At the recent CPBC 34th Anniversary Gala, Mr. Dexter Salna of the Constellation Group shared his experience on their engagement in Pakistan.
We are pleased to share his experience with you.
So how did Constellation open a division in Pakistan?
We did not plan to open an office, we happened to acquire a UK company with a division in Pakistan.
Gladstone PLC (UK) was acquired by Constellation, and their Karachi branch office of 12 people (operational since 2007) was subsumed in July 2010. This may have been the extent of the branch office, but 2 years earlier, I had hired Bilal Mahmood, a Canadian, with a Pakistani origin. Bilal offered to move to Karachi to manage and build the branch office.
In my division, the group supplying software to Homebuilders was interested to add programming staff after a dramatic collapse of the US homebuilding industry. We were able to hire quality staff in Karachi to assist in software development. After the success in the homebuilding group, more software divisions decided to hire staff in Pakistan. This spread further to other Constellation operating groups.
We now have 325 employees located in offices in Karachi and Lahore, and have demand for 45 more staff. We support 53 different software products for development, quality assurance, IT support, customer support, professional service and assist the finance department in North America.
We support departments located in time zones from Vancouver to Sydney.
I have made 2 visits to Pakistan and many people that I interviewed told me that it was the best place to work in Karachi/Lahore. I am looking forward to accompanying CPBC in their next delegation to Pakistan.
CPBC Hosted a Canada Pakistan ICT Conference last year
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