Mansha says success comes from hard work, honesty and a great team

LAHORE: Mian Muhammad Mansha is one entrepreneur in Pakistan who has excelled in any business he entered into; and he is in almost every important sector of the economy from the entire textile chain to banking, cement, energy, dairy, corporate farming, aviation, real estate, retail and automobiles. He is setting standard in each of these fields that are difficult to emulate. Nishat Group which he heads is the largest taxpayer and employer of the country. Here are some excerpts of the interview he gave to The News.

Q: What is the secret of your success as your companies even in those sectors that come under pressure show profit?

A: It is all due to the blessing of Allah and I firmly believe that success would come if you operate honestly, wok hard, look after your workforce and invest in society from what you earn. With a satisfied workforce and updated machinery you can achieve efficiencies to face any competition head on. I never go for quick profits. I have seen that success has come to me in cases where the decisions were taken on spur of moment. Similarly many well studied ventures fail to come off although you spend lot of time and money on them. It is the Devine force that determines your success and failure.

Not all of my ventures always make profits. It all depends upon the prevailing state of economy in the country and the global economic environment. For instance cement sector is doing well in the country and my companies in this sector are performing excellently. Textile sector on the other hand is under stress. Since I am in entire textile chain and some of the sectors are making money and some are losing. Bed wear is going good; readymade garment sector is losing money. My profits in textile sector have come down sharply as a result of this.

Q: Your Shopping Mall has become a craze in Lahore; what motivated you to establish it?

A: It was basically the idea of my son and daughter in law. They bought this land from LDA in an open auction after fierce competition Rs18.8 million per kanal. Our Emporium Mall is providing employment to over 1,400 people. It is a shopping mall of best global standard and has been instrumental in raising the price of huge government land around the mall to Rs40 million per kanal.  Government should auction the remaining land to interested entrepreneurs. This would result in creation of thousands of jobs.

Q: How is your dairy farm doing and how do you intend to use large chunk of land you own there?

A: The dairy farm is based on state of art technology. All the 10,000 cattle are high yielding foreign breeds. We are breeding our cows for next breeding through artificial insemination. The problem we face is that the males of these breeds are not allowed to be exported. These are very costly animals and we cannot get the right price for these bulls in the local market. The foreigners from whom we imported the cattle are willing to buy back all male off spring at right price. This should be allowed by the government.

I am doing mechanized farming on 1,000 acres, I bought adjacent to my dairy farm. We will be the first to use drip irrigation on large scale in Pakistan. The necessary pipe infrastructure is being laid that would reduce the water use to 50 percent of the normal water used to irrigate farms in Pakistan. The sowing would be through machines and harvesting through harvesters. I expect to obtain 100 percent higher yield from the average yield of all crops in Pakistan. The cultivation area would be increased substantially after the success of this venture.

Q: What inspired you to enter the automobile sector

A: I have a feeling that the consumers in Pakistan are being deprived of quality vehicles because there is no real competition in the market. Every car producer has developed a niche market and is serving it without competing with the other. This perhaps is the reason that nobody is talking of introducing electric cars in the country. We will produce both small and medium size car versions of Hyundai and give the consumer a choice to choose both on quality and price. We will import both hybrid and electric cars first and then follow the localization policy of the government on these high tech versions.