News Update Times

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) Systems Limited has made a strategic investment in JOMO through its subsidiary Systems Ventures. This investment accents how Systems Ventures aspires to amplify digital innovation and support Pakistani businesses that steer positive economic disruption.

JOMO has one of the leading and progressive eCommerce business model, and its excellence-guaranteed business framework played a momentous role in its rapid growth and set it apart from other key players. Systems Ventures is also excited to share the Board of Director’s table with leading names such as The Services Group, Sapphire Group, etc.

Asif Peer, CEO of Systems Limited, expressed, “We are gratified to strategically invest in JOMO, Pakistan’s fastest-growing fashion eCommerce company. With seamless last-mile delivery and uniquely positioned ‘Try before you buy’ excellence model, JOMO has firmly positioned itself as a leading eCommerce brand in the fashion ecosystem. As a technology partner and strategic investor, we are convinced that JOMO will be a trendsetter for other eCommerce ecosystem in Pakistan.”

Highly satisfied with the equity investment, Ali Khan-Bajauri, Cofounder and CEO of JOMO, shared, “We are delighted to have a leading, global technology partner and investor like Systems on board. Systems investment closes our first round of private funding. Before reaching out to Venture Capital (VC) seed funding, we at JOMO wanted to choose the right specialists to fully enable us to create gold standards in technology, data, brand building, beauty, and fashion.”

“We are super excited to announce that with the addition of Systems, we have all the right partners now sitting around the table to help propel JOMO become a truly Global Pakistani eCommerce company,” he further added.

This significant investment diversifies Systems Ventures’ investment portfolio and advances the goal of building a digital-centric marketplace. The company also aims to supplement the economic well-being of Pakistan by creating more job opportunities.

The company empowers employees with real-time knowledge and training within the applications they use every day to streamline onboarding, drive productivity and alleviate the pain of searching for answers

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)  Spekit, the brainchild of Pakistani powerhouse Zari Zahra and cofounder, Melanie Fellay, has announced raising $45 million in Series B funding led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Felicis, Operator Collective, Matchstick Ventures, Renegade Partners, Foundry Group and Bonfire Ventures, as covered by Forbes. Spekit is the leading platform for onboarding and training remote teams. Now, it becomes the first female-founded company to raise funding of this calibre in Pakistan, bringing the company’s total funds raised to $60 million.

With hubs in Karachi and Denver, Spekit is attracting top-tier technical talent in Pakistan, eager to join the mission to reinvent how we learn at work. The company is rapidly expanding its presence in Pakistan and looking for new talent across software engineering, leadership and more. Since raising a $12.2M Series A funding round in March 2021, Spekit has tripled its employee headcount and grown revenue more than 300% year-over-year. Many of the world’s most innovative companies including Uber Freight, Snowflake, Outreach, Invesco and Southwest Airlines rely on Spekit to empower their employees with real-time knowledge and training, without disrupting their day-to-day workflows. 

“Mel and I started this journey with our founding engineering team in Karachi and, while we’ve since expanded across the US, it’s clear that Silicon Valley is no longer the only place where world-class products are built. A key to achieving our growth has been leveraging the immense talent across both nations to build a collaborative, high-caliber team. This is both a competitive advantage and, on a personal level, a source of real pride for me as a Pakistani,” said Zari Zahra, Spekit’s Cofounder and Chief Product and Technology Officer. “We’re growing rapidly and intend to deepen our roots in Pakistan, as well as the US, by finding more talented people to help us build this iconic, market-defining platform.”

For the last three decades, companies have relied on PowerPoints, training sessions, learning management system courses and manuals to educate employees on products, roles and tools. But, between the global shift to remote work and the rapid pace of SaaS evolution, the workplace looks drastically different today than it did thirty years ago. Spekit replaces ineffective traditional training methods by surfacing bite-sized trainings, resources and guidance directly within the applications employees use every day. This alleviates the pain of searching for answers by making knowledge instantly accessible right when it is needed. 

“We live in a world of ‘instant’ – one-click shopping, Uber rides and Google searches. Why should we settle for anything less at work? Spekit is creating the same ease of learning in our professional lives as we have in our personal lives. We’re building an intelligent and personalized learning engine that is built for this new age of remote work, constant innovation and change” said Spekit CEO and cofounder, Melanie Fellay. “The love customers have for our product and company wouldn’t be possible without our team in Pakistan and I’m continually impressed by the caliber of talent in the country.” 

Teams leverage Spekit to reduce employee ramp time, introduce new tools, roll out process changes and eliminate time spent searching for answers. When enablement leaders at OwnBackup came to Spekit, they were in a period of hyper-growth after raising a $240 million Series E funding round and scaling from 300 to more than 500  employees. “Spekit gives our reps the product and process knowledge they need to master their roles, directly within the tools they use every day like Salesforce or Slack,” said Thomas Cheriyan, the Senior Director of Learning and Development at OwnBackup. “This saves the enablement team time answering repetitive questions, but, more importantly, drives the productivity of our reps so they can focus on what they’re best at – closing deals.”

“Spekit is pioneering the future of workplace learning with their native, just-in-time enablement platform,” said Brian Murray, Partner and COO at Craft Ventures. “Melanie and Zari are a powerhouse duo: clear vision, A+ product, cult-like customer happiness, and a buzzing team culture. We’re thrilled to join Spekit as they make the tools we use more accessible and powerful.” 

With this infusion of capital, Spekit will focus on scaling both the team and the platform – leveraging data to design completely personalized learning experiences for employees that will propel them from novice to master, faster.

To learn more about Spekit and the future of employee training – visit www.spekit.com. 

 

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) Nestlé Pakistan was recognised in the category of Leadership & Strategy at the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry Women Empowerment Awards 2021, held in Karachi.

The acknowledgement reaffirms Nestlé Pakistan’s constant commitment towards creating an inclusive culture, in a country where gender gap is staggering and female representation in workforce is low.

In light of receiving the award, Abdullah Jawaid, the diversity champion at Nestlé Pakistan said, “Long-term prosperity is only possible when women are provided a level playing field to achieve their potential and we have been working very hard to implement these principles within our organization as well as outside.

“Leaders at all levels within the company lead diversity goals which form an integral part of each functions’ detailed business plan. This not only shows Nestlé Pakistan’s commitment and dedication to women empowerment, in line with UN SDGs 5 – Gender Equality, 8 – Decent Work & Economic Growth and 10 – Reduced Inequalities, but also motivates us to continue our mission further.”

Nestlé Pakistan’s internal programs ‘Phir Se Ker Dikhao’ provides the right coaching and experiential learning for women to connect back with their work life while ‘Kero Aitmaad’ program, breaks stereotypes and encourage young female university students by sharing stories of those that joined the workforce, instilling hope, ambition and self-confidence.

Externally, Nestlé Pakistan has been playing its role in community engagement and enhancement through various programs such as the Nestlé BISP Rural Women Sales Program, in partnership with the Ehsaas Kifalat Program, which is providing livelihood opportunities to beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). To date, more than 1,500 BISP beneficiaries have graduated out of poverty by becoming rural sales agents.

The results of the awards were judged by an independent jury who vetted the performance of the companies from different angles and awarded the best performers overall and in different categories.

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir)  Bank Alfalah Limited (BAFL) announced its financial result for the year ended December 31, 2021, where the Bank posted profit after tax of PKR 14.217 bn (EPS PKR 8.00) for the year compared to PKR 10.475 bn (EPS PKR 5.89) reported the last year, an improvement of 35.8% year on year (YoY).

Revenue increased by 9%; YoY growth in net earning assets backed by solid deposit growth offset compression in spreads due to interest rate cuts last year. Increase in market share and robust growth in consumer portfolio, higher credit and debit card spend, phenomenal increase in home remittance and trade flows helped achieve better results.

The Bank continues to keep a check on expenses and manage costs prudently while focusing on building revenue momentum through expansion and without compromising on investments in new ventures. During the year the bank added 60 new branches to the network.

The exceptional efforts of the network, a diversified product suite and a well-executed strategic plan resulted in Bank Alfalah achieving an impressive deposit growth of 29.2% in 2021. The bank’s deposits closed at PKR 1.139 trillion at the end of the year. The increase is mainly due to the strong growth of 26.9% in current accounts, which stood at PKR 500.753 billion as of Dec 31, 2021. CA mix was recorded at 44.0%.

The Bank’s advances book grew by 16.3% YoY compared to Dec 2021. Part of this growth is due to government-backed schemes for economic relief. At period end, the Bank’s gross advances to deposits ratio stood at 61.4%. The Bank’s non-performing loans ratio improved to 3.5% as compared to 4.3% as at last year end, while the non-performing loans remain fully covered through provisions.

Bank Alfalah has persistently demonstrated its commitment to the construction and export segments of Pakistan in line with the Government’s vision to improve business environments for these sectors respectively. The State Bank of Pakistan launched numerous schemes to support these efforts for economic development and prosperity, in collaboration with local banks and DFIs out of which Bank Alfalah’s contributions have been acknowledged on multiple forums.

Bank Alfalah disbursed PKR 3.369 billion in loans under the Mera Pakistan Mera Ghar scheme, the highest in the industry, and was awarded the Best Bank in the country for house loans under the Mera Pakistan Mera Ghar scheme. In a recent achievement, Bank Alfalah was named one of the top three banks in terms of Naya Pakistan Certificate investment, and was honored by Prime Minister of Pakistan for reaching the milestone of USD 2 billion in RDA deposits.

As at December 31, 2021, the Bank remains adequately capitalized with CAR at 14.43%.

The Board of Directors have declared final cash dividend of PKR 2 per share. This is in addition to an interim cash dividend of PKR 2 declared in June 2021.

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) The Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) members, comprising of top 200 foreign investors, recognize the growing importance of women towards creating an enabling environment necessary to accelerate the economic growth in the country, President OICCI, Ghias Khan, remarked while commending the efforts of foreign investors at the OICCI Women Empowerment Awards 2021 organized today. OICCI has initiated various research and has been holding annual competition among the members by recognizing those who have focused on women empowerment. “Increasing Women’s inclusion in the Pakistan Economy” a policy paper by OICCI has been shared with the Ministry of Human Rights last year.

Ghias Khan added, “OICCI had initiated the OICCI Women Empowerment initiative in 2017 and has been regularly advocating for women empowerment among its membership. The fourth (2021) edition of the awards this year was organized to recognize the progress made by OICCI members in raising the engagement of women within their respective organization and give awards to the outstanding performers.

The awards were judged by an independent jury who vetted the performance of the companies from different aspects and awarded the best performers overall and in seven separate categories. Three companies emerged victorious across all the categories and won top three positions: Procter & Gamble Pakistan and Telenor Pakistan were declared the first and second runner-up respectively while Unilever Pakistan won the top position and declared winner of “OICCI Women Empowerment Award 2021.”

Special Recognition Awards were given in seven categories. Nestlé Pakistan won in the ‘Leadership & Strategy’ category; Mobilink Microfinance Bank in ‘Gender Balance Workforce’; Standard Chartered Bank in ‘Work Life Integration’; Bank Alfalah in ‘Women Leaders Development’; Pakistan Mobile Communications (Jazz) in “Driving Change Beyond Workspace”; TRG (ibex. Pakistan) in “Notable Growth in Women Empowerment”; and L’Oreal Pakistan bagged the ‘Top Performer amongst companies of 300 employees’ Award.

The ceremony was attended by a large number of CEOs and corporate professionals from different OICCI member companies, as well as diplomats and other distinguished guests. The keynote speakers included the Political Counsellor at British High Commission, Iona Thomas; European Union Ambassador to Pakistan, H.E. Androulla Kaminara; and Executive Vice President Unilever, Annemarieke de Haan. The speakers termed OICCI the trendsetter for women empowerment in Pakistan and advised that the corporate sector across Pakistan should replicate the ‘OICCI Women’ initiative to foster economic growth of the country.

Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Sima Kamil, during a panel discussion, lauded the efforts of the OICCI and observed that OICCI Women is a great platform to create a movement for women empowerment in the country and appreciated the OICCI initiative to publicly acknowledge the efforts of member companies to give women equal employment opportunity and congenial working environment for the economy to grow.

The speakers also emphasized that empowerment of women and gender equality are essential tools to achieve sustainable development in a global world. Therefore, it is important to bring women into the mainstream in all sectors, to build strong economies and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities alike.

At the conclusion, Secretary OICCI, M. Abdul Aleem, hoped to see OICCI Women initiative become an inspiration for all organizations across the country and joining hands for a greater cause.

With changing technologies, mobile phone companies have to rapidly adapt with the fast pace. Some adopt the new technologies, while others bring new technologies to the market. One such example is the premium smartphone brand, TECNO. The brand has announced the World’s First Polychromatic Photoisomer Technology that will prove to be a breakthrough between arts and technology with its new phone design elements.

This new addition shows the commitment TECNO has towards its slogan, “Stop at Nothing”. The brand promised to bring innovations in smartphones, including design, camera, and system with the vision to amplify the value of art and technology. This will be the first time this technology would be applied to mobile phones. With this, a wave of classic art can be expected in the mobile phone industry, bringing users an impressive experience of “light chasing”.

This refined technology of polychromatic photoisomer on the monochromatic back cover of a mobile phone will allow the display of masters of classic art, stepping way ahead of the competitors in the market. TECNO will be the first brand to introduce this in Pakistan as well. As technological products are becoming a trend around the world, TECNO is committed to strive and bring artistic beauty to users in this new style era.

This Polychromatic Photoisomer technology from TECNO consists of 22 steps and underwent 500 iterations of testing, with accuracy reaching nanometer-level. This ensures that it is carefully crafted and rigorously tested to reach exact specifications. The process breaks through the technical limitations of single-color or dual-color discoloration, and realizes for the first time the industry ideal of “making mobile phones not only a technology product, but also a work of art”.

Hence, through TECNO’s polychromatic photoisomer technology, users can enjoy multi-color discoloration of mobile phones in different life scenarios. Transforming from an indoor single-color back cover to an outdoor multi-color experience. TECNO makes full use of the dazzling colors brought by the changes of light and shadow, giving the mobile phone an artistic attribute.

So, TECNO’s global debut of the polychromatic photoisomer technology not only leads the industry for mobile phone design, but also practices its “Stop at Nothing” brand essence. This is going to be a game changer in the global mobile industry.