Top 10 Software Houses in Lahore You Should Know About

Living and growing in Lahore is something different from other cities even the cities of other countries. Lahore is well known for its food abundance. The people from all over the world use to come here to full-filling their foodie desire: the traditional food. Not only traditional food, Chinese and fast food as well. Similarly, the news tech-savvy generations are also growing here with the advent of the modern age. Like Pakistan Tech News is also covering all IT information. Furthermore, people from different cities come to Lahore for working in famed software houses of Lahore. If you don’t have clear idea then after going through this article you will get to know about Top 10 software houses in Lahore that you should know about them. So let’s start discussion briefly, regarding the tech/software houses in Lahore:

NetSol Technologies
Systems
Arbisoft
Afiniti
NorthBay Solutions
Techlogix
Nextbridge
Conrad Labs
Mindstorm Studios
CureMD

NetSol Technologies

NetSol Technologies started in the year of 1995 by Salim Ghauri. It has 1500 plus employees in Lahore, London, Log Angeles, Riyadh, Bangkok, Adelaide, and Beijing. This firm has also awarded the first CMMI Level 5 certified company in Pakistan. This is one of those certificates that a company can endure with.

Systems

Next, come systems, it is also prominent and one of the famous software in Lahore. This software house: Systems is one of the most progressing and gaining positive result in a short period. In simple words, Systems is not only one of the best software houses in Lahore but working is also proving fruitful day by day.

Arbisoft

Yasser Bashir is the founder of Arbisoft, he founded in 2007 after the success of Deep Pixels. However, Deep Pixel is only focusing on the processing of 3D medical images. Deep Pixel is still working at small scale. On the other hand, Arbisoft is mainly focusing on software development services, which prove fruitful as well. In short, this is how Arbisoft became a well-known figure as it is now.

Afiniti

With over 150 patents, Afiniti’s technology examines data and commercially available information tied to customer identity to determine patterns of successful behavioral interactions and applies these patterns in real time to drive improvements in health, enterprise profitability, and customer satisfaction.

NorthBay Solutions

100% AWS focused onshore/offshore AWS Premier Consulting Partner, supporting our customers to accelerate the reinvention of their applications and data for a cloud native world. NorthBay’s more than 350 AWS certified employees excel in:

Developing and deploying database & application migrations,
Data lakes and analytics
ML/AI
DevOps
Data modernization/development

Techlogix

Techlogix was started in 1996. Three MIT graduates, whose names are Khurram Afridi, Salman Akhtar, and KewanQadre Khawaja. They started this firm for providing services regarding IT, eBusiness, and global consulting. Techlogix having 3 hundred plus employees. Their main office is located in Lahore: Techlogix. In Karachi and Islamabad, also possess branches. The core project of this firm’s working are mobile wallets like Omni, UBL service, and soft services regarding LUMS as well.

Nextbridge

NXB has grown to 400+ Professionals working in various Software Wings in 3 major cities of Pakistan: Lahore, Islamabad and Multan. Their Developers are picked after a fine recruitment process in which their excellence and ability to excel is measured.

To keep up-to-minute with the latest I.T. trends, NXB has a dedicated Training Department to help Developers familiarize themselves with new technologies and frameworks. Right now, They have Pakistan’s finest software breed working in PHP, .NET (Web and Desktop), Ruby on Rails, Python and Mobile projects.

Conrad Labs

Abbas Yousafzai is the CEO of Conrad Labs. It was founded in March 2009. They prefer to go with the best engineering team, because of their working of the software at early stages.

Conrad Labs provides highly skilled technical resources to help launch startups. We build commercial-grade Web and mobile products, provide DevOps services.

Mindstorm Studios

Mind Storm Studios portfolio include some of the most iconic & wildly popular games like War Inc, Teeny Sheep & our recent Chart-Toppers such as Hospital Inc & Piercing Parlor. Allow Mind Storm Studios to show you their world in under 60 seconds!

CureMD

CureMD is a leading provider of innovative health information systems and services that transform
the administrative and clinical operations of healthcare organizations of all sizes.

PITB – P@SHA sign MoU to promote IT Industry in Pakistan

PITB – P@SHA sign MoU to promote Public-Private partnership by engaging local IT industry in Public Sector Digitalization

As part of the vision articulated by Chairman PITB Azfar Manzoor, PITB is actively working towards promoting Public-Private Partnership. One of the initiatives is PITB’s ‘Partners in Development’ program that aims at supporting the local software industry by engaging them in public sector software development work with special emphasis on digitally powered public services. In this regard, PITB and Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITeS (P@SHA) signed an MoU today at Arfa Software Technology Park to promote collaboration between public and private sectors.

The MoU was signed by Chairman PITB Azfar Manzoor and Chairman P@SHA Barkan Saeed. According to the MoU, both the organizations will support each other as partners in the digitalization drive of the Punjab Government, and explore avenues of potential growth for the IT & IT enabled Services (ITeS) Industries. On this occasion Public-Private Partners Portal was also launched where local IT companies can register and share their ideas on collaborative transformation. PITB’s DG e-Governance Sajid Latif, GM IT Burhan Rasool, Founder & CEO DPL Syed Ahmed, President & CEO of InfoTech Group Naseer Akhtar and other senior officials were also present at the ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion Chairman PITB Azfar Manzoor said, “Both PITB and P@SHA are focused on collaboration to digitalize the governance ecosystem in Punjab by leveraging and sharing expertise in IT & ITeS. Through Public- Private Partnership, PITB will support the local software industry by engaging them in public sector software development projects”

Chairman P@SHA Barkan Saeed stated, “PITB is playing a vital role in the digitalization of Punjab and in promoting public-private partnership. P@SHA will encourage its members to actively engage with PITB through PITB’s ‘Partners in Development’ initiative. Both PITB and P@SHA will also work towards deliberating policy interventions necessary to foster the IT Industry in Pakistan”.

Local IT Companies and Software houses can register on the following web address. www.partners.pitb.gov.pk

How Systems Ltd is leading the tech wave in Pakistan

Every now and then, one sees the policymakers or leading industry people talk about the potential of digital and how Pakistan needs to leverage that. Comparisons are offered with respect to regional countries like the Philippines and India and how they have boosted their IT exports.

But how can that be when there is no proper infrastructure or robust capital markets? Just a cursory glance at the technology and communication sector on the Pakistan Stock Exchange gives a fairly good idea: the sector represents a little over one per cent of the overall market capitalisation.

However, ever since the tech wave triggered by Covid-19, Pakistani tech stocks also followed the global trend and rallied by over 27pc in 2020 compared to a 4.61pc increase in the KSE-100 index. Leading that tide was Systems Ltd, one of the oldest IT services export companies in the country that listed on the bourse in 2015.

During the last year, it was the best scrip-wise performer on the PSX. It posted phenomenal gains of 273.6pc as the share price hit Rs468.63 on Dec 31, 2020. While the company had been consistently recording net profit CAGR of over 30pc since 2014, it was only the past 12 months when it truly grabbed the attention of investors. One obviously wonders then: what has changed?

“There was an internal momentum as a group along with growth consistency, and after we crossed a threshold level, the market responded back,” says Systems Ltd Chief Operating Officer Asif Akram, who joined the tech company in July after over 20 years at IBM where he last led the global business services.

“Then obviously Covid-19 also impacted us. Lastly, Pakistani tech companies have remained undervalued and thus offer a good value for money,” he adds. There is truth to his statement. In a Nov 27 report, KASB Research stated: “The average PE multiples for IT services companies in India and Brazil are around 38x 2021 PE — 90pc higher than the multiple we are assigning for valuing the company.” In comparison, Systems Ltd hovers around 20x of trailing earnings.

In 2019, Systems Ltd was named the largest IT exporter from Pakistan though the overall proceeds are too small as proceeds from “telecommunication, computer and information services” stood at only $1.44 billion in 2019-20. Time and again, ambitious targets are set but how can this be really changed?

“For starters, we will need the government to become our marketing agency globally,” says Mr Akram. Another area that requires work, he says, is ending the setting up of competing bodies in the public-sector technology space that perform the same functions. Basically, think of bodies like Digital Pakistan, IT Ministry or even the telecom authority, which often pursue the same goals in parallel but end up creating more silos for the industry.

Finally, the COO reiterates what everyone in the industry also has been saying for a while: there is a lack of talent. “We need more supply of engineers, computer scientists.” Currently, the few top schools produce around 5,000 computer science graduates a year combined while the industry needs no less than 20,000-25,000 of such kids.

And that’s for the baseline scenario. In order to reach a better growth rate (100-200pc) instead of being content with 30pc that’s in some part due to the low-base effect, that recurring supply will have to be in hundreds of thousands.

But for a moment, let’s really put aside our obsession with exports and focus on the local market. With demographics like these, there must be something in it too, right? If we look at Systems Ltd, around 18pc of its top line comes from Pakistan, which clocked in at Rs1.37bn in 2019.

So can we expect a shift in geographical focus from the management? “That amount will increase obviously as we are growing at over 30pc annually but the share is going to remain similar,” Mr Akram says.

In the end, the question is even if the IT exports get to a respectable level, what are going to be the spill-over effects for the local economy? Or could it be a repeat of other sectors where a sizable chunk of the foreign exchange finds its way into the real estate amnesties?

“If we look at what’s happened in the regional countries, such as India or the Philippines, the spill-over effects are huge. A lot of that supply will also be entering the local market services and that will push digitisation in the domestic economy,” he says.

Published in Dawn