Demand for business consulting growing in Afghanistan

13 April 2020 Consultancy.asia

“Alongside the country’s rapid transformations in social, economic, and technological sectors, the demand for high standard professional business management services have been growing in Afghanistan”, says Ajmal Hakimyar, the founder of Afghan Pal Consulting.

The increasing transformation being seen across several sectors in Afghanistan has created demand for a higher standard of professional business services, says Ajmal Hakimyar, the founder of local advisory Afghan Pal Consulting. According to Hakimyar, there has been significant growth in the volume of clients needing access to highly specialised industry-specific expertise and knowledge.

While in Hakimyar’s words Afghanistan has a poor, agrarian economy with a small manufacturing base, few value-added industries, and a mostly dollarized economy, the local government has in recent times undertaken several important reforms to attract local private-sector and foreign investment, creating in turn a transformational landscape in several key sectors.

As an example, the Afghan government has introduced a streamlined process for business license registration, as well driven reform in areas such as starting a business, getting credit, protection for minority investors, revenue collection and insolvency laws – measures which have seen the country climb from 183rd to 167th last year on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index.

Ajmal Hakimyar, Founder, Afghan Pal Consulting

Established in 2017, Afghan Pal Consulting (APC) covers a range of strategic business and management service for clients in both public and the private sectors, including those in the energy and environment, education, healthcare and technology, media and telecom segments among others, along with providing expertise on finance, organisation, operations, transformation, sustainability, and performance improvement.

That said, and while APC was able to achieve growth over its past financial year, the country is still of course a developing market, both as to industry and the consulting realm. “We want to help firms succeed, and it’s very frustrating when they don’t,” says Hakimyar. “The most common reason projects fail is that someone in the organisation is unwilling to implement change.”

The bottom line, Hakimyar adds, is that consultants can’t resolve managerial discord without agreement from the very top. Where Afghan Pal Consulting can assist, is in identifying its client’s highest-value opportunities to transform their organisation into “sharper, smarter and better versions of themselves,” by providing consultancy on planning, implementation, and areas for improvement.

Being open to such, Hakimyar says, is necessary for companies to seize a competitive advantage. In broader terms, the best piece of advice that APC’s founder can give to other business entrepreneurs is to find out “what differentiates their firm in market, set clear goals, and then make sure everyone in their organisation is working together to achieve that goal.”