Success story of danish Naseer (Media Logic)

Abstract

The first group assignment required Group 7 to interview a matured entrepreneur to learn about his story, achievements, and experiences. After constant discussion and disagreement over a plethora of individuals as to who would “rightly” qualify as an entrepreneur according to our own conflicting definitions of entrepreneurship, we finally decided to interview Mr. Salman Danish Naseer, CEO of Media Logic, as our entrepreneur for the first group assignment.

Mr. Salman Danish is a dynamic individual who completely revolutionized the media industry at a young age. After working for over nine consecutive years in the corporate sector, he realized how being a corporate “slave” restricted his capacity to showcase his true potential, whilst providing very little opportunity for him to outshine as an individual. This led him to channel his creativity and establish three companies namely Media Logic, Opti Media and Active Media, each of which deals with niches previously untapped in the country.

The Visit

After contacting and setting up an appointment with Mr. Salman Danish, Group 7 went over to his office in Sector XX DHA Lahore. Situated on the main road, the Head Office was inside a multiple-storey plaza. It had a white, tiled floor and a comfortable seating arrangement with grey leather sofas and a glass table with some daily newspapers making up the waiting area. Mr. Danish’s office itself was nestled between several glazed glass doors. The gentleman had already been awaiting us as five chairs were placed in front of his desk for us to occupy.

His office was a small, cozy room with laminate wood flooring and cream-colored textured wallpaper on all four walls. It was rectangular in shape with a wide window covered with blinds right behind his chair. Diametrically opposite his sitting space was a medium-size LCD television, which was at that time turned off. In one corner of the room was an indoor money plant, growing in a pot, beside which was a table with copies of Time Magazine, Forbes and Harvard Business Review magazines. On one of the longer walls were two shelves holding several books including Imran Khan’s “Pakistan: A Personal History” and two copies of Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing amongst others. Upon enquiry regarding this selection of books we learned, interestingly enough, that Mr. Salman Danish had received the Marketing textbooks from Professor Ehsan ul Haque (one of the co-authors) on account of Media Logic’s feature in one of the book’s case studies. Imran Khan’s autobiography, on the other hand, was allowed a spot because the Chief Executive Officer shared Khan’s ideology of a corruption-free state and so, as part of his endeavor to contribute positively to Pakistan. Danish worked actively with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s marketing department, especially for their election campaigns.

Mr. Salman Danish’s desk had on it his black Asus laptop, a small clock, a table calendar, a notepad, some files and a mug containing several pens. Beside his chair was a low bookshelf containing many more files and books but these were far and concealed well enough to be inconspicuous to a regular visitor. Mr. Danish himself sat comfortably in his rotating, black leather chair. He was dressed casually, in trousers and a blue shirt with a grey zipper jacket on top. His countenance was warm and it set all of us, who were meeting him for the first time, at ease. All the members of Group 7 were actually rather surprised to see him in person, as he looked like he was in his twenties i.e. at least half his real age. His voice was also rather gentle and for someone with such high profile, successful businesses under his belt he was not intimidating in the least. Mr. Danish pleasantly asked us a little bit about ourselves and that set the conversation rolling.

About Him

After completing his B.A. in Economics in 1995 from the Government College University Lahore, Mr. Salman Danish joined the Lahore University of Management Sciences for his MBA the following year. During his two years at this institute he made his place in the Dramatics Society, finishing finally as President of it, and also on the Dean’s List for Academic Excellence. With these achievements under his belt he finally graduated as part of the MBA Class of 1998 and joined Shell Pakistan Limited where he worked for 3 years as Network Planner. In 2001, he joined PepsiCo, where he stayed for nearly 7 years. By the end of this period he was at the position of Head of Marketing Snacks Division and during his time there, PepsiCo, under him, launched Lays, Kurkure and Mountain Dew amongst other products.

The Background Story

Throughout his time in the corporate sector, Mr. Danish, who had always been on the marketing side, observed how much multinational companies invested on above the line advertising, especially through television. He saw, however, two obstacles associated with this spending. Firstly, in Pakistan as a whole, there were not many channels to choose from, as back in the day cable television was not developed enough and had only one or two channels in each of the news, sports and entertainment categories. While this was not necessarily a bad thing on its own it was made into one because of the second obstacle; when multinational companies had to decide where to spend, it was done on the basis of a vague idea or a gut feeling. In Mr. Salman Danish’s own words, “at Pepsi we just instinctively ‘knew’ that people watched cricket. We had no data or statistics to back up our gut feelings or to tell us which demographic market segment watched it or how frequently they did.” Danish also pointed out the uncertainty involved with gauging how effective the company’s marketing campaigns were. It was difficult for people at his position and within his department to justify why money was spent where it was, considering especially that the return on investment could not be measured. Essentially what he concluded from his scrutiny was that the business macro-environment in Pakistan lacked a media rating company, which if it had existed would have aided corporations in such marketing related decisions.

In the private sphere of his life, Mr. Salman Danish foresaw another problem. He had spent as much time as he possibly could have climbing the corporate ladder in Pakistan. Now in order for his career to grow further, a transfer abroad was inevitable. This was problematic for two reasons. Firstly, all of Danish’s siblings were settled abroad and if he also left Pakistan there would be no one to care for or even to live with his aging mother. Secondly, he himself was not on board with the idea of leaving Pakistan permanently and becoming part of the cycle that involved repeatedly reestablishing his entire life in a foreign land every few years, as the multinational company issued a transfer with each promotion.

The Action

Thus with all these factors in mind, Mr. Salman Danish finally resigned from his job at PepsiCo in 2007 and collaborated with some investors and the international market research organization Growth From Knowledge (GFK) to found Media Logic – Pakistan’s first and only media rating company. The company successfully started operations in September from Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad and then gradually expanded, first to 9 cities, and now finally to 20 cities.

In 2009 Mr. Danish launched Opti Media - his second partnership - with investors from his MBA class. Opti Media plans and executes outdoor advertising for nearly all multinational corporations operating within Pakistan, including but not limited to Unilever, Nestle, Mobilink, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola et cetera. Then in 2011 Mr. Salman Danish launched Active Media, yet another business partnership with investors from his MBA class. Active Media specializes in events and activation. After setting up these three companies Mr. Danish handed operations for the newer two to his colleagues, and began to focus largely on Media Logic himself.

Defining Entrepreneurship

Most books define an “entrepreneur” as an individual who brings together the four factors of production, namely land, labor, capital, and enterprise. The quality “enterprise” and how people define it often subject to conflicting debate. According to Mr. Danish, an entrepreneur is someone who “does his own thing”. To explicate, this means someone who creates and manages an idea and turns it into a business model. An entrepreneur differs from a regular businessperson in that the former does not shy away from foraying into previously unexplored territories. Instead, he is willing to take the risk of grabbing an opportunity and trying to cash on it. The term “entrepreneur” includes in its implication a multitude of facets, which combine together to produce one fine entity. One facet, according to Mr. Danish that he self-admittedly lacked, is that an entrepreneur needs to be ruthless, but this does not omit the fact that he has to abide by a certain moral and ethical code of conduct. The gentleman also discussed how an entrepreneur inherits the traits of an effective leader often including self-awareness, social skills, internal-motivation, and emotional intelligence. Mr. Danish talked about how an entrepreneur strongly believes that every threat is in fact an opportunity in disguise, one that can help the person pursue their passion and achieve the ultimate goal of making a positive difference in the world.

Mr. Salman Danish further explicated the concept of entrepreneurship by differentiating it from running a business. He said, “When you are running a business everybody needs favors from you but when you are doing entrepreneurship, you need favors from everybody”. Mr. Danish also talked about how there is “never a dull moment”. Considering that an entrepreneur hatches his own idea and watches it grow, times are always tough because he alone is responsible for everything. Additionally, as the business venture is his brainchild there is great compromise on the work-life balance, as leaving the office does not necessarily mean switching off but instead one finds himself putting in working hours on Sundays and other holidays as well. To this end, Mr. Danish clarified how his own sentiments differed between the times of his employment and entrepreneurship. He said that while he was working for a corporation, he would find himself tired every day after work but once he set up his own ventures, that feeling disappeared only to be replaced by a sort of exhilaration at seeing his hard work pay off and his business and team grow.

His Traits

Contrary to our preconceived belief about what a successful entrepreneur would be like, Mr. Danish was not a typical, ruthless, business-minded individual. In spite of all his achievements due to which Media Logic stands as a business worth many millions, Mr. Danish was an extremely humble and polite individual who resembled a fresh MBA graduate more than a 40 plus Chief Executive Officer. As a realist in his approach towards life in general, he very clearly stated how entrepreneurship is not “everyone’s game”. He pointed out three distinct factors, which he believes helped him become who he is today, namely humility, perseverance and relationship management.

To start off, Mr. Salman Danish said that although entrepreneurs need to be committed in their efforts to establish themselves, they should not, however, forget that establishing oneself as a successful entrepreneur requires modesty and honesty towards one’s own work. He elaborated on this by disclosing how multinational corporations generally invest heavily on providing their employees high standards of living, and then talked about how if one enjoys the lifestyle of flying First Class and driving high profile cars like BMW or Mercedes, entrepreneurship is not for him. He also spoke warningly about the pitfalls of following the mainstream hardcore competitive culture, which does no less than inherently wipe out creativity from even the most successful organizations. His primary advice to aspiring entrepreneurs had to do with always being humble, as he revealed that without it surviving the difficult times is impossible. According to Mr. Salman Danish, perseverance is the one key factor that forms the premise of entrepreneurship, as successful businesses do not form overnight. In his words, the best businesses often take years of persistent and concentrated hard work to gain recognition. Doing well early on is extremely rare, and the beginning few years are the rockiest period as the venture experiences operational hiccups at the time.

Another key success factor that Danish pointed out was that, “90% of all successful ventures rely on effective public relationship management”. In saying this, he did not restrict relationship management to the external world only but also included a firm’s internal work setting, including its own employees and workers. Effective PR management in turn naturally relies on effective communication, which Mr. Danish again said could make or break any business.

The founder of Media Logic spoke about other important traits as well, each of which is important in finding success as an entrepreneur. He discussed the importance of being a risk taker by saying that the bigger the risk the greater the returns that go with it, in the scenario that the risk pays off. Another important attribute for an entrepreneur to be successful is that of flexibility. Mr. Danish talked about how although there is a tremendous amount of planning involved in setting up a venture, an entrepreneur cannot possibly plan beyond a certain point. There will always be unforeseen circumstances and glitches and it is the initiator’s job to take them in his stride and deal with them as he sees fit at the time. Mr. Danish was quick to point out that this does not render contingency planning unnecessary, rather that is an element that cannot be done without.

Two rather surprising factors to be brought under discussion by Mr. Danish were luck and timing. He talked about how these macro-factors play an imperative role, as at the end of the day one’s skills, exposure, habits, thinking pattern and networking ability are the elements that equip him with the abilities necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. He also talked about how one’s reasons for wanting to be an entrepreneur have to right. If the objective is solely to make money perhaps a line involving so much creativity is not best suited to such a person.

Additionally, in order to be successful one must be quick to adapt to and learn the tricks of the trade. Mr. Danish discussed how Media Logic’s work is affected because of the politics that make up the fabric of the media industry. All media outlets are politically well connected and so the company needs to delicately balance its operations in a way that its ratings remain unbiased but also do not earn it the wrath of Pakistan’s wealthy and influential figures.

Future Plans

Mr. Salman Danish is one to “go with the flow” whilst also simultaneously always being on the lookout for new opportunities. With the media environment changing rapidly from analog to digital, there is the inevitable shift that Media Logic will have to undergo as it too transitions into an era of new techniques, devices and technology. As far as geographical expansion is concerned, Media Logic is currently evaluating other areas in terms of the cable distribution and hopes to extend its services to more cities than the 20 it is currently serving.

Key Learnings

Group 7’s interview of Mr. Salman Danish Naseer gave us first-hand insight into the world of entrepreneurship and revealed to us several interesting things about a successful entrepreneur. Firstly, we realized the importance of being passionate and dedicated to the work one does. Secondly, we observed how the founder of Media Logic had not let his success get to him. Rather, he was patient and genuine with us, answering all our questions and allowing us the freedom to ask him whatever we felt necessary. Lastly, we saw a sort of fearlessness and willingness to take risks, in the demeanor of the person we interviewed. This was a refreshing change from the typical static workplace environments we have previously seen. Conclusively, our visit with an entrepreneur was an enlightening and unexpectedly interesting experience, and definitely one that we enjoyed investing our time in.