Son: You have good image in society dad, what’s wrong if I join the business and take it to next level…?
Father: Did I join you in professional course to do business; no you have to find the job in big corporate company, so that I can take rest, that’s all…!
Son: Dad, who will take care of our business…?
Father: no, no, no……! Go and find the Job…
Hope many of you have experienced or heard similar stories in and around your circles. The story of family business and continuing the legacies to better heights are seen on screens of theaters. Very few kids have opportunity to experience and to deal with it.
Trees of various kinds, benches for rest on another end stretching beautiful brown sand across the beach. Its Goa, my first visit…
I reached Vasco in late evening, travelled to Margao around 30 kms via road while enjoying the beauty of Goa and cool breeze of late evening. Few of my friends were waiting to receive me with warm greetings on dinner table. One among five answered to my query, How is your business going on? He replied with a humble smile, “My story is not that of a startup which went on to become a huge success story, it’s an established business which had its growth story when I entered the family venture”.
“My father established the canning unit in 1988. There were around 14 canning units, one in Goa and rest in Coastal Karnataka. Every unit has its own base market but the unique part is that every unit used to focus North East India. Majorly Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur were the base and extended in rest four states of seven sister states. During those times we used to sell our products at less than cost price just to remain in the market, losses were piling up and bank loans were increasing too”.
A humble man with kind heart and the one who sponsored that dinner, stopped speaking and there was pin drop silence in the hotel, as there were no other customers apart from us six.
I broke the silence by making a formal joke and the talk begun.
Bank…! Loans….? I asked.
He replied, yes the banks were also putting lots of pressure on my father. There was a time during 2002 when bankers had given ultimatum to close our business and takeover the company.
But, we never lose hope on Almighty.
A miracle happened, said Anees Mohammed .
Yes, Almighty sent an investor who invested 10 million to help us come out of the crisis.
Anees Mohammed is a born entrepreneur who took the family business on his shoulder and made the business bigger than before. During his 11th & 12th studies, he used to go to Sagar feeds and help his brother in accounts, and sometimes even in sales.
One more event in life, which changed my life to more heights said Anees Mohammed and without a single pause and with more confident voice he began saying, “Supporting family business and being active in SIO (only biggest students and youth organization for Muslims) was not only challenging but also risky as both things need commitment and dedication, balancing both has real taste in living life. I became state secretary of Goa in 2005. During my studies and part time work at our business, it was tough time for me to look into business, studies and my attachment towards SIO and its mission. I used to make prayers and always asked Allah to give strength to work for both business and SIO, so that I can contribute to our business and also struggle for the reconstruction of the society. By the grace of Almighty my prayers were accepted and life was on right track”.
I enquired about the keen interest in SIO which he doesn’t want to compromise with its attachment even in hard times of his business.
Mr. Anees replied, “SIO Goa started its activities in 1998 and I became a member in 1999, expansion work of organization and developing the young students for the straight path was much needed, as what I am today is because of the environment provided by organization and need to pay back to it.”
Was you education hampered because of SIO’s activism, I asked?
He replied with smile, I was always motivated to learn more, so after completion of graduation in 2006, I joined Al Jamia Al Islamiya, Shantapuram for diploma in Islamic Finance and joined business in January 2007 without thinking of other options.
Islamic Finance, what it deals with?
Islamic economy and financial system is an alternative to the prevailing conventional system based on free trade and controlled economic systems. It is risk sharing instead of risk shifting also it is not just for Muslims. The term Islamic finance is to refer to financial activities conforming to Islamic Law i.e, Sharia. The main principle of the Islamic finance system is the prohibition of the payment and the receipt of interest in financial transactions.
How Islamic finance helped you in business?
“Even before I joined business, I was insisting my father that doing business on bank loan based on interest, is not permissible from Islamic teachings”, said Anees. We are not financially stable, argued my father.I said to my father, that even though we are not financially stable, our hard work, commitment and good intention to serve the society will develop us slowly but definitely.
India is Darul Harb and many Ulemas (Islamic scholars) have given fatwa that doing business on bank loans is allowed for Indian Muslims, countered his father.
I never stopped my resistance; the knowledge of Islam through SIO’s attachment gave me lots of patience to convince my father shortly said Mr. Anees.
He continued saying…
I always used to say that if we make our intentions clear to Almighty, he will help us from unimaginable sources.
Expecting help from the one created us, the one who gave us life and everything what we have, why is He not helping us now…?
How should I convince my father to be away from riba which is prohibited in Quran..?
“And He (Allah) will provide him from (sources) he never could imagine. And whosoever puts his trust in Allah, then He will suffice him. Verily, Allah will accomplish his purpose. Indeed Allah has set a measure for all things.”
As the above quranic lines, touched my thoughts I got charged and continued thanks giving to Almighty and prayed for well being.
Earlier my father used to visit bank after bank for loan, even informal institution for loans who lend money on high interest. I used to argue the same “if we make our intention clear and stop depending on bank loans,” then there will be a day when banks come and request us to take loan, Anees said.
Going in flashback, Anees Mohammed remembered few more interesting days of his life and narrated.
“We also had another poultry feed production factory (Sagar feeds) which we started in 1990’s but closed down in short span of time. Bird flu crisis hit the industry twice, In the late 1990s, a new strain of bird flu arose which was unusually severe (“highly pathogenic”), resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions of birds, including poultry. We were in high debts of around 5 million in the market and small farmers also lost their business, so we didn’t go behind them for our money and ultimately closed down the feed making unit”.
Life continued with similar up and downs, said Mr Anees leaving dinner table and moved on.
Few months later in the same year 2019, we both met again in New Delhi.
I recalled the discussion which we stopped at Goa and with eager started posing various questions.
Mr. Anees a gentleman with lots of patience and kindness listened to me and smiled. He began answering my questions.
When I joined business, I analyzed that quality of our products were not up to the mark in the competitive market of north east India and decided to open new avenues to grow.
The work assigned to me in our industry with elder brother, led by my father was exporting the products. I started doing research on our industry, and one fine day clicked b2b portal of Alibaba which was most popular in south east Asia.
I registered our company and uploaded all our details. I also registered in few other business portals. It was happiest moment for me when I received enquiries from Middle East and Africa for our products. Many initially rejected, however, I did not lose hope.
Neither have we had enough funds to update our machinery nor quality product to export in competitive markets. I was thinking on future road map, my elder brother called me and suddenly said, “You get involved in accounts and administration”.
I respect my elder brother a lot that I couldn’t say “NO” to his request, but without having second thought I told him I want to focus on business development.
My vision was clear, I was seeing my business in next level, with the same thoughts I used to tell our father and brothers, we might get a good order of 10, 50, 100 containers, on this sometimes they sued to make fun of me saying you don’t do anything and when asked gives hyped stories of 100 containers. I never took it serious but focused on the developing the products.
Any how I convinced my brother let me remain in business development instead of being in accounts section .
It was a pleasant day and another miracle happened.
In 2009 January we received an enquiry from United Nations peace keeping supply. I responded as earlier without any expectations because we got rejected many times earlier too from various companies.
It was the same company to whom we earlier sent samples, but they rejected for poor quality of product. This time, they said yes…..!
It was a huge order, 100 – 120 MT per month.
Will this business lead click, that was the issue. The sub contractor who wanted our product was in a hurry and he had no time for samples and the procedures. A Keralite who settled in Uganda, contacted another Keralite friend and deal was done.
“And He (Allah) will provide him from (sources) he never could imagine. And whosoever puts his trust in Allah, then He will suffice him. Verily, Allah will accomplish his purpose. Indeed Allah has set a measure for all things.”
I was feeling like, I am bowing down in front of Almighty in thanks giving. And I thanked Almighty and this feeling boosted me to take business to next level.
Previously in 2007, we had exported one container this had helped us obtain all necessary documentation for exports; it would have been difficult this order as it was on urgent basis.
After the procedures of PO, Labels, we got our first advance payment of 9800USD for 1 container. Before the container reached Kenya, the same company placed order of another 3 containers. We started production for the next lot and exported the first UN container in March 2009.
When the first container reached its destination, it had lots of problems. Cans started bulging, some cans opened and leaked. Around 5-6 % of our goods were spoilt. The general procedure in UN consignments or any consignments is that the whole container is rejected even if few cans leak or are found opened, Here an another miracle happened. Due to leakage in cans we were planning to give some discount and manage anyhow not to get rejected, but God’s grace not even a single container got rejected nor did we give any discount. They accepted and this was accepted only because we improved our quality in last few months, it was a miracle for entire employees of our company. Every month we supplied 5-6 containers to UN mission in Congo from 2009 to 2011 and these 3 years of UN business opened a new avenue for Seahath.
…and success stories of Seahath begins.
Yes, “Seahath” is the name of our company and Oceans Secret is our brand.
SEAHATH has processing & canning facilities in the lush green terrain of South Goa with automated lines, skilled and dedicated workforce enabling us, to provide seafood lovers with tongue tantalizing seafood in various forms at a competitive price. (www.seahath.com)
Seahath’s ongoing mission is to continuously explore new canning procedures and technologies with a focus on product innovation to process and provide high quality, customer centric, low cost seafood products for healthy living.
SEAHATH Canning Company was founded in the year 1988, SEAHATH comes from the urdu word SEHATH which means HEALTH and the motto. Health from Sea Wealth was the driving force behind the establishment of SEAHATH. As a company since its inception SEAHATH has focused on been synonymous to providing sea food products for healthy living to its customers throughout the world with canned tuna, sardines and mackerel under the OCEANS SECRET Label. (www.oceanssecret.in)
Seahath has a vision of becoming a leading brand in canned seafood business in the world, through a world class infrastructure, international quality standards and stringent safety procedures.
With same smile as always, Mr. Anees went back in his life and started narrating his success days.
International tours begin…
My first international business tour, continued Mr. Anees, was in 2009 April, when we received a one-time order of 100 containers. It was a UN relief order for southern African region, which was a huge order we ever had.
We were not able to meet with such a huge order, sayng no to international order is like killing own business, but I didn’t panic but with cool mind sat for a while, all of sudden, I started searching for a supplier in Thailand and Indonesia who can supply the huge quantity of 100 containers. I found a company in Indonesia, they too were not able to provide the required order, and then I found similar few companies and club 2-3 factories and supply the complete order of 100 containers.
I decided to fly to Indonesia to visit the factory and this was my first overseas trip alone. I earlier had gone with father to Dubai. The factory visit opened a new world in canning. Thailand, Indonesia and china were 40-50 years ahead in canning industry. I was amazed by the advancement in technology. Everything there was perfect, auto processing, top quality products, efficiency of workers. This gave me an idea on how we need to move forward to grow our company in terms of quality and technology.
Made international friends meanwhile and started discussing with them regarding improvement of entire company of ours and collected few references of a company in Thailand who supply refurbished machinery at a very affordable cost.
Again the issue was shortage of Vitamin – M.
Vitamin – M, both started laughing and I understood his intention what Mr. Anees wants to say.
Mr. Anees continued, we didn’t have the funds to buy new machinery.
Thinking about the advancement in technology and lack of capital I came back home and explained the advancement in canning industry to my family.
Even though the factory was running smoothly but the canning industry was in struggling with no hopes for growth, due to lack of actual knowledge of industry, family started losing hope and started thinking to close canning and venture into frozen seafood processing.
But I saw another world of canning industry outside India and argued continuously and tried to convince my family that canning industry has future compared to seafood processing. There were just 4, 100 canning and seafood frozen processing units respectively in India, it is advisable to invest in canning and not in frozen factory as competition was less in market too.
My father has experience that is equivalent to my age, how can he will be convinced in single sitting.
But Mr. Anees was also his son, hahahah…
Whenever I used get the chance I used to talk to my father to convince him and used to tell him, if we invest in technology and quality development, we can be the number one factory in India and we can in position to supply an order of 100 containers without any hurdles with top quality products.
At last, I succeeded in convincing my father and uncle within 4 months.
No, No, are not ready to invest, but they got convinced to visit Thailand.
My father, uncle and I flied to Thailand to visit the refurbished machinery supplier. Uncle also had his own canning industry.
The two day stay at Thailand changed the thought of my father and there itself we finalized the full line and from then for the next 5 years we kept on adding machinery from this supplier. We also got good inputs on various aspects of quality which improved our quality very much. So overall the first trip to Indonesia and subsequent trip to Thailand changed the entire idea of canning. I kept getting full support from my brothers which helped me convince my family to upgrade our machinery regularly.
Service to India Army, and another success story…..
In July 2009, I received an enquiry for supply to Indian Army, my father had enquiries before but he strictly didn’t entertain their enquiries for supply to Indian Army due to rampant corruption and agent (supplier) asked for 6% of the total value of the tender and he will be taking care of the rest of the payments.
With earlier experiences we had convinced father to start supplying to Indian Army and with Almighty’s grace we are now supplying for last 10 years.
Pan-India expansion….
Our brand now was so famous in both quality and facilities being provided with our services, we started our retail Brand Oceans Secret for PAN India distribution in 2010.
Just in 2 years of span from nowhere, God helped us in starting exports, upgrading our technology and quality, import tomato paste for our production from china, started supply to Indian Army and retail brand in PAN India sales. Family gave me entire credit for all these achievements.
Next 3 years we had growth and success stories and there were no backlogs or back seeing but loans were pending and this is only unislamic thing which made my nights sleepless.
Since Allah gave us enough in terms of growth, I started insisting that we should close bank loans since we were in a position to clear all, I took up the issue very aggressively for 2 years (had been saying this since last 8 years).
My father was adamant in this regards and he used to justify his logic saying we may get issues from income tax department if we don’t show loan in our business.
I too was decided, weather we will clear all bank loans or I will stop contributing to the family business.
Yet my father didn’t give importance to my warning and the in July 2012, I stopped going to factory, first 3 months I used to be driver to my dad to drop and pickup form factory to home and vice versa, but stopped my involvement in business dealings, later stopped going to factory too.
I was thinking how to convince my father, as earlier tried in many ways but all plans gone waste.
I was unsatisfied and feeling shame to pray to Almighty, as our business was on bank loans which were strictly prohibited in Islam.
Another shock…..!
The income and saving which we had was enough to clear all bank loans, but following year my father invested in freezing plant to help my uncle to establish seafood freezing factory.
This aggravated the situation at home and there was aggressive discussions sometimes at home on this point alone.
Yes, I was wrong…
I made myself fool..
Believing that once seahath had a good growth then I can convince my father to clear bank loans.
I was wrong… No one has, fear of Almighty…
Why, why…?
I used to ask questions myself…
No answer… I was blank… Lost all hopes…
The development in business never became hurdle to me to be active in SIO activities. It was December 2012; I was elected as SIO Goa’s state president for 2013-14.
Then, I decided to give full time to SIO leaving the business (which was temporarily stopped by me) but the stress and regular aggressive discussion with my family created many misunderstandings and problems at home.
Leaving the business when it was on peak, the business which I craved with my hard work was hard but decided to work only SIO and contribute in reconstruction the society, the society which made my family not to get rid of bank loans.
After I finished SIO’s tenure, I started a venture which I thought would help my father to think, that it’s better to close loans and get his son back in business than he doing something else and out of expectations that too didn’t happen.
Slowly and steadily I convinced my mom to talk to dad to clear all bank loans, but she too didn’t have much say in business, later elder brother too was convinced.
The maturity of my brother was awesome to make the family strong and better.
Even though he was convinced to clear the debts of loan but he couldn’t support me fully saying father would be left alone if I too stopped going to factory. It was the moral support of a humble son to his father.
Again I was left alone.
Everybody asked me to join back and father will close the debts shortly, when I joined I felt like, apart from talks there was no action on ground, I felt false promises are being made to convince to join back.
My father was not a member of Jamaat e Islami till 2013, even though he found of it and used to take part in various activities. As the loan was against Sharia, he couldn’t get membership but Goa’s JIH president lenient on such issues, he was granted membership, everybody started asking me when Goa’s JIH chief doesn’t have problem, how come you have a problem. This aggregated my problem further. Yet I don’t know what was the discussion between my dad and chief of JIH Goa, within a year all debts and bank loans were cleared it was 2016 and I joined in 2015 making heavy heart, but this was another great miracle.
“And He (Allah) will provide him from (sources) he never could imagine. And whosoever puts his trust in Allah, then He will suffice him. Verily, Allah will accomplish his purpose. Indeed Allah has set a measure for all things.”
Now the time was changed, I used to remember those days, when I asked my father not to take loans on interest from banks to now banks requesting us to open the account in their respective banks, and then avoiding the orders in which he felt corruption can happened with middlemen.
Really a miracle, Almighty accepted prayers once again.
The 3 Years (July 2012 to June 2015) was a life changing struggle, the stress, the tensions, the regular aggressive discussion at home, to get rid of all these things, I have decided to leave and study in Malaysia (IIUM) with my wife for MBA, even got my admission letter, once we landed in Malaysia my grandmother got very ill and we had to come back.
I took advice from JIH leaders what to do such a situation, they use to say never leave battleground during your struggle; you have to be with your family in the struggle. My wife supported me all along which was the only support I had after Allah’s help, which made me strong to struggle with patience.
When I look back at those 3 years of life, Allah helped me undergo a period which helped me learn many lessons in life and it was the time to development my personality in right direction.
Another life…
When I joined back, we have started with many new experiments in our product line. I also started looking for Middle East and African market. We started exporting to Dubai in 2016 with half container on credit through some cousin references, that did gave good experience but lost around 1 million.
I continuously pursued starting our own company in Zimbabwe with Mr. Ibrahim as partner, after 1 year of continuous follow up, visits to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi etc, we sent one container to Zimbabwe. But US sanctions devalued the currency by 750% which made our products very difficult to sell. We may not be able to continue in Zimbabwe, but have already plans for Ghana and other countries. There was a high risk of failures, but that will not stop me from exploring other avenues in business.
In 2017, reconstructed the entire infrastructure of our factory.
My 15 years in SIO has helped me a lot, importantly I was explored to various state and visited 15-16 states for different programs, added to the business trip, there are just 3 states left to visit in India.
My Business tours have also helped me visit 26 countries till now.
It’s time to give back…
Preparing entrepreneurs for the reconstruction of the society a new vision by SIO has given me to carry forward since 2017.
From then I have started investing in new startups to promote and encourage young talents and intend to invest in many such business as time progresses. The knowledge and experience which Allah has provided me is helping me to share my experiences and help new start-ups who want to learn about business growth.
Alhamdulillah, SIO helped me visualize that Islam not just asks to offer Namaz, Roza etc but to explore new avenues and uplift the down trodden, contribute to develop the economy of the nation.
My life has many up’s and down’s yet, I balanced to develop the family business and vested energies for the social cause and reconstruction of society simultaneously.
I was listening to Mr. Anees without disturbing him and he continued in flow, his entire struggle.
When I asked for a message to young aspiring entrepreneurs he said, “If you have confidence in your work, nothing can stop you from enjoying life weather you are social activist and or an architect of your business.”
Dear Azhar, one more point to young readers…
Yes, of course you can, please.
As society has many social evils, and the material life is fast growing, early marriage is important, said Mr. Anees.
Before I could say something, he continued…
“I got married at the age of 23, even before making some mark in business. I used to take my wife to my business trips to Thailand, Malaysia, China, Europe etc. She used to attend business meeting along with me. Though she was not from social work, our regular discussion and involvement in business helped her grow faster. She grew more active than me in social works”. …and journey continues.
(This is the 4th article the author has written on successful entrepreneurs. You can read previously published articles on entrepreneurs here .)
