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Building a technology company becomes a mammoth task if entrepreneurs are not inspired by a vision bigger than money. With that in mind, a young company is now hell-bent on developing the talented young generation of Bangladesh.
Founded in early 2018, this Dhaka-based BPO company aims to establish the country as a destination for skilled talents in accounting and finance, IT, customer services and other business process outsourcing (BPO) services for companies across the world.
Founded by Kamal Uddin Gazi Jishan, Asad Akber and Ahmad Hamid, Qormotho focused on three objectives — collecting talents, creating jobs and branding Bangladesh globally by making the company a global business — as its founding thesis.
The talent arbitrage company has doubled its revenue and team size every year over the last two years and is now looking to expand its services and enter more markets.
“The company has been doubling in size every year. We ended 2020 with a team of 10 people,” said Jishan. “In 2021, we became a team of 20-plus people and we turned into a team of over 30 people in 2022.”
Asad said, “From day one, we wanted to create a workplace where people will enjoy working, learn new skills, where there will be no bureaucracy and people will have opportunities to grow.
“We want to empower our people and give them good opportunities.”
The story behind
Qormotho’s founding directors live in three different countries — Asad in Bangladesh, Jishan in Qatar and Ahmad in the UK.
Still, the three friends managed to come together as they were motivated by the idea of providing BPO services in foreign markets when they saw a gap in the market, where many companies in these regions were outsourcing their non-core business activities.
“Seeing that gap and an opportunity to make something happen, it was a light bulb moment for us,” said Ahmad, one of the co-founders of Qormotho. “Remote work is the future of work. Companies usually try to reduce costs and look to find an efficient approach to operate. That’s where we come in.”
Qormotho started as a small company of four people, including the three founders. It did not have an office in the early days and everyone worked from home. The team worked on client projects across bookkeeping and accounting services.
The first iteration of the company, however, was not called Qormotho. In 2018, when the trio came together for the first time, they put together a partnership entity with the name A&J Global Associates.
They worked on several projects together and it helped the team to understand each other and build trust, which proved invaluable for the company’s growth.
After working in a semi-formal set-up for two years, they decided to become a corporate entity and Qormotho Limited was born in 2020.
“But the early days were not devoid of challenges. We faced several challenges with resources. Hiring people is easy. But keeping them is a challenge. For us, retention was a challenge in the early days. It still is,” Ahmad said.
“We always wanted to build a sustainable workplace where people enjoy working. And we want to strengthen that in 2023,” he added.
Expansions
Qormotho started by providing accounting and financial services. Over the last several years, Qormotho has consistently added new services to its offering, almost always at the request of its clients.
“We started with the financial services,” explains Ahmad. “It didn’t take long to grow. Today, we have financial services and we have also expanded into new areas.
“We now also provide customer support services, IT solutions, manage CRM software, lead generation, marketing, market research and services on an ad hoc basis.”
“We would go above and beyond to try and provide a service,” said Ahmad. “We don’t use many holidays if our clients need us. That does not mean we don’t offer holidays to our people. We do but we structure it in such a manner that it works for everyone.”
The company regards the provision of great customer service as non-negotiable and a core part of its business offering.
“We started by offering finance-related BPO services,” he said. “When clients saw our service was top-notch, they started to ask for services in other departments within their companies such as managing their customer relationship management (CRM) systems and lead generation.
“After we started to offer customer support services and manage their CRM system, we started to excel and grow on that front as well. Soon we started to take on more tasks around operations, finance, and other business process support for our clients.”
Creating culture
Ahmad said, “When it comes to internal culture, we want to build a high-performing team, which we believe starts with hiring. We put huge importance on an individual’s willingness to learn and grow when we selectively and carefully hire peo-ple.”
“We don’t micromanage,” said Asad. “We become a support wing for Qormotho’s management. We see what tools, knowledge, platform and environment our people need and we make sure that they get them. That helps everyone to per-form responsibly and make progress.”
Regular knowledge-sharing sessions encourage learning and create internal knowledge management, Ahmad added. “We work with many types of clients. But we all have the same mindset and the same goal. That’s the culture.”
Qormotho makes sure its people are well-spoken in English, trained in interpersonal communication skills and continuously growing, he said.
“We only hire people who are willing to learn and always willing to give their 100 per cent. If someone is willing to give their 100 per cent every day, you can teach them any skill,” he added.
Ahmad continued, “When we formed the company, our main aim was not about making a large profit. It was about provid-ing a good service, making a name for ourselves, and doing it well and doing it right.”
Qormotho remains fixed on its big ambition, he said, adding, “We aim to build an enduring company that is well known at home and abroad and that people know it’s a Bangladeshi company.”
