Mohamed Marzooq Al Shamlan is a man who thinks ahead and is an unconventional leader of a dedicated team; a team, which he says is the success behind the growth of his company.
THE TAKES some time to get into the shoes of the man being interviewed he has to stop thinking like a tyre wholesaler and think more like a watch merchant, he says. But once he starts, there is no stopping him. He has no hang ups, which one would expect from a businessman of his stature.
He interacts freely with his staff, for he strongly believes that behind the success of every business is a happy and satisfied workforce.
Marzooq Al Shamlan and Sons (MSS) is celebrating 50 years of service to the nation this year and tracing its history is Mohamed Marzooq Al Shamlan, the Managing Director of the company. Along with watches the company also deals with distributing tyres of major brands like Good Year and MRF.
"I believe that 2006 is a good year for us. We are celebrating 50 years of being in business. This year started with the Doha Jewellery and Watches Exhibition and there has been no looking back since.
"I believe that the most important ingredient of our success are the people; by people I mean, everybody involved in our business, our valued staff, our sales team, our management team, our customers, suppliers and even the community. We are in business because we value every single person, and moreover because we value our customers," he says.
But success has not clouded his vision, because he is constantly reminiscing, of the early 90s when he had forecast a change in business, or of the time when he and his confidantecum General Manager K V Ramakrishnan (Ravi), celebrated sales worth QR5,000 a month.
"We just had Roamer as a brand in our company, initially and other unknown Swiss brands."
His father started the business line with an ice factory, which later branched out into selling watches!
The 4 Ps of Success
"Believing in ourselves, keeping the commitment we have made to expand, but not lose our ethics and standards in business while targeting the growth of the company is our secret to success," he says.
He also elaborates on the 'four P' theory that he follows, and which according to him, is essential for the triumph of a company.
"The first P - People are foremost, which I have always stressed on and which we will always value.
The second P is Product; acquire the right product for the right image, products which maintain its quality consistently. Thirdly Place, which is also very important. And then Packaging.
"We were doing wholesale business at first and we had a shop in the Souq. We started our revolutionary marketing schemes two decades ago, when I started taking a keen interest in the business and started to widen our horizons with new brands, new locations etc.
"Place is vital because convenience is so very important for a shopper.
With the increasing traffic snarls and travel consuming so much time, we should find ways to be closer to the consumer, making it easier for them to find us. So we have this concept of eing everywhere in all Malls and shopping centres," he says.
Shamlan remembers that they were the first retail outlet to move out of the marketplace and join the Mall.
"Recognising a new business opportunity, we became the first exclusive watch outlet to be positioned in a mall when The Mall was inaugurated in the mid-90s."
As more malls opened doors, MSS logo became noticeable everywhere.
This high- profile positioning attracted other brands to MSS.
"We are present in all shopping malls. In one of the malls, we have three outlets. Everyone felt that we were overdoing it. But we proved all the naysayers wrong. We started attracting customers, the malls too benefit because of the range of customers we attract."
Catering to all
"We are a market-oriented company, the three shops cater to different segment of people. We have Marzooq Shamlan and Sons (MSS) for the medium range products. We have Watch Corner for medium-low and low-end range of products. We try to position ourselves within the price bracket of the customer demand. The third one is the new concept, which is Chromo fashion. This was a new unexplored market. Watches are now fashion statements for a person. Fifty years ago, watches were used only to tell the time. We started this outlet where watches are selected mainly as a fashion tool. Marie Claire, Police, are brands that are more fashion tools than mere timepieces. We also have accessories like sunglasses and some jewellery to go with the fashion line."
A more responsible celebration
On whether celebrations were in the pipeline for the 50-year mark of the company, he says, "We have launched a logo and we had a booth at the Doha Jewellery Exhibition.
The booth was like a Qatari house and it attracted a lot of people, raising awareness of the company. We of course had a small dinner to celebrate, but we are traditional businessmen.
We don't believe in celebration, we believe in investing in the future, giving back to the society and rewarding our employees."
"We are also involved in a lot of social work; we donate to all charities within the country and also to charities of different communities like the Indian and Pakistani. Our staff is also involved in a blood donation campaign.
"We believe in retaining customers, so we have promotions and sales for their benefit. We have an annual growth of around 45 percent.
For us to reach this goal, we had to constantly invest back into the future, we look back at last year's turnover and we put a percentage of this into the development of the company for the coming year. We use this in training our employees, investing in warehousing and logistics, investing in showroom decoration and new concepts. We are probably the only watch company in the ME that has our kind of automotive warehousing."
As the General Manager, Ravi explains, "Normally in all warehouses, watches are kept in shelves. But we have this unique system where this machine can accommodate around 25,000 pieces of watches and when you punch in the bar code of the watch, the tray rotates; the watch comes to you instead of the employee going to the watch and locating it.
"And it takes very little space compared to the space that a similar number of watches would take.
This is dust proof and is password protected; a very advanced technology of warehousing that also reduces a lot of time and effort of the salesperson in data making too.
This is a kind of archives system.
It is used by the aircraft industry and also by the healthcare industry to properly archive their products, small tools etc."
Ravi adds, "It is only due to the vision of this great man that we have technologies like this made available to us. He is always well ahead of the systems prevalent here and is constantly reading and acquiring information to make innovations in all the businesses."
"Since we are actively involved in opening new stores, logistics, distribution, maintenance and storing for all the showrooms became very important.
This is why we had to invest in the best ware housing facility. We started with one machine, now we have three," explains Shamlan.
Brands and visibility
On the selection of brands and promoting a brand within the country, he says, "Before we select the brand, we have to look at the pricing and the ideals of the brands and also at customer choice.
"But I strongly feel that we are the ones who move the brand. Not the other way.
There have been instants where famous brands have not gained any fame in the country and they just don't move from some (other) showrooms.
How we promote the brand, how visible we make the brand here through prominence in market, visual merchandising etc, is very important in brand building here. Brand building is almost zero here because there is no long term branding, only short term advertisements."
Keeping a brand within the folds of the company is another important mission, and on how he achieves this major feat, he says, "Our wide network and the visibility that our showroom has all over Doha gives us an edge over others.
Our reputation and credibility also speaks volumes. We have the confidence that we have the capability of promoting the brand the most in the region and this is mirrored in the brands trust in us."
Shamlan points out, "Retailing is gathering importance all over the world. Doha has not yet grown to that level of retailing but we will soon reach that level, where it is not distributors who are important, but just maximum selling of products, highlighting the product, be it from this place or that."
"We are test marketing a new brand called Sarcar, it is the costliest in our range of watches, with prices starting from QR25,000 and going up to QR450, 000. This is a new brand, hardly a year old. It was introduced to the market at the Jewellery Exhibition, where they also exhibited the costliest watch of their brand, priced at QR3 million it was the talking piece of the exhibition.
"A Rado costs around QR25,000 and people buy these watches from our outlets, so we thought we should experiment and add more high-end ranges for our customers.
Sarcar is marketed to test this market," says Ravi.
MSS is also working on a new store concept, which will give a new unique look to their store.
MSS currently has 17 outlets and 18 exclusive dealerships. Starting with just a single employee, the company now boasts of a professional workforce comprising 70 employees and a network of 50 dealers, including the prestigious Doha Duty Free at the airport.
The Games and Tissot
Tissot, one of the brands within the company is one of the sponsors of the Asian Games 2006.
"It makes me proud that Tissot makes us a local sponsor of the Games, I am also proud that this major event is being held in my country.
I feel that this is a learning experience for the country as well as for the younger generations of Qataris too in managing events of such a huge scale.
"Even before the games started, we have noted a growth of sales in Tissot of over 150 percent over last year. We have decorated our showrooms.
We have bought some limited edition Asian Games branded Tissot watches too. These are sold all over the world and Doha is also getting recognised worldwide. I hope the Games will reflect well on the sales of Tissot worldwide, because Tissot has invested a lot on the Games," he says.
Shamlan is so passionate about his products that he is constantly on the lookout for them, "Even before I look at a persons face, I look at his watch.
It makes me proud that I have contributed to his perfection," he says.
But it is not just watches that he is passionate about; he is equally enthused with his other business, tyres being one of them.
"One day, I was struck in a traffic, but I was not the least bothered with the delay, because I was busy looking at the tyres of all the vehicles. And I was thrilled to note that almost all of them, from a Jaguar to a truck to a Toyota, had my tyres."
By Sindhu Nair
© Qatar Today 2006
