Case Study of an Entrepreneur; Nasser Ali Mohammed
Nasser
Ali Mohammed a professional optician was born around 35 years ago in an
educated Qahtani family belongs to suburban area of Khamis, south-west of Saudi
Arabia. I personally know him since his childhood being his neighbor and school
fellow. Though his father was a professional pilot and traditional man, but he
encouraged his children to choose the fields they like. His elder brothers
graduated in medicines while he completed his master in Opticology from King
Saud University in 2006.
Since his
early childhood, he had business potential. He was the odd one out in his
family who always thought differently. We all friends made fun of his early
ideas and used to call him “a businessman”. At the age of nine, he started
selling simple toys to his relatives’ kids, neighbors’ children, school friends
and even his own younger siblings. He used to purchase toys from nearby mall
and then sold them at the door steps of his early customers. His young fellow customers
also loved to buy toys from Nasser.
He was
born artist and painter too with his unique skills of floral design and gift
packaging. I also was amazed with Nasser’s creative skills and innovative
ideas. Realizing his capabilities and confidence, he initiated promoting
himself at the age of 14 amongst the local gift shops. He visited almost every
single gift and flower shops in his town to convince owners to buy his gift
packaging and floral design services at cheaper rates. He always enjoyed while
receiving even 10% to 20% out of total profit. Nasser learnt a lot from such
humble experiences of his personal networking, customer services and promotion
strategies.
He was a
child to be known for his determination, smiling face, humble personality,
charity and networking. With the passage of time, increased qualification and
expertise in his personal selling boosted Nasser’s communication, analytical
and business skills. At his early age, Nasser was very promising communicator
and team leader. Important to mention that his family rarely appreciated his
early child business activities because of family tradition and tribal culture.
His parents’ motive was to focus only on his studies to become a professional
doctor following his elder brothers. Nasser always listen opposing comments
with patience and focused on his own business ideas in parallel to his
education. He was above ordinary students in school and teachers also enjoyed
his ideas, creativities, humors and cooperation.
After
Nasser's passing out Year-12 from Khamis, his whole family moved to capital
Riyadh for better education and job opportunities. It was in fact the deceive
moment in his life which provided him a broader spectrum of business and
entrepreneurship. He started learning English after his matriculation and
improved his English communication skills while graduating from King Saud
University in Riyadh. He challengingly convinced his father to opt the field of
optics for which he was motivated due to his future business plans. His
motivation was purely based on his personal research of local business market
of optics. After settling in Riyadh, he found a niche in local market in the
supply of branded spectacles. He got attracted towards this and made his early
plan to be a successful optics businessman in Saudi Arabia.
During
four years of his higher education in King Saud University, Nasser worked part-time
for nine different organizations and industries like sales and optics manufacturing.
After completing his post-graduation, he started working for the university hospital
as an optician as well as an instructor for graduate and postgraduate students.
While he was achieving his career path in academia, he was continuously
thinking about opening his own optics business. It was his passion however, it
required a significant capital and family support. He was going to prove
himself as a pioneer in his family to open his own business. Although, Nasser’s
own family had been observing him performing small scale personal business
activities but no one had confident on his large scale business venture. Consequently,
Nasser’s family even his wife started opposing his business idea and tried to influence
him to focus on his valued job as permanent source of earning.
However,
irrespective of his family resistance, lack of cooperation and wife’s anger, Nasser
decided to go ahead to fulfill his dreams and started to develop his draft
business plan to convince fund providing agencies. It echoes Tom Managhan’
famous saying “Life is too precious to be
wasted in doing work you don’t love”. Being not supported by his family members,
Nasser decided to fund his project with capital from financial intuitions. He contacted
governmental as well as private funding cooperatives for fund youth and small
businesses. After seeking initial approvals from local banks and financial
institution, he presented his business plan to higher management and succeeded
to gain half million dollars.
His main
intention was to be independent in his own decisions to chase his dreams
without any internal barriers and impacts from his on family members. Nasser did
his homework properly by studying the project feasibility and doing the necessary
SWOT analysis. He found that all local shops are focused only on normal
spectacles and frames while, he was feeling a strong demand of modern
eyeglasses such as multifocal, anti-reflective, scratch-resistant and
ultraviolet protection tinted lenses, polarized sunglasses and colored contact
lenses etc. He initiated his research of his main products’ suppliers (mainly
Italian, French and Korean) and contacted them to negotiate for anticipated
future supplies to meet the demands.
Nasser being
an ambitious person always has thirst to grow his business even more. He travelled
many countries famous for eyeglasses, frames, cosmetics and beauty products and
established his business and marketing channels. Nasser returned all his loans
within the three years after establishing his first business which now has
grown to ten branches in the thirteen provinces of Saudi Arabia. His expanded
business today also covered pharmaceutical, health care and cosmetics products.
At this stage, Nasser has established his own company named "Rose Holding
Co." serving around 650 businesses in Saudi Arabia.
Nasser’s entrepreneurial
story is truly based on his own saying "To be or not to be". He
highly believed on planning and risk assessment. It took him about four years
to complete his first business plan which is against the saying of Bill Bolton
and John Thomposon (2004) “Entrepreneur
are people who take opportunities without too much thoughts as to the
consequences for others” (1) but consistent with citation of Bjorn
Bjerke (2007) “Many entrepreneurs live in
the present and the future than in the past. They become very involved when
making decision and evaluating things” (2). He also rarely
listened “No” from others and focused on his ideas and projects. He gained
higher qualification to enhance his awareness.
“Success should
not be measured in dollars. It’s about how you conduct the journey, and how big
your heart is at the end of it” (Howard Schultz). As mentioned above in Nasser’s
introduction that Nasser is very creative, innovative and team player. He is
very focused on his ideas to make those real and successful. He is very humble,
cooperative, risk-taker and visionary. He sacrifices his personal life because
of his passion about his business adventures. Money is not his goal and he
loves to embrace his failure. He highly believes on Bill Lear saying “Don’t tell me it can’t be done”. Nasser
is truly born entrepreneur meeting most of the entrepreneurial characteristics
and requirements.
Nasser's vision is to
establish one of the biggest business in Saudi Arabia and Gulf Countries which
must allow Nasser’s financial stability to employee more and more optimistic
and energetic staff. Nasser always wanted his business to be elite and unique
in his products and services it would offer to his customers. He believes that
uniqueness is something that could attract more customers resulting into marginal
competition thus would lead to more market share and more stability. Nasser considers
also in keeping himself updated with what is going around and in the market
about news, products and even new construction projects. For instance; Saudi
Health Ministry would be opening new medical centers in three years period from
today. Nasser is seeing an enormous opportunity of supplying these centers with
their medical instrumentation and needs. Nasser is now looking for more reliable
suppliers at competitive prices. He already working on his business expansion worldwide
with his own trademarks and exclusive brands. Nasser’s company has recently started
manufacturing simple products like contact lenses and cosmetics in Korea and
Italy under Rose Holding Co. It reminds me Joseph J. Fuini and Suzy Fucini
saying (1985) “When I climbed the hills,
I saw the mountains. Then I started climbing the mountains” (3).
While not
supported by his family members, Nasser decided to fund his project with
capital from financial intuitions. Being emotional about his business idea and
motivated, Nasser initially tried governmental funding institutions famous for
youth and small businesses. Bill Bolton and John Thomspson cited (2004) “In many way it is the motivation and
emotion of entrepreneurs that gives them a special kind of drive and purpose
that marks them out from the rest of us. It is how they keep going and win
through when lesser people would give up” (4). Nasser also
approached local private fund institution namely Abdullateef Jamil and applied
to support his optics project. After seeking initial approvals from local banks
and financial institution, he presented his business plan to higher management
and succeeded to gain half million dollars. He returned all his loans within
three years of his business operation.
Nasser
failed to convince his family members to support his business idea. He did not
accept it as hurdle in achieving his goal and therefore, he planned for
alternatives purely believing on his own idea. Further, to minimize risks and
failures he employed best professionals to seek suggestions and share ideas.
Nasser himself thinks extensively prior taking any further steps in his
business which is aligned with Bjorn Bjerke’ excerpt (2007) “A business structure is supported by
keeping the lines of communication open, establishing trust by being honest, be
a good listen, be willing to delegate duties, be flexible, reinforcing the
contribution of each person and maintaining the focus on the venture’s vision
and mission” (5).
He celebrates his
success with his family and friends wholeheartedly. He believes on team work
and every success achieved by the company brings salary increments &
bonuses to his employees. Nasser loves to help needy but energetic people who
wants to do something to change their lives. He has initiated financing local
businesses as well. On the social level, Rose Holding Co. strives to work on
awareness programs and to support youth, entrepreneurial ideas and small
projects.
I am seeing him very
successful businessman in Gulf Counters in near future. Nasser’s plan to have
worldwide registered trademarks and exclusive brands inspired me to believe in
his prosperous future. Nasser’s current aims are to start manufacturing
surgical and medical instruments and to establish his online store to sell and
market his branded products. Nasser likes challenges but he planned well and
worked thoroughly to eliminate risks and transforms those into opportunities. “Entrepreneurs enjoy the excitement of a
challenge, but they don’t gamble. Entrepreneurs avoid low-risk situations
because there is a lack of challenge ad avoid high-risk situation because they
want to succeed. They indeed like achievable challenges.” Elizbath Chell,
Jean Haworth and Sally Brearley (1991) (6).
The inspiration which
I can have from his interview are “observe, live for your dreams, Insistence,
determination, making his decisions far from frustrating, constant planning,
focusing on ideas, never lose hope, remain positive, always have options, be
humble and feel passion about what you believe”.
Lastly, I want to add
Joseph H. Boyett and Jimmie T. boyett’s conclusions about entrepreneurs “The universal characteristic that all
entrepreneurs possess is a willingness even eagerness to live with the fear of
failure. Entrepreneurs don’t consider themselves to be risk takers. They have
weighed the pros and cons and convinced themselves that their so called risky
idea isn’t that risky after all. Entrepreneurs accept occasional or even
repeated failure as the price of they must pay to succeed eventually. When
knocked down, successful entrepreneurs pick themselves up and figure out what
they can learn from the experience. Money is almost never the primary
motivation for a successful entrepreneur” (7).
References:
1. Bolton.B, Thompson.J
(2004), “Entrepreneurs-Talent, Temperament, Technique” 2nd
ed. pp.22, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinmann, UK
2. Bjerke. B (2007),
“Understanding Entrepreneurship” p.87, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, USA
3. Joseph J. Fucini and
Suzy Fucini, (1985), “Entrepreneurs: “The Men and Women behind Famous Brand
Names and How They Made It”, p.4, Boston: G.K. Hill, USA
4. Bolton.B, Thompson.J
(2004), “Entrepreneurs-Talent, Temperament, Technique” 2nd
ed. pp.19, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinmann, UK
5. Bjerke. B (2007),
“Understanding Entrepreneurship” p.179, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, USA
6. Chell, E., Haworth.J,
and Brearly.S (1991) “The Entrepreneurial Personality”, pp.43, Routledge, UK
7. Boyettl, J. H.,
Boyett .J. T, (2000), “The Guru Guide to Entrepreneurship”, pp.32, John Wiley
& Sons, Canada
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