Digitisation is not a software project. It is a cultural change. Before automation, businesses must learn to document, share data, and invest in people and infrastructure. Boards must accept that without changing mindsets, no system will work. Real transformation starts with culture, not code.
Digitisation is often sold as a magic solution. Buy new software, move things online, and everything will become faster and better. But for many businesses in Pakistan, digitisation has created stress instead of relief. The real problem is not technology. The real problem is that we live in a society where work happens, data exists, but very little of it is written down, measured, or reported. When digitisation asks for clean, connected data, it puts pressure on people who have never been trained to think in reports or systems.
Around the world, digitisation has completely changed how business is done. Global brands use data to manage supply chains, understand customers, and sell products across countries with populations running into the billions. A company sitting in Europe or the US can serve customers in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East from one digital platform. Data flows easily, decisions are fast, and scale is built into the system. Meanwhile, the common businessman in Pakistan still relies on phone calls, notebooks, verbal instructions, and personal trust. These “old channels” work on a small scale, but they break down when growth is required.
One major reason for this gap is infrastructure. There are two broad models in the world. In the American model, companies build and pay for their own IT systems, servers, support teams, and security. In the European model, governments invest heavily in shared digital infrastructure, public databases, and standards that businesses can plug into. Pakistan sits awkwardly in between. The government does not provide a strong digital foundation, and most private companies are unwilling or unable to invest at the American level. The result is half-built systems that never fully work.
This difference becomes very clear when we compare Pakistan with India. Many multinational companies in India operate in a strong IT ecosystem. Decades of outsourcing, software services, and tech education have created a culture where data is expected, reports are normal, and systems talk to each other. In Pakistan, even large multinationals often work like isolated islands. They bring global systems, but the surrounding local infrastructure and talent cannot fully support them. Local brands, seeing this struggle, stick even harder to manual and non-digital ways of working.
Mindset also plays a huge role. In many developing countries, including Pakistan, there is a strong survival mindset. The thinking is simple: protect what you have, because it can be taken away at any time. In richer countries, the mindset is different. Growth, excellence, and scale are pursued even if they cost more in the short term. Digitisation needs openness and transparency, but fear of loss makes people hide information instead of sharing it.
This fear shows up clearly in family businesses through what is commonly called jugaad. Many Pakistani businesses run on clever, low-cost fixes that work surprisingly well. The problem is that these solutions live in people’s heads, not on paper. Processes are rarely documented. Only one or two individuals truly understand how things work. As long as nothing changes, the system survives. The moment automation or software is introduced, everything falls apart because no one can clearly explain the process.
In many cases, this lack of documentation is not accidental. For some employees, being the only person who understands a process is job security. If the system stays unclear, the individual remains necessary. This creates shadow systems where knowledge is hidden, not shared. When a digital team arrives, they first have to decode human behavior before writing a single line of software. This makes digitisation slower, more expensive, and more frustrating.
Another common mistake is the belief that technology should “simplify” everything. Management often hires one IT person and expects them to handle work meant for an entire team. Roles get compressed, pressure increases, and burnout follows. Enterprise systems do not reduce work; they change the kind of work required. Without proper staffing and training, even good software fails.
The hiring problem makes things worse. Untrained or inexperienced individuals are asked to manage complex systems. They struggle to communicate with users and management, increasing confusion instead of clarity. Over time, the digital system becomes just another black box, people do not trust.
