We support not only presale but also post sale operations out of
Pakistan in the regions mentioned. This includes highly skilled professionals like
RF engineers, Network Planners, etc.
So, I believe that Alcatel-Lucent has played a crucial role in the development of
Telecom in Pakistan and continues to do that by providing local and international
experiences for the best telecom professionals of Pakistan.
What could be the size of human resource that you have here?
It varies from 140 to 150 professionals. Then we have a number of
subcontractors who work for us as well as fully outsourced 3rd party operations
where the number of human resource they bring in sometimes runs into
hundreds. As mentioned already, we are present across the nation with this
support team and have, as a result, built up a solid reputation of meeting and
exceeding our Key performance Indicators (KPI’s) that we commit to our
customers. Not many vendors can claim that.
What level of technology transfer has taken place as a result of ALU
presence here?
In this knowledge-driven age, the concept of technology has undergone a radical
change. Technology is not necessarily hardware i.e. the number of gadgets or
appliances a factory is churning out day and night. High end of technology is, in
fact, the skill set and expertise that you impart to your workforce. The skill set
that we impart to our workforce has not only benefited us, it has also benefitted
the Telecom Industry and the economy as a whole. As I mentioned earlier, more
than 80 percent of the ICT professionals of Pakistan have worked in ALU at
some point in time. We acted as a reservoir of skill set out of which a trained
workforce was continuously fed to the ICT Industry. It carries more value then
producing a certain number of TVs, refrigerators, etc. It is pertinent to mention
that all the positions in ALU Pakistan are occupied by Pakistanis. The
significance of this fact is not fully realized by people. If you look at most of our
competitors in Pakistan, not only the top key slots, but most of the slots down to
even semi-skilled workforce are occupied by foreigners in these companies
especially the Chinese vendors. What level of technology transfer can be
expected in such a scenario? It hinders high end skills being developed by
locals. As Pakistanis, we need to recognize and value those companies which
impart knowledge and skills to Pakistanis and not just in menial jobs like having a
local as a tea boy but having managers, directors, CEOs etc. No matter how
sophisticated products and services a company is producing, its real asset is not
the technology. The real asset is the human resource producing and supporting
that technology. And if that crucial asset, the human resource comprises
Pakistanis from top to bottom, that company is doing a great service to Pakistan
not just in terms of providing sophisticated products and services, but also
through imparting the sophisticated skill set.
How do you evaluate the Alcatel-Lucent merger?
I was not in Alcatel-Lucent when this merger occurred; all I can say since I joined
is that we are a very stable organization. We are one company. Period.
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