Pizza orders from Pakistan? German IT outsourcers have hardly noticed this country so far. A Pakistani provider talks about his business in an interview.

The Pakistani IT service provider Sybrid has mainly worked for customers in the USA and other English-speaking countries to date. However, managing director Haider Shamoon also sees great opportunities elsewhere, especially in Germany. In an interview, Shamoon explains, among other things, how he intends to overcome the language barrier.

Sybrid is part of the Pakistani Lakson Group. Founded in 2008, the company provides IT-based services at various locations in Pakistan. 80 per cent of its revenue comes from customers abroad. Just under half of the approximately 2,000 employees provide BPO (business process outsourcing) services, while just under 500 provide ‘digital services,’ mostly in marketing. Other departments develop software, create animations for Hollywood films and advertising clips, or work for health insurance companies. (Source: Sybrid)

Mr Shamoon, you were at the Gitex Europe IT trade fair in Berlin in May. How was it?

Very good. Germany is potentially the best market in Europe for us. The economy is strong and broadly based. And it has a lot of catching up to do in terms of services like ours. It is increasingly outsourcing IT services and entire business processes, for example in finance and human resources.

How competitive is the market in Germany for you?

The competition is not yet as intense as in Anglo-Saxon countries. Due to the lower language barrier, there are already many providers from India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and so on. In Germany, on the other hand, prices are still quite good.

What advantages can you offer German customers?

Above all, low costs. We are cheaper than providers from Eastern Europe and India, where German companies have often outsourced IT and BPO services in the past. Pakistan also has a large pool of qualified personnel who are willing to work at times that are relevant for Europe, including during the night.

Which German industries are showing interest in your services?

Particularly the telecommunications industry, food delivery services and utilities. Ten or even five years ago, outsourcing of IT services in Germany was largely limited to industrial applications, in our view. It was more about topics such as Industry 4.0.

What exactly do you offer these companies?

In addition to software, animations and other technology-intensive products, these are mostly Level 1 services. These are simpler types of BPO, where we act as a contact centre. Our employees in Pakistan take food orders for the pizza chain or deal with problems reported by customers of a telecommunications provider.

What about the language barrier? The enquiry comes in German or French and your employee communicates in English.

We are actually looking for German- or French-speaking employees and hope that the Goethe Institute and similar institutions in Pakistan will expand their range of language courses. In most cases, however, no foreign language skills are required. Level 1 enquiries are usually made in writing via chat. The customer in Germany writes their request in German in the chat.

Does artificial intelligence then translate this into English?

Yes. Our employees also respond in English, and the AI forwards it in German. Our current and hopefully future customers are also working on such systems on their side. Only AI can give us access to markets in non-English-speaking countries. It enables a transformation of the entire customer service segment.

But what if an annoyed customer in Germany wants to speak to a real person?

Voice calls also go through a translation AI to an English-speaking Pakistani agent. In simpler cases, the AI will convey the agent’s response to the caller in German. In the few remaining cases, it will forward the call to another Pakistani employee who speaks German and then speaks to the customer.

Have you worked in non-English-speaking markets, and how did you go about it?

In many. In Russia, we already had partners in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries where Russian is spoken. For other markets that we serve ourselves from Pakistan, we have bridge builders in our teams. These are people who are fluent in the foreign language required and act as linguistic intermediaries between customers and staff.

Which countries were these?

Japan, Taiwan and China, for example. Like Germany, customers there are increasingly outsourcing BPO orders to cheaper countries such as Pakistan to reduce costs. For a project with a Spanish customer, we employed a team of two dozen Spanish-speaking employees here, and for another project, we employed just under ten people with good French skills.

Do you have any well-known names among your customers?

Certainly, McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza, Unilever, Toyota and Volkswagen (USA) are just a few of them. We have been handling customer enquiries for the Chinese shopping platform Temu for a few months now. Much of this is automated. Nevertheless, we expect to have 1,000 people working on this project in the future, which is twenty times as many as we currently have.

Do you have an example of a customised software solution that you created for a foreign customer?

We developed a bilingual talent matching portal that enables Japanese companies to connect with workers in Pakistan. Companies can view profiles in Japanese that Pakistanis have registered in English. In the initial phase, over 3,000 engineers and IT experts registered.

Are trade fairs such as Gitex important for you in terms of acquiring new customers?

Yes, our offering requires personal explanation. At Gitex, we met fewer large end customers, as we typically have, and more start-ups. However, they were very interested in us. As bridge builders to end customers, they highlighted how great the market interest is in Germany and Europe.

Interview with Mr Shamoon, on 16 October 2025 By Ulrich Binkert, Bonn, provided to GTAI.

Source: GTAI (in German)