Home ›› 10 Apr 2022 ›› Business Connect
My life is full of a wide range of experience where music, devoutness and corporate life have been mingled well. After graduation from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), I got a job as a management trainee at Bata shoes, a multinational company, while working as a research assistant of renowned Physicist Jamal Nazrul Islám at RCMPS in Chittagong University.
Speaking to The Business Post, ACI Logistics Executive Director Sabbir Hasan Nasir shared the story of becoming a noted corporate figure from a researcher and building a successful superstore chain in Bangladesh.
Later, I was promoted to senior efficiency officer when I applied time motion engineering for improving the productivity of machines and labourers in the production processes. But there was hardly any recognition or promotion in my job despite delivering outstanding performance and making a mark in all global training programmes.
Although, amid dissatisfaction in my career, I continued to do music, I stopped it in 1998 and started to do MBA at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA).
The turning point came then!
After completing the MBA, I got appointed as the general manager at Shapla Water Products. Later, I got the opportunity to work at a Unilever project in Angola and joined there as a plant manager.
However, the war-torn country had landmines, violence and malaria at the time, so staying there was not possible despite a handsome salary.
I quit that job and started working as a contractual general manager of Dekko Group. But it was not sustainable. Then, Swedish multinational company Tetra Pak gave me wider and global perspectives of how to work and learn.
Later, I joined Otobi as the chief executive officer and turned the family-based house into a reputed corporate organisation before leaving the company in 2011.
I left for the UK and launched a consultancy firm, Road Map UK Ltd, which had a Bangladesh branch. The firm consulted super shop chain Shwapno for some time.
After returning home, I started looking after Shwapno, but never thought it would be my next 10 year’s project.
I have been working as an executive director at Shwapno since 2012 and the organisation provided me the opportunity to pursue my study at MIT, Harvard and Berkeley universities through leave with pay!
Shwapno’s idea
Shwapno, which started its journey in 2008, had opened several stores, but a good number of those did not make any profit at the retail level. At first, we reduced the number of stores and later we increased those when the venture became profitable.
It has created its own competitive advantage as a larger convenient store chain where it ensures fair prices to buyers, and thus facilitates the middle-class group as well.
Shwapno’s challenges
There was a general perception of consumers that Shwapno was a dead case, and cockroaches and rats roam around there. Another factor — which was a big challenge — was people’s notion that Shwapno mostly sells ACI goods while products of other companies won’t be available there.
The biggest challenge was — middle-class consumers could never think that they would be able to shop from a supermarket. Most of them thought that super shops were a place for upper-class people, where the middle-class group can’t go.
We battled against the notion, and now the consumers from different classes are the buyers of super shops, which have been led by Shwapno.
Our current challenge is unequal VAT policy and another challenge is that Shwapno has just reached operating profit but its financial structure is mostly dependent on debt which affects the business.
Therefore, we need to expand the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) rapidly or we should restructure the financial structure.
Currently, Shwapno has annual turnover of Tk 1,400 crore, which will shortly reach Tk 1,700 crore to Tk 1,800 crore – a profitable business at operating level.
Shwapno, a superbrand, won the Asia Marketing Excellence Award in 2020. It has been the top retail brand for the last six years.
To ensure quality standards, Shwapno conducts strict monitoring at three levels, such as — GlobalGAP (Global Good Agriculture Practices) principles at farmer-level whenever we have the projects in place. At store level, meat, fish, vegetables are inspected properly. It uses a cold chain.
Shwapno also ensures exchange if any kind of problem is found in any wet product. But the more important issue is to bring transparency in the use of fertiliser and pesticide at production level and monitor whether farmers are following the right PHI (pre-harvest interval) and other policies regarding fertiliser and pesticide use.
Shwapno is working with GlobalGAP in this regard. It is the first GAP and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) certified retailer in the country and has its own laboratory for food examination.
