Until mid-1999, the Petrosin Group, a multinational company with offices in Singapore, Pakistan, Vietnam and the US, was exclusively offering turnkey design and construction services for oil and gas companies.

Petrosin's first cyberspace project, job portal
RecrurtAsia.com, was launched in mid-1999. Thereafter, the group launched four other portals within a nine month time frame, including housing, Web media, leisure, trading and procurement.

Today, the group has gone full swing into IT and e-business, offering enterprise management solutions, and a suite of contract services including programming, data entry and content management.

As president and chief executive officer of the group, Sohail Latif is entrusted with leading the group's bold move into the e-business frontier and finding the strategic fit between its old and new economy business.

APD. So, what does an oil and gas company have in common with the e-business industry?

SL. Since forming the information technology arm in 1999, I have been asked this question numerous times. Basically, two driving forces-diversification and an unwavering belief in the future of IT and e-business. The group's oil and gas business has largely matured. The oil price fluctuations in recent years have reached a point where growth and profitability of our business are no longer dependent on internal factors, but are at the mercy of oil prices and other external factors.

Being forward-looking, Petrosin management believes that the new economy has the vast potential to both complement and supplement the group's businesses. Indeed, it is our steadfast belief in IT and e-business that helped us weather the dotcom crisis last year-despite the fact that we own one of Asia's most diversified dotcom operations. We continue to invest slowly but steadily in the necessary IT and e-business infrastructure, to build and support our objective of having a strong e-business presence in the region.

APD. What is the current situation for RecruitAsia.com and other online recruiters in Asia?

SL. RecruitAsia is today a household name in Asia. The portal currently matches more than 5.000 employers with some 200,000 job seekers across Asia. We were one of the earliest online recruiters in Singapore to do it in a big way, and we committed millions in national advertising and promotions to get this far.

Although at one stage recruitment portals were practically popping up every other day, we were not in the least fazed. We believed that the market would ultimately support only a handful of big players and this is becoming evident today. The rest are mostly serving a particular niche market, such as senior management positions, or are 'clicks and mortar' operations complementing their agency recruitment operations online.