This is no longer a news that PSO's corporate development has been widely acknowledged as one of the most dramatic examples of corporate turnaround in the world. Today, PSO is a popular topic of case studies in Pakistan and abroad and one of the most sought out sources of corporate advice and guidance in the country. Several major business enterprises have obtained permission to replicate PSO's Corporate Planning model.

PSO received a unique distinction of winning both top awards of AIOU-Commonwealth of Learning (Vencouver, Canada) in the area of corporate strategy based on evaluation of accomplishments by the companies (local and multinational) operating in Pakistan. Top corporate performance award (Strategic Leadership Award) was received by PSO whereas top individual performance award (Professional Excellence Award) was received by Mr. Amjad Parvez Janjua, General Manager-CP. The President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, in their special messages, paid high tributes to the accomplishments leading to the prestigious professional awards. In addition, CEO of the World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, officially commended PSO’s contribution to global corporate development initiatives.

This unprecedented level of corporate accomplishment and such a high international ranking achieved by a Pakistani company is a product of professional teamwork and outstanding corporate leadership. Nevertheless, the story of PSO's global renaissance would be incomplete without due recognition and acknowledgement of the dedicated professional support of a very high caliber provided by the Corporate Planning department (CP) of PSO, based on world-class qualifications and high-level international exposure of CP team.

The legendary rise of PSO to global horizon, duly decorated by global recognition of corporate excellence, involved dedicated hard work of highest professional standard in the following broad areas:

Establishment of a robust framework of the state-of-the-art systems and procedures of corporate planning, management and performance review.

Today, PSO's planning and management structure is highly regarded. In addition to formulating PSO's first ever Corporate Plan in line with best business practices, CP assisted all the departments of PSO in developing their plans. Today, every department of PSO, particularly each business unit, has a robust business plan. Together, the Corporate Plan and departmental plans form a cohesive, dynamic and internationally competitive strategic framework for good corporate governance.

PSO's systems and procedures have been extensively reviewed and evaluated by leading international organizations and individuals, who have been involved in study and due diligence of PSO's corporate development. While acknowledging PSO's remarkable corporate transformation in categorical terms, the independent international Financial Advisory consortium, JP Morgan, made special references in their Information Memorandum to the elements of reform established by CP. That Memorandum, circulated around the world, contained the following statement:

"Significant progress has been made towards putting in place the basic framework for corporate reform in line with the modern concepts and practices. This includes streamlining the investment planning process, developing a model for business-wise and product-wise profitability analysis and developing a comprehensive corporate plan."

Subsequent to the assessment by JP Morgan, several additional systems and models have been developed at PSO, including the Corporate Performance Reporting System (CPR) and the Capital Resource Planning, Management and Optimization System (Capex System). CPR operates by way of obtaining and analyzing up-to-date sales and expense information relating to products and business units, translating that information into comparable benchmarks and conducting comparison of the present level of performance with past and planned levels of performance. CPR is a powerful analytical tool and control mechanism, which serves as a watchdog to ensure that implementation of the Corporate Plan is on-course and the performance milestones are achieved in a timely manner. It helps reconceptualise the corporate business and establish primacy of Strategic Business Units with clear allocation of responsibility and accountability. Capex System facilitates understanding, development and implementation of Investment Plan as well as on-line management of capital resources. It helps eliminate the hassle-factor inherent in manual budget operation, including appropriation, re-appropriation, re-allocation, contingency utilization, record reconciliation, reporting, and periodic monitoring & review.

While serving as Secretariat of PSO's Management Committee (Man-Com), CP helped redefine the role and restructure the operations of Man-Com to transform it into an institution playing a pivotal role in PSO's corporate renewal and market success. Presentations to Man-Com utilize numeric and graphic depictions of how the company measures up not only against the industry but also against itself. Meetings of Man-Com provide useful corporate exposure and learning opportunity to young professionals, who are encouraged to participate and present in the meetings.

Compilation of PSO's corporate accomplishments in terms of strategy, structure, processes and performance.

This is a prerequisite to sustainable market leadership and professional recognition of a company. Higher professional and scholarly circles give serious consideration to corporate reform initiatives only if they are carried out in context of classical and neo-classical management and organization theories and within the framework of comparative research on corporate transformation. Such corporate modeling and research is undertaken by world's leading companies, either by establishing internal R&D units equipped with adequate professional resources, or by assigning the work to international consulting firms. It is yet another distinction of PSO to undertake and successfully complete this work in-house, without external advisory support. CP played a vital role in this regard.

CP developed a corporate model to work as a capstone on PSO's transformation initiatives. This model tracks success from corporate policies and management behavior through employee attitude to customer satisfaction and financial performance. It provides an effective framework for analyzing various elements of PSO's corporate renewal program in context of classical and modern research. This corporate model triggered and facilitated various landmark studies on PSO as well as consideration and recognition of PSO's accomplishments by international forums. This exercise resulted in exponential rise in PSO's professional reputation and ranking.