The Pakistani Spectator

Prior to last Wednesday, what I knew about the manufacture of wiring harnesses for cars and trucks could be written on the back of a matchbox. But I have a good friend who manufactures these things and he invited me to visit his factory, as I was interested to see how a business survived in these difficult times. There is not much by way of light industry in Bahawalpur, and what there was has dwindled down to a few units. The small industrial estate on the Multan road out of the city has mostly reverted to warehousing, and my friend’s factory was one of the very few units that actually made anything. There used to be a towel factory here but it closed he said, and he thought that there was only himself and a bottled water plant still in business and employing people from the city.

One thing about the operation struck me immediately – The Boss had his desk in the corner of a room with other staff. There was no physical barrier between him and the workforce. No bell to summon minions or chai-wallahs, and there was an obviously easy but respectful relationship between the owner and his staff. He has made wiring harnesses as a sub-contractor for a huge Japanese vehicle manufacturer for over twenty years, and has another larger factory in Karachi doing the same. The staff on the shop floor has to be literate, and their work is complex. As we walked around the process was explained to me – all very orderly and there was an almost monastic silence. Everybody knew what they were doing and got on with it. The place was spotlessly clean, many of the staff had been there for as long as the firm had been in business, they are well looked after and they receive regular training inputs – a recipe for a stable and reasonably contented workforce.

The factory currently employs 72 people, and is operating considerably below capacity. The vehicle market has been in sharp decline, with car sales in 2008-9 dropping by 47 per cent, but have bucked up at the end of last year with sales of locally produced vehicles up by 34 per cent in the July-December period. Did my friend expect to be taking on any more staff? He was guarded. The big limiting factor for him and other small industries was the uncertainty of the power supply. He has a very large new generator that supplies his needs when the power is off, but it is expensive power and running it eats into his already-slim profits. There is no ‘preferential treatment’ for small industries when it comes to power cuts, and they suffer the same as domestic consumers. How has he survived? By cutting overheads to a minimum, having a flexible workforce that have stayed loyal through the tough times and ensuring that quality-control was consistent thus keeping his biggest customer happy. And will he continue to survive? Guarded again but it’s a definite maybe.

We walked out into the carefully-tended grounds of this factory, this survivor against the odds, and I wondered how many others there were like my friend who had managed to keep things ticking over. Probably thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of small to medium sized businesses that are highly marginal as a business model yet just-about stay in the black financially. We moved on to a meeting at the local Chamber of Commerce where more stories of against-the-odds survival emerged and I realised that this, in part, was why we are not a failed state. It’s people like my friend who keep us ticking over. If they fail…then so will the state.