World Bank Pakistan Country Partnership Framework 2022-2026 Student Consultation
February 27, 2021
The World Bank is preparing a new Country Partner Framework (CPF) for the next five years from fiscal year 2022-2026. For this, the World Bank organized a consultation webinar on Friday, 19th February, 2021 with students from very exclusive universities across Pakistan to make sure that students' voices are represented and considered in their future precedence. On the Panel were Ms. Melinda Good, Operation Manager, World Bank Pakistan, Ms. Amena Raja, Senior Operations Officer from The World Bank, and AVM (R.) Faaiz Amir, Member (Governance & amp; Academics), from Higher Education Commission (HEC). Lahore School of Economics (LSE) was one of the only 3 universities selected from Punjab to be a part of the Webinar. Muaz R. Chaudhry, Research Associate at the Innovation & Technology Centre, and Aysham Sohail were the two nominees from senior year (BSc. IV) to represent the Lahore School.
Labels: Lahore School, World Bank
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 2/27/2021 03:16:00 PM,
Entrepreneurship and SME Management
February 26, 2021
Murshad Alam Qureshi, Director Business Development and Sourcing at MAQ Supplies gave an online talk to the students of the undergraduate programme enrolled in the course of “Entrepreneurship and SME Management’’ on February 25,2021.
Labels: Guest Speaker, Online Classes
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 2/26/2021 10:00:00 AM,
Engineering firms struggle for funds
February 14, 2021
The light engineering firms of the country are facing hurdles in securing financing for modernising their businesses, which is causing a drop in the amount of export orders secured from the global markets.
Many firms, located primarily in central Punjab, have upgraded their units and machineries.
The light engineering industries dealing with mammoth amount of export orders have invested in technology and innovation far more than their non-exporting peers, however, they are still struggling for innovation opportunities.
This was the crux of a research conducted by the Innovation and Technology Centre, Lahore School of Economics on engineering firms in four cities of Punjab ie Lahore, Sialkot, Gujrat and Gujranwala.
These cities are often referred to as the ‘Golden Triangle’ of the province because majority of the light engineering firms are located in this area.
The purpose of the survey was to observe the degree, quality and impact of innovation activities on the performance and profitability of the innovating firms.
The survey included both export-oriented and non-export-oriented firms.
Analysis of data from surveyed firms revealed that half of the export-oriented companies were shipping 50-100% of their output abroad with a majority of the firms exporting to Asia followed by Europe.
The data also showed that most of the export-oriented firms were medium in size while majority of the non-export-oriented firms had small scale establishments.
According to the study, all exporting firms reported that they had innovated meaning that they had invested in new machinery/equipment in the past 10 years. Half of these firms reported that they were planning to introduce a new technology over the next 12 months.
A massive share of exporting firms upgraded their facilities during the last one to five years while a large amount of non-exporting firms introduced modernisation between five to 10 years ago.
The most frequently bought machines by export-oriented entities in the light engineering sector included verma machines/drill machines. On the other hand, most of the non-exporting firms preferred to buy lathe machines to be installed at their facilities.
In addition to this, most of the exporting firms had purchased their last four innovations from abroad whereas non-exporting firms had bought their last four innovations from Pakistan.
Nearly half of the firms that export had adopted state-of-the-art machinery while most of non-exporting companies reported that they had adopted already established machinery/software.
Majority of both exporting and non-exporting firms said that the major source of funding for their innovations related activities was done by utilising their own internal resources (equity).
The data also revealed that a large number of exporting firms from the light engineering sector modernised by developing new business models and marketing techniques. On the flip side, most non-exporting firms that innovated developed technologies alongside new business models and marketing techniques to innovate.
The incentives to innovate are particularly important for firms.
When asked about the major drivers for initiating innovations in the survey, majority of exporting and non-exporting firms said it was the pressure to improve quality followed by the desire to expand market share.
Most of the exporting firms reported that as a result of innovation, their revenues spiked, quality of products improved and need for retraining their employees increased.
In case of non-exporting firms, innovation enhanced revenues but it did not reduce the cost of production by a significant amount, however, the quality of their output improved.
The two greatest barriers faced by both exporting and non-exporting entities while trying to upgrade were lack of financing and lack of innovation opportunities.
Thus, it can be said that more incentives for innovation could be offered by enhancing sources of funding for firms in form of aid from the government and assistance of financial institutions, the survey concluded.
Also published in The Express Tribune, February 14th, 2021.
Labels: Lahore School, Publications, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 2/14/2021 01:53:00 PM,
Strategic Supply Chain Management
February 12, 2021
Mr. Salman Goheer, Vice President Supply Chain at Engro Fertilizers delivered a talk online to the students of MBA II who are enrolled in the course of “Strategic Supply Chain Management” on Thursday, February 11, 2021. Mr. Salman covered Supply Chain Strategy, Business Model, Inventory Management, Supply Chain Responsiveness and Role of Technology in Supply Chain in his talk.
Labels: Guest Speaker, Online Classes
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 2/12/2021 12:50:00 PM,
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