UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA

Interview of a Small Business Entrepreneur

COAR Global Sourcing Ltd.

Submitted to: Tahmina Khanam Lecturer, Dept. of Management Studies University of Dhaka

18/12/2012

University of Dhaka

Department of Management Studies MBA (Evening Program) Fall, 2012 Term Paper

Course Title Course code Course Teacher Topic Date

SME Management EM 525

Tahmina Khanam
Interview of an Entrepreneur: COAR Global Sourcing 18-12- 2012

Submitted by
Nahid Rijwan Syed Abu Taher Faria Iffat 3-09-17-033 3-10-19-007 3-

Table of Contents

Serial 1 2 3 4

Topic

Background Organization of the Report Early Life Business Plan Operational Plan Marketing Plan Organizational Plan Financial Plan Concluding Remarks

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Background
Who is really an entrepreneur? A person who takes risks to create change? Or anybody of those multitudes who hide under the title of an entrepreneur to make ends meet? Why this argument is on our discussion table? Because many people going about with the title of an entrepreneur are not really in it to create change (significance); they are in it to make a living (survival). And when survival is the focus, then mediocrity becomes the outcome. In our country, Bangladesh, the entrepreneurs has a lot more obligations to face for their survival rather than trying to create any significance. But statistics and the general trend of our business shows that small businesses are still now mostly contributing to our economy. The small business entrepreneurs who are surviving in todays business, they survive because of providing quality in their products or services. In this report, our concern is about such a small business entrepreneur, who has started his business from scratch, an ordinary mediocre surviving from day to day and now has been flourishing in to a successful entrepreneur. In this report, we have interviewed Mr. Showkat Osman, Managing Partner of COAR Ltd.

Organization of the Report

The report has been organized as the interviewee described the interviewers. The first person narrated speech has been transformed to statements while writing this report.

Early Life
Mr. Showkat Osman is from Barisal. He was graduated from Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he was in job as design engineer in BestAir Co. Ltd. a Singapore based multinational company. He was doing pretty well in the job, though his intention was higher education. So Mr. Showkat left his job in the mid of 2009 and went to England to studying business.

Going England was really a tragic part in his life. Because in UK then, it was a very struggling time for immigrant students. As a result, Mr. Showkat has to come back from
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England after one year without completing his MBA. After getting back from UK, Mr. Started his venture at the beginning of 2011. We asked Mr. Showkat, Why he decided to become an entrepreneur? In reply what he said was more or less like that, Going into business simply because you want to make money (profit) is far too much a price to pay as an entrepreneur. I mean isnt that what employees do; working nine-to-five in order to make ends meet? Why in the world would you choose to become an entrepreneur, be your own BOSS, just because you want to make a living when there is already a far more easy alternative for that employment. If you are so much in need of money in order to make a living, you should go get a job and stop wasting your precious time posing as an entrepreneur! Entrepreneurship is about using your life to do what you really love and truly care about.

Business Plan
Name and Address of the Business: COAR Global Sourcing Office: House - 03, Road - 54, Gulshan-2, Dhaka-1212. Warehouse: Shop-297, (1st floor) KaptanBazar Complex Nawabpur, Dhaka-1203.

Name and Address of Principal:

Showkat Osman Managing Director 14 Agamasi Lane, Bongshal, Dhaka-1203.

Nature of Business: COAR Global Sourcing Ltd.s main business concentration is Interior and Exterior Designing solution. The company also provides electrical, lightings & ambiance solution

for homes and offices. The companys future concern is to become importer and large scale supplier.

Business Concept: As the Dhaka city is progressing through 21st century, the problem of housing is increasing rapidly. In todays Dhaka, nobody wishes to build his own house on his own land on his own at the end of life unless he or she is a billionaire. In todays dhaka the general trend of housing is to settle on an apartment. So a rapid burst of Real Estate Developers Company has grown to fuel this trend. The real estate companies usually offer a complete package of bundle, which end result is a ready apartment. There are almost 2500 real estate companies registered under REHAB and growing more in Dhaka. The real estate companies usually perform only the civil construction of an apartment house and outsource other small jobs to complete a flat. Here comes the scope of COARs business venture. The jobs that real estate companies outsources are the supply of various kinds of electrical and lighting equipments along with the interior and exterior decoration items, which can be provided by COARs business solutions. COAR also provide with interior design professionals in case of customizable design features.

Uniqueness of Business Concept: There are many companies working on this kind of business, many of them are small and a few are big companies. So the business concept of COAR is not unique, but there is always a handsome demand for these kinds of business solutions. Though the business concept of COAR is not so unique in nature, the business owner tries to make the solution convenient to their customers in the following ways: 1. Providing one stop solution for multiple activities like, interior & exterior designing, interior & exterior dcor supplier, electrical protection gear supplier, lighting solution etc. 2. Make the business solutions highly customizable according to their customer needs. 3. Providing solution at highest quality and at possible lowest price.
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Revenue and Profit Potential: The venture has been running for almost two years, starting from the beginning of 2011. The company has made profit in some deals, and incurred lose at one or two. The entrepreneur tells us that, the profit margin of large deals are high but the small solutions make a small margin of profit. The business owner also tells us that, their revenue earning is comparatively a bit lower than their competitors. This might be as they are new in the market and still working on to build a regular loyal customer group. The company is looking further to acquire a few big corporate as their client.

Future Outlook and Trends: In future, the COAR Global Sourcing wants to emerge as an importer and general supplier. They also want to broaden their focused customer base. The company also always looks for new trends in design of offices and homes and tries to adopt the solutions with their existing business.

Description of Venture: Products Wooden Doors & Door Frames PVC Doors & Door Frames Prefabricated Aluminum Window Window Blinds Shaped Wood and Plywood Electrical goods Electrical Protection Switch Gears Services Interior and Exterior Designing Interior and Exterior Solution

Mechanical Solution Electrical Solution Lighting Solution Office equipment and personnel Desks and chairs to accommodate five employees. One design desk Two desktop computers One Printer-Scanner-Photo copier Small Arrangement for hosting clients.

Operational Plan:
The operational plan deals specifically with the internal operations and equipment necessary to produce the product or service. The following are selected areas that need to be addressed in this section-

Location: COAR Global Sourcing occupies two business locations for some strategic competitive advantages. They have their corporate office for meeting the clients at Gulshan office. And at the Kaptaan Bazar place, they used to store their inventory purchased from the nearby Nawaabpur and Bongshal. So they can meet the customer responsiveness and also can procure raw materials timely and cheaply.

Equipments & Human Resource: COAEs interior design wing is situated at the Gulshan office. They have sufficient technological and ICT resources they needed for interior designing. There is one hired design professional working for COAR global sourcing. Also two employees in procurement, two employees in marketing wing are working 09:00-05:00 in COAR. The owner he himself looks over their work and also he keeps accounting record himself.
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They have also a manager for Kaptan Bazar office and an office secretary for Gulshan office.

Labor: COARs business operations require extensive use of skilled labors. The company mostly relies on outsourced labors for getting their jobs done. In two years of operation, they have build up a small group of skilled labors for wood works, glass works, paint works and electrical works. As the labors are not their fulltime employees, the company tries to maintain a good relationship to keep their labors motivated and loyal to the company.

Flow of Orders for Goods and/or Services: When a work order for any job is placed in COAR, the owner himself delegates the authority and responsibility among the employees. If it is a supply work order, then the manager at Kaptan Bazar office is notified about the order. After providing him with sufficient money, he then procures the raw material from Nawaabpur or Bongshal and supplies to the respective site. If the work order is for any services, like door frames and door fixing, then the materials are procured and respective labor forces are hired and they along with raw materials reaches the site and perform the job as per specification.

Technology Utilization: The degree of technology utilization in COAR is good for a small business. Information Communication Technology is extensively used for accounting record keeping, communicating within two offices, designing and sometimes communicating with their clients.

Marketing Plan
Market Segmentation: The company has segmented their customer base in two categories, which are geographically and by customer type. Geographically they have expanded their service in Chittagong and Barisal besides Dhaka to explore the un-ventured markets there. They

also have divided their customer base by customer type, which are home customers and corporate customers.

Pricing: The company follows the conventional formula for determining price for their service. The easiest formula to use is this one: Price = Costs + Profit They did not provide us any other information about their pricing strategy. Probably the profit margin varies with the volume of service and supply. Although they mentioned that they also consider another two aspects of pricing which areCurrent market price and Competitors price offered. The company always tries to serve customers quality products and services at possible lowest prices.

Promotion: The classical promotional mix is as followsAdvertising Publicity Sales Promotion Personal Selling COAR Global Sourcing heavily relies on publicity and personal selling. The company also frequently tries to make relationships with small real estate developers to get works from their projects. It helps them greatly in generating bulk amount of their revenue. The company usually spends more or less 2% of their revenue for promotion which is significantly lower than their competitors.

Organizational Plan
Form of Ownership: The ownership of COAR Global Sourcing is Sole proprietorship.

Management-Team Background: Amazingly Most of the employees are university graduates, and many of them are the owners friends or affiliated and family members. Organizational Chart: Managing Director

Manager: Marketing

Design Engineer

Manager: Procurement

Asst. Manager: Marketing

Asst. Manager: Procurement

Office Assistant

And COAR Global Sourcing as a small business, its business operation perfectly suits the Management by Objectives (MBO) process. In this company, more or less every goal is set and operational decision is taken with the participation of all the employees. The review of performance is done by the managing director of the company.

Financial Plan
Sources of Money: From the interview of the entrepreneur of COAR Global Sourcing we could not get sufficient information to draw up the companys financial planning. Although the entrepreneur mentioned about their need loan for investment. They have applied for SME Loan in a commercial bank.

Money needed

As Debt Capital

As Equity Capital

From Private Lenders

From Government Lenders

From Government Investors

From Private Investors

- Friends & Family - Banks - SBICs

- State - Federal - Local

- Friends & Family - State - Local - Venture Capital Firms - SBICs - Big Businesses

In COAR Global Sourcing, initially the investment was made by the owner of this company from private lenders, his friends and family. The biggest contribution to initial biggest capital of the business was made by his elder brother, who is also a buying house owner. Now the company has applied for SME loan in a commercial bank at Dhaka.

Concluding Remarks
The starting point of every entrepreneur is either;
The recognition of a need (problem) or The conception of an idea (solution).

When an entrepreneur recognizes a need (problem), he goes in search of a solution (product or service) to meet that need. And when an entrepreneur conceives an idea for a product or service, he goes in search of a group of people who have a need for it. An entrepreneur is but an instrument of nature; a servant to customers functioning as a problem solver to humanity. This is why entrepreneurship is a calling and not a money-driven venture (profit) but rather a value-adding venture (service). And like every other calling, it has its own reward. Thats why being small business, they are the most contributing percentage in countrys GDP, small business is the field where most of the jobs are created, and small businesses are leading the development of ordinary peoples life all over the world.

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