Bachelor of Engineering, Computers after graduation joins family business in household items (1-5)

Mufaddal Chaiwala, BE, Computers  joined the family business right after graduation. His is a very motivating and adaptable journey, where due to his upbringing; he had absolute clarity from the beginning to take up business.

He graduated in Bachelor of Engineering, Computers from Viswakarma Institute of Technology, Pune in 1998. He arrived to Kuwait and being an engineer, he had many job offers on hand with very good starting salary. He sought raza from Aqa Moula (tus) and Moula granted him Raza and Dua to join the family business. He declined all the high paying job offers on hand and joined the business without any second thought.

The early days were difficult and he had lot of issues adjusting to situations. Then in 2000, he was joined by his younger brother Saifuddin, who also graduated with BE, Computers from Bharti Vidyapeeth College of Eng, Pune in same year. They attempted to initiate something in IT field and started taking software development projects. After a year and half, he reached a point where he could not handle both the businesses and he wasn’t enjoying it anymore.

Having gained experience for 4 years, Mufaddal wanted to move into a new business line and his father was very supportive in this direction. Hence in 2002 both brothers started new business line in construction hardware. They were supported by their father financially and for legal setup procedure. They both on other hand put in all the hard work, established it from ground up, setup all what was required and eventually stream lined the business.

Today they deal mainly in fastener and screws, have 1 stable outlet and manage a team of about 10 people. Additionally he gained knowledge of mechanical engineering doing self-study and this immensely helped him in effectively running this line of business.

Today in Al Wahab Trading Co., Mufaddal handles purchasing, sourcing new items and handling the technical specification while ordering. His academic qualifications do help him a lot handling various aspects of the business. While, his brother Saifuddin handles sales and administration, they complement each other as an excellent team.

He contributes the clarity in his thought process about doing business to his upbringing by his father, who from the beginning sowed the seeds of business in their mind. His father’s teachings were well received by both brothers, that you get qualified with higher education to get more knowledge and expertise but not with a target to end up in a job or service for life time. Even when he took admission in Engineering colleage, he was well aware that he will land into business, but this did not deter him from taking studies seriously. He studied with full dedication, hard work and obtained his degree certificate.

He is running the business for 13 years now and he is fully contented with what he is doing and where is he is now; whereas all his fellow classmates and  engineers have climbed to positions of VP (vice presidents) of big companies over the last 15 years. But he never compares his status with any of them.

In the long run, he would like to setup a manufacturing branch in India in a similar line, as he has gained experience of so many years running this business line. He would like to use his qualifications, knowledge, experience coupled with required capital in this venture.

Mufaddal believes that ONLY a father, who has learned running business over the years, can very easily and whole heartedly and without any reservations teach his sons to run the established ‘paedi’ in a short span of time and pass on the knowledge. This cannot be gained working in the corporate environment even for many many years.

Mufaddal quotes :

“Have patience and keep realistic expectations. In business, all the days are not the same. Few months have high sales, some will be low and you have to balance it out in the year; unlike fixed pay jobs.”