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Distinguished Lecture Series
Mr. Irfan Mustafa
“Ye mera Pakistan Hay, ye tera Pakistan hay” |
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“Ye mera Pakistan Hay, ye tera Pakistan hay” was another session organized in the Distinguished Lecture Series IBA Marketing Club on May 8, 2010. The chief guest, Irfan Mustafa, is currently Managing Director for the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey region for Yum! Restaurants International, parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, A&W and Long John Silvers and also the Chief Leadership Development Officer of Yum!.
During his patriotic and awe inspiring lecture he pointed out both the positive and negative sides of Pakistan and encouraged students to highlight the glorious aspects of Pakistan and change the depressing and gloomy image.
According to him, a foreigner who knows Pakistan only through media thinks of Pakistan as a poor, terrorist country, corrupt and self destruct. Then he drew the attention to the fact that the success of an organization is attributed to its people i.e. it is the people of the nation who can make or break it. Pakistan has two classes of people; powerful minority and silent majority where the privileged class represents 2% of the population. It is a common practice here that whenever anything goes wrong, we blame others but 90% of the time it’s our fault and it is hard to accept the truth.
He further elucidated that Pakistani people’s favourite past time is to wash the dirty linen in public and the blessed and privileged are busy exploiting the public. He further explained that we are responsible for portraying a respectable image of Pakistan. He shared with the students some of the positive progress in Pakistan which is as follows:
(i) FMCG companies had the best year in 2008-09 in terms of growth and witnessed almost double sales.
(ii) Inspite of the economic meltdown, none of the multinational companies have left Pakistan.
(iii) $ 7.5 billion has brought stability to Pakistan and Greece inspite of trillion dollars investment is bankrupt
(iv) Pakistan has sixth largest coal reserves
(v) One of the highest performing stock exchange
(vi) Blessed with the most fertile land that can feed the entire region
(vii) Abundance of talent
(viii) No less hardworking than any other nation
(ix) During the earthquake, outpouring of affection from all the provinces showed that we care for each other
Moreover Pakistan has immense strength in its strategic location and Gawadar port. It is going to be the centre of gravity in the coming years. Hence, we should be proud of our country and work for its betterment rather than to destroy it.
In short, he left us with the insightful food for thought : ‘Pakistan is a good product but a poor brand’. All we need to do is to polish its image and reposition Pakistan as a powerful brand.
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