Virtual Secretary Puts New Face on Pakistan
Despite Area's Instability, More U.S. Firms Are Offshoring There
By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 10, 2005; A01

In a chic downtown lobby across the street from the Old Executive Office Building, Saadia Musa answers phones, orders sandwiches and lets in the FedEx guy.

And she does it all from Karachi, Pakistan.

As receptionist for the Resource Group, Musa greets employees and visitors via a flat screen hanging on the lobby's wall. Although they are nine hours behind and nearly 7,500 miles away, her U.S.-based bosses rely on her to keep order during the traffic of calls and meetings.

The Resource Group, a call-center company, represents a model that might sound familiar: U.S. companies save money by offshoring certain tasks to developing countries with cheaper workers who can telemarket, integrate data and program computer code. These "back-office" functions have created a booming, multibillion-dollar industry in countries such as India, Ireland and the Philippines.

Now, companies such as the Resource Group hope to replicate that success in Pakistan. But because of regular State Department travel advisories, news footage of militants chanting in the streets and rumors that Osama bin Laden might be hiding in the western region's cavernous mountains, some American businesses remain skeptical.

Zia Chishti, the Resource Group's founder, parrots clients' initial reaction: "Pakistan, are you crazy? No way."

And that's how a virtual secretary (toiling in the front office, no less) became a concrete example of offshoring, an answer to skeptics' questions: How exactly does offshoring work? Is Pakistan safe? Do workers speak intelligible English?

"We present Saadia, and the debate ends right there," said Hasnain Aslam, head of investments. "We're able to show that we practice what we preach."