I-MARC'14

Written by: I-MARC'14 Newsletter team
Edited by: Bakhtawar Ali
PC: Uzair Riaz Photography,studio 92

The inaugural event of I-MARC 2014 Day 1 and the harbinger of the I-MARC three-day legacy…the activity ‘Ba-Ikhtiyar Mukalim’ truly did justice to the name marked by sheer energy, enthusiasm and creativity. The activity commenced with peaking anticipations and enormous vigor of 9 teams, 108 participants who were dying to ink out their linguistic artistry and passion for their national language. A short video was shown at the beginning which was the crux of the activity based upon the imaginary country of ‘Rustaministan’. Elections in ‘Rustaministan’ were right around the corner and the two main rival parties, ‘Aam Awami Party’ (AAP) and ‘Majlis-e-Rustamin’ collided against each other.

During the activity, short simulations were conducted where a success rally was done by members of the victorious party with their flag in hand and clamorous voices echoing through the overcrowded auditorium. Then, all of a sudden the auditorium was raided by “party jiyale” who kidnapped the team captains leaving a tense and awestruck atmosphere behind.The participants were given 40 minutes to showcase their linguistic skills and draft their final Urdu newspapers. All the teams were determined to fight against censorship and all odds so prevalent during this era in order to unlock and display their hidden potential; hence they presented exceptional and original masterpieces.

Tamseel Ghar was the second milestone down the lane of activity on the first day of I-MARC 2014. The theme ‘Breaking the shackles of yesterday’, was met to its fullest by the participants as they delved into the pages of history, with their seven-minute-long enactments. The teams had been provided with collages of 4 pictures each prior to the main event. These collages depicted the social atrocities of yesteryears, such as ‘Suttee’, plight of immigrants to Pakistan, black magic and religious disparity. Teams moulded their performances around these themes. They did a commendable job and presented a plethora of emotions.

The judges included Faisal Qureshi, Aijaz Aslam, Nadia Hussain, Tipu Sharif and Naveed Raza. The judges not only commented on the positive areas of the performances but also offered suggestions and advice for further enhancement of the participants. The activity concluded on a constructive note, with the judges providing great feedback and opportunities for improvement.

The Guests' Verdict about the Event:

Hira Siddiqui: “I am impressed with the kind of activity the management team has conducted. It’s a great initiative.”
Tipu Sharif: “The performances in the theatre activity were better than last time. The event is more disciplined, the venue is decorated well and I can see the enormous effort the management team has put in. It’s evident. Great work.”
Faisal Qureshi: “Once you’re on the stage, you’re the king. Baki sab ki aisi taisi.”

The second day of I-MARC 2014 dawned with an air of mystery, suspense and speculation. The theme brought to light was ‘transforming the present’ and the participants proved their mettle, as they set about their job unraveling the crime with zest, thinking caps on.

The first activity was ‘live reporting’, based on a simulation witnessed by all the teams. The scene presented revolved around a stalwart - a talk-show host Naveed Shah, who while interviewing the captain of the cricket team and a cricket analyst regarding involvement of the former in match-fixing deals, took a break promising to return with a bang got shot. Pandemonium and mayhem ensued as a fatally wounded Naveed Shah was whisked away into an ambulance, while the police jostled with the overwhelming crowd thronging the spot.The participants had 50 minutes to prepare a video showcasing the live report of this event. They were judged on their objective stance, their eye for detail and the quality of the video which they recorded.

The second activity for the day, ‘investigative journalism’, followed suit. The big question to be answered was why a person as important as Naveed Shah was murdered. The first segment of this activity was given 1.5 hours where clues where placed at 9 designated locations. The participants had to put two and two together, be Sherlock Holmes and use the clues and documents to envisage and envision whether the murderer was a co-host, a political party, an agency or someone else. Later, 40 minutes were given to solve and prepare to present the case as a live anchor.The teams breathed in moments of stress, pressure, pure tension and insecurity, till they emerged victorious as successful media anchors.

The day concluded with participants commendably transcended to the present and met every challenge that came their way.

The third day of IMARC’14 began with the theme of future that offers unrestricted tools of media. Mr. Javed Jabbar gave an enlightening session on the future of media and the 5 paradoxes of mass media followed by Q&A session. Thereafter the event activities began where teams had to envision the future through photography activity and research-based activity. In photography activity, themes were designated to teams and they were required to make a digital poster by taking camera clicks on the spot. Ultimately, the team proved their talent by showcasing some creative e-posters that was much appreciated by none other than Tapu Javeri. Afterwards, in research-based activity, teams were assigned themes like fashion, entertainment, music, etc and had to come up with presentation based on issues surrounding the theme at present, international benchmark and solutions with regard to the issues highlighted to improve in future.

All in all, the Program Design and the overall event were unanimously appreciated from all the participants as they find dearth of such media conventions in the country.Well,it’s time to take it international!!

IBA Students’ Entrepreneurship Success Stories

The IBA graduates have long been known to dominate job markets that constituted the supply side of labor, and for once it seemed that this state would remain perpetual and IBA graduates would succumb to what we typically refer to as ‘corporate slavery’-but not any longer. The tide of entrepreneurship is at its full swing as some IBA students initiate their businesses in the midst of undergraduate studies. It’s commendable on how they have jostled between their successful startups and the ever so rigorous academic life at IBA. We have hence selected four successful startups to explore what makes these ambitious entrepreneurs so unique and inspirational:

IBA Bookery:

The success story of IBA Bookery is very similar to that of other entrepreneurs working in IBA in different fields. The journey of this small business started in August 2013, with an aim to provide a platform whereby students within IBA can trade goods mainly books and related notes at competitive prices, without any hassle of searching books in different market places. This business is the extension of Big O Studios Photography to a new line of course material trading. The Bookery served the purpose of a place where buyers meet sellers easily, which once used to be a gap of communication and meeting right people to deliver our material to. Upon its launch, the audience welcomed the initiative with a very positive and appreciating response. Thus, the trading of course material was done tremendously, and speaking about their expectations, the co-owner,Safeer-e-Hussain said,

“The outcome and the initial response was beyond our expectations. We received a very positive response from all the people around. Many students were able to buy their complete semester books and even sell their books at a very good price compared to the local Urdu Bazar.”

To launch a new product in market is never an easy job, especially when there are competitors around, and you can smell strong resistance among the target market. Talking further about the problems IBA Bookery faced at its launch was to, Safeer pointed out that,

“One major difficulty that we faced was to persuade students to fill in the form for their books to be displayed on the catalogue. We tried to make the form entries as precise as possible to avoid any redundant information that anyone has to enter repeatedly. But the initial motivation to actually persuade them to list was one of the major problems. We tried so provide maximum ease by integrating the website with directly with Facebook feeds.”

However, strong determination and willpower could not stop IBA Bookery to success, and here it stands now in front of us, aiming to rise high and extend its horizon to a wider market.

A&M Apparel

The feeling was anything but natural for enterprising students like Azeem Naeem Adamjee and Mohammad Saleem Nasir when they decided to officially launch clothing brand, ‘A&M Apparel’ on November,10,2012.As they reached their 20s,they both felt obliged to start this business as sustainable source of income, allowing them to expand the brand after graduation.

The A&M Apparel designs and produces hoodies, jackets, polo shirts and t-shirts and initially started with test market consisting of only IBA students but now this has been broadened to youth as target audience. The indicators of success of this new clothing brand in terms of profitability and clientele are impressive. In the words of co-founder, Azeem Naeem Adamjee:

‘We have successfully catered to several institutions, which include Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi Boat Club, and The CAS School among many others. This has given us the opportunity to diversify into new products, along with providing us with healthy profits, part of which has been re-invested for future ventures and part of which has been used for our personal day-to-day expenses. And we just received our first international order from the United World College (UWC) in Hong Kong this month, so we can now proudly say that A&M is going global. Yay!’

According to him, the recipe for such success is attributable to taking decisions after mutual consensus with his fellow co-founder, Mohammad Saleem Nasir. In accordance with their skill set, Saleem takes care of financial side while Azeem handles the marketing side of the business. Interestingly, as startup entrepreneurs, they came across a funny incident as narrated in the following words of Azeem:

‘Last year when we made hoodies for IBA students, we also got many orders from the Faculty members at IBA. One of those orders was from Miss Lalarukh Ejaz. She had ordered a Small sized hoodie, but due to a packaging error, she was delivered a XL hoodie. So when we went to deliver it to her at Main Campus, she opened the packet up and said, “Is this a Small hoodie??” And I thought to myself “Is XL the new Small? Or have we made a packaging error?” Well for a moment we were like “Oops.” but then immediately we replaced her order.’

Well, in the early stages of entrepreneurial journey, the “Oops” never end. Speaking of IBA faculty, IBA CED has been really impressed by this business venture and has been very welcoming and supportive though the entire business operation is done outside IBA. And so with the resounding success of A&M Apparel, Azeem’s message to all aspiring entrepreneurs is that:

‘Always be a trend-setter, not a trend-follower. And never take an uncalculated or half-hearted risk. You are risking your life on that one decision, its better you put in all your effort to make that risk a success-but the real question here is, “Do you wear A&M?”.’

Pom Frites

Pom Frites and Aun Shah are well known today among the IBA community but little is known about the past endeavors of Aun and how he came onto the successful idea of Pom frites. Aun shares with us his passion for entrepreneurship and tells us that he had an entrepreneurial mindset even before coming to IBA. In 2010 He introduced chocolates and wafers in Pakistan by an Italian brand ‘Loackers’ and although the business is worth millions today, he was sadly driven out by one of his buyers. After that in 2011 he went to a development traineeship program in China. While his stay there the idea of fried ice cream caught his eye and fascinated him. He experimented with the idea and introduced a similar product in the Pakistani market which he sold on a modified Qingqi. However in order to mitigate risk he decided to sell French fries as a side product. This was the beginning of Pom frites because at this point he gave his business this name which literally means Fried potato in French. Furthermore to distinguish himself from competition he came up with his own recipe of Peri Bites and Chicken Chunks. Peri bites went on to become his most successful product and that is the reason he keeps its recipe a secret known only to him.

Regarding the connection of his business to IBA he has the following to say:

‘Although Pom Frites had nothing to do with IBA when it was launched, but later upon a meeting with Dr Shahid Qureshi, the door to IBA opened and we worked together on a partnership agreement and created an IBA-CED Incubate company “Pom Frites” that was launched separately. The supply chain is the same, but operations for Pom Frites and Pom Frites IBA are both different.’
When asked about the experience that he had as an entrepreneur and the difficulties that he faced, his response was as follows:
‘Starting a business is not easy, it requires capability to handle a lot of stress, if anything goes wrong in your business, you’re responsible. However the learning is immense and it’s a job where you are the boss.’

Finally he says that he does not consider his business work at all because it is something that he loves and is a staunch believer of the saying:

“Do the work you love and you won’t have to work a day”

T-Labels

Talha Ali, a junior BBA student, is the most recent addition to the league of IBA entrepreneurs. He has joined this league by launching T-labels, a clothing brand providing apparels, last month in IBA. When asked about his recent launch he had the following to say:

‘Entrepreneurship has always been my passion and this was one way I could translate it into action’

Talha also goes on to talk about the target market that he defines for his brand:

‘T-labels was launched through IBA platform, however our target market is not confined to the students, alumni and faculty of IBA, instead it expands to all the young population of Karachi.’

Additionally,he believes that his brand is in the infant range right now but the product portfolio is gradually increasing. He also mentioned in the interview that he has faced many hurdles since the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey, like not being able to convince the IBA administration about his idea and not being effectively able to implement some strategies like marketing strategies. However his perseverance has carried him through all that as his brand has been finally approved by CED and this has led to opening of a lot of doors for him. He has come into contact with many suppliers and industrialists who gave him an insight into many important market characteristics and he was also able to overcome many administrative hurdles.

Finally he gives a message to the entrepreneurs who are starting off that:
‘Believe in your idea and believe in yourself, apply your business concepts learnt in books, work hard with persistence and you are bound to achieve your targets.’

Lessons to be learnt

These entrepreneurs of IBA are living examples of the fact that it is never too early or never too late to start believing in yourself and your dreams. All that stands between you and your success is a little perseverance and a little hard work. So go ahead, dream, believe and work hard, who knows when entrepreneurial success might come knocking your door.