How foodpanda became an innovation lab for delivery hero

शामिल ख़बदिना रात welcome back to another episode of thought band things. आज हमारे मौजूद हैं बहुत ही ख़ास मेहम, दो बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान. जिनको बुलाने का मकसद यह था कि we had a conversation with another member of their team not too long ago और उस time के ऊपर Pakistan में quick commerce के ऊपर बड़ी बात हो रही थी और you know उसके ups and downs क्या seen है क्या नहीं है. उन्होंने recommend किया था कि you know why don't you talk to the person responsible for that vertical in our company and I thought you know that be absolutely amazing. इसी के साथ साथ आज का जो हालात है economy के आपके सामने है पूरी दुनिया में एक inflation वगैरह का problem तो चल ही रहा है but इसी के साथ साथ Pakistan में खासकर यह problem बहुत ज़्यादा you know बुरे तरीके से हमारे सामने है and so I thought why don't we talk to the finance guy from their company as well to understand कि startups particularly their company how are they faring through that environment and आने वाली बात की जो uncertainty है उसके through यह किस तरह से अपने आप को plan कर रहे हैं protect करने के लिए. आज हमारे साथ मौजूद हैं सय्यद महाज़ हाश्मी who is the director finance at food panda and इबादौर अहमद who is the director and business unit head for quick commerce and new verticals. Guys, thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you. हां बिल्कुल जी. एक बात मैं conversation आपके साथ start करूंगा just trying to understand where were you born and early life आपने कहां गुज़ारी? अगर आपने passive income के बारे में परेशान है ख़ासकर आजकल की economy में जहां पर already cash continuously burn हो रहा है और inflation हमें मार रही है. तो I'm proud to announce that this video is in partnership with समाया Financials. They're offering two very very cool trainings. Capital market fundamentals जिसमें आप stocks और mutual funds में invest करना सीखेंगे और understand करेंगे कि आखिर एक company के अंदर क्या ऐसे fundamentals होते हैं जिनको आपने देखना होता है to figure out कि वह एक अच्छी company है to invest in. और दूसरी training है technical analysis master class जिसमें आप सीखेंगे कि किस तरीके से हम different tradable assets like commodities, forex, stocks, crypto के अंदर थोड़े से पैसे लगाकर बहुत ज़्यादा पैसे बना सकते हैं. Personally यह training मैंने भी ली है and it's absolutely phenomenal. The link to the trainings are in the description below. Check them out and become financially healthy and now back to the podcast.

Born and bred कराचीite. So I think the first twenty seven years of my life fully in कराची. Early education सारी मेरी मयंकी थी. So I I did my schooling from a relatively lesser known school, new day secondary school. वहां से मैंने matriculation किया. Then I proceeded for my intermediate from आहखानायार secondary school, करीमाबाद.

Right. Yeah. और उसके बाद where'd you go for your university? So I went to GIK

for my electronic engineering.

Was that a random decision या did you decide

on multiple different जगह जहां पर हो गया चलो देख लेते हैं. So there were two factors behind it. एक तो यह था कि my father was an electrical engineer so electrical electronics there is a bit of a crossover. कुछ ना कुछ करना था. Back at that time it was by far the best engineering institution in Pakistan with electronics being having the highest merit. So it was difficult to get into it. I just wanted to prove something कि I could make it. So that's kind of how things played out. Makes sense. And how was the GIK experience? Because you're you're a through and through कराची आए, right? और इससे पहले आप, had you traveled across Pakistan or outside of Pakistan? Not really, no. So it was technically speaking I had very little local or international travel before going to GIK. अच्छा. So it was a big change and and I think एक और reason जो यह बड़ा change था वही था कि I'm an only child. Right. Super sheltered and protected and and some of it up was out of volition कि यार मैंने कुछ नया experience करना है and and hopefully I will learn a lot of things in terms of becoming an adult through hostel life and that experience.

Yeah. Was was that worth it? Because again, four years of going from this sort of huge metropolis to really being in the center of jungle, right? और एक cultural shift भी है because कराची के अंदर the people are very different even though it's very sort of multi ethnic and उस तरह से वो है but एक culture of the city is like I see कराची as a separate country altogether. आप लोहौर जाएं, बाकी जगहों पे जाएं आपको समझ आ रही होती है कि Pakistan की variation है. आप कराची land करते हैं and then everything is different. The accents are different, the thought processes are different. तो वहां से उठकर आप lumps जाते हैं, fast जाते हैं, गोम सारे जाते हैं it's one thing but GIK that's that's something. So what was that like?

Definitely at that stage it was life altering and and the reason is I I I think I am better off because of that. I would have been a very different person. उसका जो footprint और impression है मेरी ज़िंदगी पर बहुत ज़्यादा indelible रहा है और इसलिए क्योंकि I I think I would not have been so tolerant of so many different perspectives. अगर मुझे ज़िंदगी में कोई inclusion या inclusiveness समझ में आई है probably some of those initial routes came from GIK where where you were working you know or or or studying with everyone from across Pakistan. You know from back then it wasn't even KPK per se and क्या कहते हैं कि obviously a lot of people from from Punjab specially लोहौर and सलाहवाद पिंडी. So I think it made me a more tolerant person. It also helped me paint a slightly better picture of कराची heights. Really? And and I think, yeah, I think that hostel life trained me to start looking out for my own. I would not have perhaps known that that the life there is not just about academics. It's also about your you have to be involved with clubs and societies because if you don't do that then then you're going to feel quite lonely. Right. Yeah yeah, you will be found on on the the LAN, the Ethernet and and either gaming or watching movies or whatnot. So so yeah, I think it was it was really formative. Gaming वगैरह कर रहे थे उस time पर? Gaming selectively I wasn't very good. So I love to see people play DOTA. Right. Love to see them play DOTA. But I used to play Counter Strike a bit myself so. Right right right.

And how were you academically?

I was ok. I think I I it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't,

you know Top of your mind. No. I it wasn't top of my game. Yeah. Electronics while you were studying it. Did you like it?

I liked electronics. I think the way the course was structured at that time, it was done to kind of branch out into multiple areas. So कुछ लोग power और electrical की side पर निकल जाते थे. Some people used to go into instrumentation and controls. By and large a lot of people used it as an entry point into telecom क्योंकि electronics का मतलब है you know back then 2004, 2008 telecom boom in Pakistan. How do you make an entry into you know that space. So it was if you talk about hardcore electronics वो Pakistan में होती नहीं क्योंकि आपको पता है कि PCB या जो printed circuit board manufacturing है उसके ऊपर तो हमारे पास इतना expertise नहीं है. The people who got interested in it they definitely left the country soon after. जो बाकी सारे areas थे वहां पर I think I personally did not enjoy power that much or or even telecom for that matter but I think instrumentation and control was an area that I really enjoyed. What does that mean instrumentation and controls? So this is about industrial processes getting automatically managed. So let's say you have a plant और उस plant के अंदर different pipeline है उन पर valve लगे हुए हैं तो एक कोई distributor control system या PLC के through उनका timely operation खुलना बंद होना ताकि वो process उस तरीके से काम कर सके. और वो एक central unit लगा हुआ है जहा पर आपने एक button दबाया तो वो उसने बंद कर दिया अपने आप को and exactly. So so you don't necessarily even sometimes you need to have a button there are fail safes in the system there are alarms what not but the predominant reason that you would have something like this is कि आपका एक process है और उस process को आपने train किया हुआ है कि there is a stable steady state and if the variables go up and down then you train the system to act in a way so as to take consistent feedback और उस feedback की basis पर अपने inputs को control करें ताकि वह दुबारा stabilize हो जाए. Right. और जो बनना था for example अगर कोई chemical product है तो उसी तरीके से बने राजा जान कि कुछ और वन जाए या plant जो है वह उसको shut down करना पड़े या कुछ हो जाए. So, so it is about automation and I think it's interesting because because I think some some of the the businesses that we have specially around in oil and gas and and in the fertilizer sector, they are fully dependent on instruments

and controls. जो आपके GIC का batch था उसमें were were a lot of are a lot of people still in Pakistan? I feel like जो GIK has that sort of lumps effect where a certain niche goes and most of them by the time they're graduating realize कि हम अब overqualify हो गए हैं पाकिस्तानी market के लिए and they end up you know master शास्त्र करके Europe निकल गए, दुर्दा निकल गए. तो was the trend similar around you as well? I don't think that at that time at least back in the day things were not about leaving the country per se.

यह मैं ज़रूर कहूंगा कि what had become interesting was because it's a great institution and it produces some great engineers but everybody doesn't become a great engineer and and the the the cost of the degree was so relatively high even back then and especially now even more so कि a lot of people transitioned into management careers specially into supply chain and you know operations, you know process engineering, process and operations management.

तो वह ज़्यादा ज़्यादा होना लगा था क्योंकि but I would say कि outflux of the people going and still staying. So I think the bigger problem was them staying true to engineering as a discipline. If I were to ask you, it's a very interesting point आपने raise किया. Do you think there was a lack of their interest in engineering or more a lack of really good opportunities in engineering. I feel like Pakistan became such a sort of retail market कि यार you know factory लगाना तो ख्वारी है when you can just get such stuff cheaper from China and so it makes sense ना आपने तो चले supply chain में कर लिया GIC के इतने smart लोग होते हैं. हमारे एक दिन जो लोग graduate हुए वह पिछले पांच साल में सारे real estate में खुश ना खुश कर रहे हैं इस time पर. तो economy का जो रोक होता है sometimes it sort of attracts talent one way or the other and and somehow while that is happening like मैं computer science से graduate हूँ. मुझे बहुत सारे लोग आए कहते यार computer science में interest नहीं हुआ. I don't necessarily agree I just feel like या तो पढ़ाई से ही नहीं गई. Temperament का मसला इतना नहीं था उन लोगों में. जितना ज़्यादा या तो पढ़ाई नहीं गई थी सही या opportunity बनाई नहीं. तो obvious सी बात है कि they ended up making a lot more money doing a lot of other things. What do you think was the case in your mind? I would tend to agree that even back then if I look at it, देखें you are talking about a graduate from GIC paying a lot of money.

At least at that time I don't I don't remember कि K electric आ चुकी थी या KESC थी. So for a person from GIC to go to KESC and Wabda is a little far fetched. Yeah. तो our मैं अभी I am strictly talking from a electronics lens obviously. We always felt कि यार mechanical लोगों के लिए ज़्यादा नौकरियां हमेशा available होती थी but if you talk about wheel from electronics etcetera, application was the problem, not necessarily temperament. You you you have great temperament but if you if if there is no application out there in the industry, how will you find a relevant job? Yeah. I think on the instrumentation and control side, I think काफ़ी ज़्यादा you know, you have companies like ICI, Engrow, four g, a lot of places where there is an application of instrumentation and controls. Right. But but let's talk about, like I said, printed circuit boards, you know, chips, logic design. Who's doing that in Pakistan? हां. So it's lost on you. You you can't really apply it. So if you if you really like it, you got to go outside. And then once you go outside, do you really come back? If you have gone in soon after your undergraduation, a little unlikely. Yeah. And now the last thing that comes is telecom. And obviously, it became a super saturated market, super fast because because yes, it was booming. But everybody was going into it. Everybody wanted to be that vast RF engineer who gets in and and then it started becoming really difficult for everyone to make it there. तो यह है problem कि I I personally feel कि temperament का necessarily मसला नहीं था. There was just not enough application specially from an electronics, hardcore electronics lens.

Makes sense and so आप जब graduate हुए हैं दो हज़ार आठ में I am up तो to

उस time के ऊपर what did you do? So my first job was with Dengro in Derky. Classic continuance of the Jeeki bubble because great colony, great society, great people really watching out for each other, having each other's backs. So I did that but I did that for a relatively short strain around seven months

and then after that I transitioned into shell and I came back to कराची. अच्छा, we're gonna get back to that but I want to come to Mars and and get his side of early life and where was he born and थोड़ा सा मुझे बताइएगा.

Thank you, मंज़मिल, for having us. So born in Karachi. Was here in Karachi till, I think, class four. But then I moved to Bangladesh.

अच्छा. And what what year was this? This was back in 1996.

Right. So my my dad was a textile engineer. Textile at that time was sort of picking up there in Bangladesh. So he moved, eventually went there, did my schooling, did my O levels, A levels from there, and then came back. Interesting. How long were you there for? Good ten years. अच्छा. And what was it like? I mean,

Pakistan में बड़ी interesting सी बात है कि we we know a lot about India in terms of culture and there's Bollywood and music. But Bangladesh which was essentially part of us, we don't know a lot about. And I would assume कि जो ज़ाहिर हमें थोड़ा बहुत होता है वो congenious चीज़ें होता है. तो दो सवाल है probably. पहले तो यह है how did you find बांग्लादेश generally overall space कैसी थी, लोग कैसी थे and then how did those people find you? Because you know when you introduce yourself as a पाकिस्तानी, तो was there resentment? Was there कि oh अच्छा, you know, सिद्धू रहने हैं? No. So I think the

time I did spend there, I, to this day, I really, like, look back to it and, you know, I had a great time. From a country perspective, I think similar to to what we are here as well, much more greener. Like, so that that obviously is the case there. हां, बारिशें वगैरह बहुत ज़्यादा होते हैं. बहुत ज़्यादा and it's like they they do for them floods is something that happens like on It's a lifestyle. It's not a calamity. Yeah. But they are well prepared for it according ly as well. But I think, in general, very peaceful, lush green bells and everything. So it was good. On the on the second part of the question, that is something that I usually get. And even when sort of I was going there, though I remember I was, like, I wasn't, like, class four or class five. Right? But back of the mind, it was that, you know, I don't know how would I be sort of, welcomed or how would I be taken. I think it was it was it was as smooth as a breeze. I mean, the people there, to my surprise, it was more about, oh, you're from Pakistan. ठीक है, तो वह Pakistan अच्छा पता है Pakistan के बारे में. अच्छा, you know, you guys have mountains और यह और वह. So it it was it was the I I found, or maybe I was lucky that generally the people I met or the friends that I have made, they, it was it was a very welcoming experience for me there. और language है क्या सिंता? Was there a language barrier?

Did you communicate with them in, like, उर्दू or? So the good thing is,

with Bollywood and everything, I think all the Bengalis that I came across knew हिंदी or उर्दू. Right? So that was that was never a problem. And then, obviously, when you when you go to a country at such young age and when you do your schooling, so you end up learning the language as well. So, like, two, three years down the line I was I was as fluent in मंगला as as a बंगारी है. मतलब आप बाहर कहीं पर रहे हो कोई बता नहीं सकता कि यह पाक्षतानी है या बगैरी Correct. And then I think the good thing is that I think since, like, I did my O levels and A levels so it was like English medium school so I think English was there as well. So from a even from a language barrier perspective that was not an issue. वहां पर वैसे पाक्षतानी थे और जो आए हुए थे. Generally कितने मतलब पाक्षतानी हैं वहां पर जो कि काम शाम कर रहे होते हैं? काफी हैं. I think यह भी एक perception है कि शायद ना हो but I think there is a lot of पाकिस्तानी that are situated there especially in this textile engineering background because we as you know, इबाद is one of them. We have good engineers here in Pakistan, right? Right. Generally like, you know, in the textile field more or less every textile companies have पाकिस्तानीs operating for them from बांग्लादेश. और आप धाका में थे वहां पर? मैं धाका में था, जी. So, most of the time I was in धाका but I was fortunate enough to travel across the whole बांग्लादेश and explore the the beauty of it accordingly. उनका क्या क्या image है? I think ढाका है, चिट्टागोंग है. So, the capital so very centralized. ढाका in the capital being sort of, you know, that is where everyone come in. Is there a port city also or is it not? The port city is चिट्टागोंग. Right. That's their port city. But it's, Taka is equal into Karachi. Right? Right. The, it's a, it's a metropolis. It's it's it's, the life there is very fast, very different. But, but and and I think I'll give you a just for perception sake, Pakistan has a population of 220,000,000 people. Right. Bangladesh has a population of 180,000,000 people. Yeah, but with half the landmass, yeah. Even even less than that. So you can imagine the the the sort of crowd or the density of people that was there. But in terms of, I mean, security and cleanliness and

infrastructure because I feel like कि जो ख़ैर आपके time पर was different also उन्होंने पिछले दस साल में बहुत ज़्यादा grow किया what was that like?

So I think similar to I mean I can maybe relate more to Islamabad per se. But but in general, I think infrastructure at the at the time when I was there, I think to what they are today, I think they have developed a lot on the infrastructure space. But back at that time it was something similar to what maybe our cities are like. Yeah, and security and cleanliness.

मैं जो बड़े लोग कहते culturally ना उनके बड़ी मज़े मज़े की चीज़ें हैं. Sir, वहां पर women are very well integrated into their workforce. Yes. And so inherently because you see them a lot outside तो there is a certain level of security जो कि society के अंदर embedded है. ख़वातें इनकी पर इसी तरीके से I remember this one time an Indonesian coud surfer couple were visiting Pakistan तो मैंने वह coud surfing पर डाल दिया मैंने कहा you know why don't you come over? And so she asked me, she messaged me कि I'm I've just come to Santorus pick me up so I went to pick her up and गाड़ी में हम आ रहे थे तो she looked like बड़ी परेशान लग रही थी husband भी धन के साथ. तो मैंने कहा क्या हुआ? कहती I just come to Islamabad today and I'm just shook because रास्ते में जो है हमें washroom रुकना पड़ा दो एक जगहों पर और मैं आपकी रोड़े देख रही हूं and And she was like कि you know like for me being a for us Indonesians being a Muslim it means you have to be clean with your mind and clean with your society and clean with your neighborhood. वह बड़ा interest perspective था. We never thought about that in in in Pakistan. So so in that context, security and, you know, overall. I think on the security side of it and the cleanliness,

I I'll say yes, it was better. Like like कराची से compare करूं तो yes, better. Islamabad से compare करूं तो at par, I'll keep it at par. Mhmm. On the workforce question that you asked, I think that's true. When I recall as well, I, like, you know, they have these garment factories and and, you know, so so women is an integral part of their workforce. And it's like, you know, both husband and wife sort of, they work together and sort of raise their family together. So I remember even at that time, I am talking about nineties like उस वक्त भी अच्छी खासी मतलब wherever you go to government और you चाय के बगान होते हैं वहां पर आप वहां चले जाएं, कहीं भी चले जाएं. Is taken part of the

force. And so you came back in 2006?

Yes, 2006.

And what did do after that? So,

after that, so basically I have been, I have been an hardcore accountant since my O levels. I, so I took accounting, economics, business studies there, then in A levels. So after coming here, I had two options, either CA or ACCA. I opted for ACCA and then completed it here. Why did you choose ACCA instead of CA? I think back then, which I think now has sort of, they have evolved as well, CA had its, had its own sort of limitation per se. And from a perspective that, so module system होता था. आपने अगर तीन paper दिए और अगर एक paper रुक गया आपका तो आपका पूरा module lapse होता था. Right. फिर उसके बाद CMA यह होता था कि आपको after doing four modules, you need to spend three and a half years in an audit firm. So articleship of sorts. Articleship and the pay at of the of the the stipend per se. वह तो मज़ाक कहते ना आपके साथ. That was that was quite bad. So I am the only son. So I had to sort of support the family. So it was more like, you know, getting a certification or getting a degree and then moving quickly towards like, you know, into into the into job. So मैंने किया भी यही, before I even completed my ACCA, I joined a company. My first role was an accountant. So it was a it was a small company. They were basically providing stabilized, industrial stabilizers and inverters. वहां पर so

one and a half is their first exposure of how, you know, how corporate life is and so forth. मुझे एक बात बताएं जो आप ACCA में पढ़ते हैं एक like एक academic version of accounting and finance, accounting mostly and then जो actual एक yeah I am sure कोई state company होगी family owned type जो actual Pakistan में accounting हो रही है उसमें और academic में कितना difference है? I think from an hardcore accounting perspective

I would say like जैसे जो पहली company थी obviously it was more of a more of a family owned so वहां पर उतना उतना नहीं था. But then the other companies that I moved into वहां पर obviously it was a different ball game. From a hardcore accounting perspective I would say yes accounting is followed but then that is only till maybe at your first five, six years where you're sort of preparing accounts and doing reporting and so forth. उसके बाद the ball game completely changes because then you are basically integral part of running the company, right? You're running the finances, running the company per se. I think वहां पर फिर आपको एक disconnect नज़र आता है कि the so in theory and in practical things are very different. जो practical है उसमें business administration on some level आ जाती है? हां, बिल्कुल आ जाती है. Business administration आ जाती है. फिर उसके बाद I mean sort of I would say thinking out of the box एक element आ जाता है. Facilitation का एक बहुत बड़ा element आ जाता है. So, it's it's different from what so obviously the base is the ACCA or be any other qualification it sort of provides you the base but I think वह एक ही different ball game होता है when you when you go into the industry and start working. Makes sense and you've been in the industry for well over a decade now.

And you've seen how things have evolved in terms of tools and services available for on the tech tech side of things, right? अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं कि आजकल के time पर how important I know how important accountants are I think we don't we take accounting for granted. वह बड़ी company तो कर लेती है but Pakistan में I feel like जो SME sector scale नहीं कर पाता उसकी एक major reason यह है कि जो core finance या accounting का बंदा ना वह कभी होता ही नहीं तो हर बंदा अपने मर्ज़ी से कर रहा होता कि यार वाह ठीक है चलो इतने कमाल ही तो इतने उड़ा देते क्या फ़र्क पड़ता है? And then recently I came across this very interesting app called metric जो कि इसको आप digitize भी कर रहे हैं और वो sort of are like you know just receive it so you can show डाल दो app will do the rest and now with sort of AI and you know machine learning and image recognition theoretically a lot of these things can be automated, right? है तो एक एक एक certain application है आपने एक define कर दिया कि यार इस तरह की मेरी company है उसकी यह fundamentals है and then उसके बाद the theoretically the the computer can do all of those tasks. Do you think कि modern day accounting जो जिस तरह आपने पढ़ी है, उस तरह से वह आज भी उतने applicable है या do you think that's going to be automated in the coming years? I think already we

have softwares like for example we use SAP, right? So I think hardcore accounting के accountant की अगर मैं बात करूं that's a dying profession. And the way that as you said I mean today with AI, with software's and everything वह जो पहले if you remember बड़े बड़े register होते थे. उसमें वह entries हो रही होती थी तो those days are gone. Like, you know, now it's like आपका software is one click of a button, you know, वह सारी चीज़ें कर लेता है. I think now finance in itself has evolved a lot. It's no longer about being an hardcore sort of accountant per se. It's more about being that finance business partner. It's how you can sort of support the business, how you can sort of bring in those efficiencies from a finance perspective and how you can take it forward. That's where the role is. Like it's more of strategical finance, more of business finance business partnering because जबकि एक hardcore accounting की चीज़ जो है वह अब एक तरीके से खत्म होती जा रही है. Do you think talent is being produced जो आपने intersectionality बताई है, interdisciplinary

sort of कि एक तरफ एक एक एक business administration का काम है और एक तरफ क्योंकि accounting इतने ज़्यादा separate करके licensing डाल दी ना उसके अंदर कि वो conventional उसमें probably lumps का ACF का एक program है which is the only one जिसमें जिसको मैं somewhat कह सकता हूं कि उसका बच्चा जो है वो. So what I am thinking is for example एक IT company है and I see so many IT companies जो कि दो दो सौ तीन तीन सौ बंदे की company है जिसका मतलब यह है कि उसका yearly turnover तीन चार million dollar का है और I have worked in one as well and generally वो यही होता है कि एक कोई create models for example. Like an IT professional will not know कि यार अगर मैं यह करूं तो मैं x increase के ऊपर y turnover करके मैं z outcome निकाल लूंगा. And by and large the reasons why these companies don't have such people is because such people in Pakistan do not get developed academically. They get developed through trade and profession. Right? आपने कहा पहले पाँच साल के बाद फिर वो development शुरू होती है और वो बंदा जो hardcore corporate में होता वो कहते है यार मैं क्या IT company में क्या करूँगा? So there is a disconnect there and because of that unless young talent उस तरह का develop हो जिसको इस तरह की companies integrate कर सकती हैं a lot of that talent doesn't exist. What's your experience?

So I think यह generally, you know, there's a perception about finance and the people in finance बहुत dry field होती है. Corporate level पर ही होता है यार इनसे इनसे तो दूर रहो. यह they they they make your life difficult, right? और and आप सही कह रहे हैं कि वह thought process यह होता है कि एक accountant जो है या एक finance का आदमी जो होता है उसका काम होता बस हिसाब किताब करना है, ensure करना कि हां हो रही है और वह उसी में वह साथ और भी चीज़ें add हो जाती हैं. But I think, with how the industries are evolving with the tech sector coming in and everything, I think अब यह चीज़ें थोड़ी change हो रही हैं because वही वाली बात we are talking about budgeting, we are talking about ROIs, we are talking about forecasting, we are talking about reforecasting. Exchange rate पहले इतने का था एक महीने बाद इतना हो गया भाई जो आपने reforecast किया था अब आप कहां पर खड़े हुए हैं you know say it's it's it's changing. फिर I think माश्ला से हमारे यहां का text is super simple. So that requires that requires that sort of technical aptitude

because उसको समझना उसको फिर That's a PhD on its own, right? Correct.

But I think, like, this is something that I tell my team in general as well, and this is, I think, what my mentors told me while growing up in the professional life that being an hardcore accountant is, is is, like It doesn't cut it out anymore. It out anymore. It's, like, then eventually, you're gonna get stuck at a particular level because and eventually get replaced as well because of all the softwares and everything. It's now it's more about how you can be that integrated part of the business and, you know, ensuring that the that the business runs in a in a very smooth manner. Industry में जब आप आप आप आप, you know, when you when you'll come across finance people in general, you'll see that it's a very different ball game. It's their and their integral part of running the company, they are, like, they're doing that business partnering aspect that, you know, modeling, that forecasting. That's very important and especially अभी जिस तरीके के economical times हैं, like, not just locally but even globally as well. I think that's where I think मैं एक अक्सर बात कर रहा हूं company company. This year is a finance year because it's all about finance. It's all about, like, sort of staying afloat. It's all about, you know, surviving

in the current scheme of things. Right. So, you worked at the family office for for a year and a half. उसके बाद what did you do? उसके बाद I joined Loads Limited. That's

a listed entity. They are basically the manufacturers of automobile components such as exhaust, radiator, sheet metal. Was there for good five and a half, six years. Sort of वहीं पर grooming हुई. Got my first exposure exposure of SAP there. Right. Got a list, got that company listed. So I was part of that process as well. So, like, you know, Pakistan stocks change. That's hardcore. Yes. So I think very fortunate enough to go through that process. Then after spending good five and a half year there, I moved to a different, industry which was TRG, the BPO. I was there I was there, a comp a sister concern known as DGS, Digital Global Services. They used to provide cable. They used to provide the back office for the cable operators in US. Was there for good one hour, one year and so.

और यही accounting का काम कर रहे थे for clients over in The US? Yes, finance like finance, accounting

वही कर रहा था. फिर I think was there for one and a half years Then I was exploring. I was more in an exploring mode. Came across this opportunity. I was called in. This is back in 2018. Mhmm. Small office, got interviewed there, sort of sold to the vision. मेरा यह था कि यार, either this is going to be something big or I'm gonna I'm gonna be jobless after maybe six months or a year. But, you know, the ex CEO नुमान, so, you know, vision and the sort of the thought process that was shared, it was it was quite inspiring. It was something that I felt that, you know, it's going to be exciting

and it's going to be a good ride. And Did you think it was okay you'd be, you know, you'd end up being the sort of, the scale that you're at right now? Did you ever imagine कि इस point पर पहुंचेंगे? Honestly, no. So I think it was क्योंकि in a lot of ways, all of the companies that you've worked for and generally in most companies in Pakistan, you you don't see that scale, right? एक बड़ी company होती है, बड़ी company होती है, एक छोटी company होती है, बस काम चल रहा होता है, पैसा वन रहा होता है and everybody is happy. But the idea कि यार हम चालीस बंदे की company हैं और हम चार सौ पर चले गए और हमारे चालीस हज़ार riders फिर रहे हैं बाहर, that's a.

So, मैंने जब start किया था तो I was the person who sort of laid the finance department foundation food part. अच्छा. Right? I started off. And how many people were there at the time? Two people. Really? In my function.

Interesting.

So from two people today I have a team of around 60 people under me. Right. So like, I mean, I'll be honest. I I can say कि हां, देख लिया था something. I honestly no. I just, as I said, I just like the idea. I said, yeah, you know, this is something, you know, एक आपके वह जो एक ownership आपकी एक आ जाती है, entrepreneur skills आपकी एक वह kick in कर जाती यार, this is something where, you know, you're gonna get the independence, you're gonna try out a lot of things, you're gonna, you're gonna be part of making something big, right? Right. So, that was the sort of the thought process, the energy behind it. And वह यही हुआ कि when I look back today, I mean, I see four and a half years gone and it's like, I mean, every day has been very different. Every year has been very different. And it was, I mean, it was a huge risk on your part.

You had a short short career, and then you decided to sabotage that, by by, you know, banking on this interesting idea. But But in hindsight if you look back do you think or rather how would you put it? For for an average viewer बच्चा है जो देख रहा है और वह कह रहा है वह शायद एक job में है और उसके सामने कोई opportunity है जो कि उसको बहुत exciting लग रही है but उसके शायद peers left right कह रहे होंगे कि यार पागल ही तू क्या कर रहे हैं? अच्छा like आप बस मैं eye bag से देखूं ना तो you're like a export वाली company है. भाई इधर कुछ था साल लगा फिर बाहर निकल जाएंगे. क्या कर रहा है?

So I remember when I was joining it when I shared with my friends in general तो थोड़ा सा मतलब, you know, eyebrows were raised कि क्या कर रहे हो तुम? यह कौन सी company है? मतलब because the name was not there, right? Although we are operational from 2016 but वह इस तरीके से था नहीं. But I think एक चीज़ which I have always been very fond of is, your life should not have regrets. Right? That's my basics, right? करके fail हो गए तो it's it's still a learning. You'll be like, ठीक है, at least I tried, right? तो उस वक़्त it sort of kicked in and it was like किन्हें यार Even startup fees लेनी लेनी है. कुछ करना है. There's something there there's something that's going to happen with this, right? And and I look back, I was, I think I was fortunate because अगर आज मैं देख रहा हूं then I would have been like it. Maybe I missed an opportunity. So I think for generally as well, I think it's very important that whatever you do, especially for people in finance, right? It's it's because it's because of its nature and everything. I think regardless of how well paying job you are in, regardless of how well stable, suited you are, if every morning you don't feel like coming to office or if you this this this energy is not there, then I think it's high time that you should now look for something else. Makes sense, makes sense. I'm gonna revert back to इबाद.

आपने बताया कि आपने graduate करने के बाद इंगरों में काम किया. How long was that? So that was about like seven months. अच्छा. Yeah. That's odd considering कि अंग्रो is like the dream job of every engineer and अंग्रो गई, PNG हो गई, इस्तेना की. Why'd you quit?

So so I love the place. I I love the culture. I think people really cared and and looked out for each other. And I think there was a lot of surprise from the people who hired me or were part of that process care. You know, they used to have this thing called, you know, I don't know, tearing in terms of high potential and whatnot, and they they were quite, surprised and disappointed that I had chosen to do that. But but I think I'll slightly, you know, rewind. So back in 2007, I had an internship opportunity with Shell. Mhmm. And I really expected to get that offer upon graduation, I was a little surprised when I didn't get it. So when seven months down the line I finally got it तो मुझे था कि यार, ok, makes sense. I have seen the place, loved the place, get, you know, as an opportunity for me to be back in, Karachi, with my parents. And by that time I was sure that this engineering career यह मुझे लग रहा है यह ज़रा management side की तरफ जाना शुरू हो गया है तो मैं साथ साथ जो है ना, I'll do an evening MBA from IBA. Right. And then everything would start to get sorted in that line. So इस वजह से I think that's why I took that decision. And Shell में what was the job? So when I started out, role was two folds. They were going through a business process reengineering exercise - fancy word for SFE - and they wanted to implement it, you know, couple of modules within the engineering and operations functions, mostly around plant maintenance and materials management which is procurement fancy and then project engineering. Right. तो यह software based था यह essentially? Yeah, so it was about making sure that जिस भी तरीके से वहां पर maintenance और projects कर रहे थे engineers, चाहे वह capex की definition हो, चाहे वह buying of spares हो, चाहे वह preventive maintenance हो, reactive maintenance हो, वह सारा systematize हो जाए through SAP and you know to make it a bit more outsourced so they wanted to do fewer, you know, in house engineers and and do more of contractor based management. So that was kind of what SAP was facilitating. And, so so, the implementation was part of it, but kind of because when you have gone through that process और आपको उस system का you know, you get to know more than anybody else and then obviously with an engineering background वह ख़ुद ब ख़ुद transition कर गया into me being the key maintenance guy for all the I think at that time it was 11 depots or installations across Pakistan. तो SAP but for engineers, engineering maintenance, engineering and projects. So they wanted के जो भी systems उनके अभी space तरीके से चल रहे हैं इसको हमने automate और process engineering कैसे करनी है? ठीक है. So that's how it started. और यह Pakistan के लिए था? यह Pakistan के लिए था. And IBM was consulting for them at that time. तो वो जो था वहाँ से वो शुरू हुआ लेकिन फिर ये हुआ कि the person who did this eventually transitioned into doing or managing all maintenance for oil terminals in Pakistan. So this is how kind of it transitioned into. The implementation went quite well. अलगा sugar है, अलगा कराम आसान है. So they said कि यार पाकिस्तानी को Pakistan में ही बिठाकर we have to get it done in UAE, Unuman through frequent travel. Okay. So so that is what happened that my next extension of the role was KG. Now you do and implement it there and you then manage all preventive and reactive maintenance based out of capacity. But out of the पाक्षाणी payroll, how disappointing. So so that is how it unfolded.

Right. उसका एक consequence. But that must be quite exciting for you. Mean, you've been in Karachi forever, then you go to JIK, then you have this role where you're with the family as well but in a way have that exposure, global exposure as well. And-and that had an impact कि it it was kind of all leading up to something I guess. For

me it was very clear कि यार थोड़ा सा कोई semi global international leadership कोई role हो and and as a consequence I had to drop out of IBA because IBA was अच्छा, you had gotten into IBA? Like, had I didn't have semesters and and actually I had a better score at my MBA than I did at my engineering. Really? And I had to drop out because IBA had a policy of कि, you know, seven absences you're out. अच्छा. And that six to nine thing was not working with my travel. Right, right. तो या तो ये होता था कि. मुझे travel क्या Monday to Friday type travel हो रहा होता था? It was, it was a little difficult. करा so Pakistan just just think about it this way. Pakistan का work week है Monday to Friday. Dubai का at that time was you know. Sunday to Thursday. Sunday to Thursday and Oman was Saturday to Wednesday. So Oman अपने flow में चल रहा था? अपने flow में चल रहा था Oman and I was working seven days a week technically. Yeah. Because somebody somewhere had some maintenance problem coming in somewhere. Yeah. And I was responsible for it because मेरे pump की seal two TV है और loading arm के अंदर से drip कर रहा है oil and stuff like that. And this is obviously this is not even a maintenance problem. यार ठीक है whatever. तेल गिल रहा है गिर रहा तो पटाखा भटने से बेहतर है करो उसके Correct figure correct and shell is very very big on on safety culture. They try the level best and and and they have been some of the forerunners in KR. Safety अगर नहीं है तो धंधा बंद कर देना है and they have done those things in the past. So it was a super critical job. I couldn't continue my MBA from IB as a result and then मुझे समझ भी आ गया कि यार मैं मैं नहीं सीख रहा क्योंकि मैं मैं सीख ही नहीं. I was brain dead by the time I used to reach at 06:15. अगर teacher ने इजाज़त देदी के class में दाखिल हो जाओ पंद्रह minute late कराची के traffic के बावजूद. So-so then I was kind enough to my line manager was acting as my mentor as well and he said कि यार तुम्हारा एक, you know, एक cluster based role है. Your your CV is shaping up, you you need to get an international MBA and we had people to look up to. There was in succession there were three MDs at shell, one from LBS and two from NCAD. It was कि यार क्या कर सकते हो? US can't afford two years. One year program इन्हीं को देखो, इन्हीं से लिखवाओ approvals लो letters की and and that's how I eventually ended up at NCAD after like five years at शैल. Interesting. Five years in Shell. And

so tell me about NCERT for a lot of people who don't know what is that and how is that experience? NCERT is is is

more than life changing in more than one way I think. NCERT I believe right now either is the first or the second best school, MBA school in the world. As per the Financial Times latest ranking it is the second. Right. But it has always been within the top five globally.

And they have two campus, right? One in Singapore, one in France. So they have now four. Okay. Two

are the like, two of them main वाले हैं so एक France. France campus is the main one and then the Singapore one is an equally, you know, equally staffed equipped campus. Abu Dhabi became this third campus where you could go away and do a semester.

You can't do the full program there. अच्छा, so अबूद, so you basically get enrolled in let's say France and then you maybe do a semester in अबू दावी. Especially if you want to look at a career in The Middle East.

So you can take two months there, do a bit of networking job search over there obviously you get to learn कि what are the building blocks of business in The Middle East. Right. So you have specific courses at that campus. Executive education बहुत होती है वहां पर and now the fourth chapter has opened up in San Francisco because NCAT felt के they were you know. Technology side पर थोड़ा सा अच्छा है. Technology पर है, अच्छे खासे startups हैं probably the most tech oriented school in Europe but not having a presence in San Francisco meant के they were missing out on something. They have opened up a chapter लेकिन वहां पर there is no module or no semester that happens at least as of now. अच्छा. So it's a bit more of getting to know people, road shows, networking, venture, capitalist के साथ. आप pitch text करके ले आएं, कोई competition जीत जाएं, startup boot camp इस type की चीज़ें अभी हैं. नहीं so France में यह किस जगह पर था इनका campus? So France में इनका campus है Fontainebleau में. ठीक है. Fontainebleau is a is a village town 65 kilometers south of Paris.

Right. And this was self funded?

This was, mostly self funded and partial scholarship.

Right. How was it? How was France?

Amazing. I think I I so you have a choice कि आप France जाएं या आप Singapore जाएं या आप exchange program करें. And मैंने outset पर ही कहा था कि मैं पूरा साल एक तो it's technically not even a year long program, it's a ten month program. अच्छा. तो I said कि with an internship it becomes a one year program. तो एक साल है और मैंने कहा कि यार I don't know when I am going to get this opportunity to see Europe again. So there is no way I am going to Singapore. And and and I had had an opportunity to go to a lot of South East Asia during my stint at Shell. तो मुझे यह था कि यार कुछ नया देखना है तो I I chose the Fonte campus.

And MBA generally, what is it like? Is it more, a lot of people say कि it's networking and it's case studies and it's not, not how education is perceived otherwise. You are an engineer, hardcore engineering, technical technical, this and that. What was the NCERT MBA experience for you?

So you're right. It was a networking opportunity. It was a brand. And it is about I think I think that you you have to put into context what this experience looks like. You're cramming a two year MBA, 80% of a two year MBA into twelve months. Right. So you are not going to have everything at your disposal as a business professional. So it's not a typical MBA and it is all about prioritization. जो चीज़ आप करेंगे, आप कुछ एक चीज़ पकड़ेंगे और आप hopefully you will become very good at it because all your electives will be associated, are linked with it. लेकिन if you think that for example you are going to be like super deep into stuff. So for example if if if you want to do investment banking then probably it is it is not the best place to go. Right. Finance professionals के लिए you're probably better off going to a Wharton or or an LBS. Well, not even LBS now anymore I guess but because of what has happened with Brexit. Right. But but AK, you're probably better off somewhere else. This is a place more for strategy and general management. Right. Because they force you into situations where you have to be uncomfortable and lead teams that you did not make. Right. So the good thing about is कि there a core group which is called a P1. So we have five periods of two months each. This is how the ten months are spread out. Right. और जो पहले दो periods होते हैं उसके अंदर a random group is made for the first four months जो आप choose नहीं करते and you have to make your core MBA group with them. Right. और आप अपने सारे courses उनके साथ करते हैं

शुरू के जो आठ से दस subjects होते हैं. Right. And and your उन्हीं से आपने assignments भी उनके साथ ही करनी है? आपने सारा कुछ सीखने साथ करना है. आप यह नहीं choose कर सकते कि यार backbencher मैं भी हूं तू भी है आज हम मिलकर बना देंगे. नहीं नहीं

a lot of interesting things happen because some groups work perfectly, some don't. Some don't because everybody is trying to be a leader. Some work because यह हो जाता है कि यह तो यह काम ही नहीं करेगा. तो हम ही को करना है.

ठीक है? कुछ groups ऐसे बनते हैं. वहां तो यह NCERT के MBA भी यह हो रहा है. बिल्कुल

और कुछ में ही होता है जो एक standard formula होता है वह होता है competencies divide कर लो. Ok, you are the finance guy तो box में डालना बड़ा ज़रूरी हो जाता है कुछ cases यह

वाले courses और assignments तुम कर रहे यह EM कर रहे इस तरह and then you hope and pray to god that that person does it well. Yeah. But यह कोई, I mean what sort of courses are you guys doing? Are you looking at different businesses and how they work and how they failed and how they became successful?

या are you taking hardcore let's say accounting course and finance course and different aspects of So it's a bit of a marriage of the two. तो होता ही है कि कुछ course, every course has case studies for sure but some have more case studies than others. तो अगर organizational behavior which is super important क्योंकि that is their foundation for psychology and general management. Trying to understand how people work and how they think and what are their motivations etc. तो it will be every class will be a case study. There is no other way around it. लेकिन इसके अलावा अगर आप accounting कह रहे हैं, आप corporate finance कह रहे हैं, you know call और put options की बात हो रही then every class wouldn't be a case. Probably you will have चार classes of theory and then one class of a case studies. Right. Stuff like that so. And did you know these things calls and puts and? यार वही जाकर सीखा था. नहीं. And I I just wished कि यार यह जल्दी खत्म होता कि मैं P three onwards elective में जाऊं क्योंकि यार यह तो मुझसे नहीं होता. So. और यह essential था, यह mandatory था यह सबको लेना ही लगाया था. यह हां कुछ चीज़ें core हैं कि आपको you need to know the basics of corporate finance and and थोड़ा सा उसमें यह भी था कि कुछ cases में it is about कि make और buy decisions वाली चीज़ तो important है कि जी how do you do कि जी make versus buy analysis है. आप ROIs present value यह वगैरह कैसे calculate करते हैं? बस यह वाला जो था ना जो जो stocks और यह वाला था that was never really up my alley. Right. But but उनको यह होता है कि you need to know because at some point you will be in a context जहां पर इसको at least समझना ज़रूरी है even if you are not some kind of expert practitioner.

Makes sense. तो yeah. And so what did you do after you were done? आपने by the way Europe travel कर लिया पूरा अपना उस अच्छा time

खासा? Right. Not all लेकिन यह अच्छा खासा मिल रहा है. एक साल में ज़्यादा with an MBA आप कितना ही कर सकते थे? हां कर सकते and it's again it's all about prioritization. Of course. And but after that I tried to dabble a little bit with having my own startup with a friend in Singapore. किस space में था वह? That was learning. So that was a bit more around MOOCs का बड़ा उस वक्त शोशा होगा था. You know, Coursera was doing very well, Udemy, Udacity and somehow to marry that with niche LinkedIn of sorts but for select IV league slash top MBA cohorts. Right. तो वहां it started out. But then we slowly realized कि यार यह there were challenges. There were there were things that the investor was trying to push seed, seed वाला only कि जहां पर मुझे फिर लगा कि यार then I let my friend carry on with it and then I kind of left it after like three or four months or something like that. Right. And then I went to Saudi Arabia. Mhmm. Saudi Arabia because again I I was trying to follow my parents और यह थोड़ा सा यह थोड़ा uncomfortable भी था कि वह भी समझ नहीं आ रहा था और थोड़ा parents मेरे मेरे father relocate हो गए थे after he was a career K electric person. But then he got you know a consultant opportunity in जद्दा with their Saudi electricity company. So he had moved over, actually back as of 2010 and my mother went and joined him as well जब मैं एक दफा NCR चला गया. So then I followed them. There was this company which was a bit of a family business of of proportions that we don't really understand like a larger family business that people haven't really heard of. 63 countries में पता नहीं you know 13 plus businesses and stuff like that and उनका जो energy arm था there were some ex shell colleagues over there so it was easier to make a connect and that's where I was for about

six years in different capacities. What sort of capacities? So it started off with,

a stint in, business development in Eastern And Southern Africa. So it was about trying to tell k the the the purest, highest quality oil comes from the source and and trying to sell it at a premium in African markets. Ok. That was interesting because obviously And this was more like a finance and financial analyst role or? नहीं, this was a business development and sales role. It was about finding Flying out to all of these places. Yes, excellent experience. You know, the Cameroons, the Uganda's and other than Somalia probably all of East Africa. Kenya, Tanzania a lot. South Africa, Zimbabwe. And these were safe and secure? Broadly, broadly speaking. I think we made few choices of not to go. So Congo we did इनको. Somalia मोगाट issue हालांकि the distributor हमको बुलाता रहता था कि यार आओ मोगाट issue के अंदर भी यह perception है. मेरी अम्मा जो है ना, I don't think she is going to be sold on that if you know and I think वहां पर वह कोई that ship piracy thing had already started at that point. Right. Right. तो none of that. They weren't having any of that. But but broadly some places are really amazing like अरुज, South Africa obviously is very different. It's like North और South में बड़ा फ़र्क़ है और फिर एक beach का Belt है East का और center का और West का which is more impoverished. Things are more difficult there. Even there क्योंकि East और West में Ports हैं so they are well off और बेचारा जो landlocks Net center है Africa. That's a goner. Right. तो बहुत ज़्यादा diversity है languages की भी, people की भी. Very interesting. So that I did that role for about one and a half years. After that because the company thought कि I was very good at go to market. तो उन्होंने कहा कि यार सिर्फ go to market नहीं है. He is more of a strategy person. इसको head office दुबारा like he should spend more time in ज़्यादा. तो I came into the corporate office of the subsidiary and I did corporate strategy M and A for about again close to one and a half two years. Interesting.

When when someone says corporate strategy, यह strategy का role है, मुझे कभी इसकी समझ नहीं आई. What do you do all day? You know, eating a bubble gum and think just कुछ thought I note लिख दिया. How does it actually work practically? Because I am sure उसका मोस के दस चीज़ें होंगी before you can decide a strategy. Yeah.

So, so corporate strategy is different from business strategy. Business strategy जो भी business चला रहा होता है mostly that person best understands and knows otherwise they wouldn't be leading that business. Yeah and उसमें जो inputs होंगे वो current business के dynamics

numbers and वो सारा वैसारा उसके हिसाब से वो Absolutely, seat हो रहा

वहां पर corporate strategy का role बहुत कम होता है. तो corporate strategy support करती है within outside view or analysis where which for one reason or another the business itself is unable to see. ठीक है. तो those were more of business improvement projects के यार. Let us take a look के we have gotten some benchmarks outside on how your business should be performing. Yeah, these are the important KPIs and metrics. Right. This is how it should have been doing.

Even if you think you are doing a great job, I think इसमें question है. So corporate strategy, my understanding is कि basically you are, so it's one step above where let's say there are five business units. Every business unit in its isolation it has their own strategy but then you are looking at all five and you are seeing the best most optimized one and you are seeing कि what can we learn from here and what can we implement in other areas to be increasing their optimum like efficiency? I

think तीन में break कर लेते हैं. So broadly corporate strategy में तीन चीज़ें थी. एक एक तो था lens के if if a company working very closely with the finance function obviously के अगर अगर इतना किट्टी और इतना पैसा है तो knowing के हमारे पास इतना पैसा है तो portfolio strategy होगी क्या? इसका पैसा निकाल के reinvest करेंगे because it's going to get you growth for the future. Right. तो it is about resource allocation as well. That's one piece. The second piece at a smaller level is business improvement within each unit by bringing an external consultant's perspective. और उसमें गालियां सुनना because because it's it's very much the same as as as a external just like you would say for someone coming from McKinsey, Bay and BCG. Now this is one of our our guys and he thinks he knows more about us. हाँ. Than we actually do. Who the hell does he think he is? That is the second one and then. So you become the suit that everybody hates. Oh my goodness. And then the third one is linked to this resource allocation वाला bit के structured M and A. हमें क्या क्या next steps करने है जो हम खुद capabilities build नहीं कर सकते and are there any capabilities that we can just get and it's cheaper actually to buy them than to build them. Interesting. तो यह this actually started becoming the bigger piece for us in a sense क्योंकि तेरा business companies थी this was the biggest unit energy और automotive वाला जो आम था. तो जो group corporate strategy office था it just had deals lined up like and and our job was कि भाई commercial due diligence कि आप बैठे में अंदर आपने evaluate करना है does this actually make sense or not. So so while you are involved in the whole deal you get the data ready, data rooms, working with the investment bankers and consultants and legal due diligence वाले lawyers and what not. लेकिन सबसे important जो commercial due diligence है उसको खुद own करना. Like we had the strong belief कि financial due diligence तो चलो you will get a big four. The legal due diligence you will get an excellent M and A law form. लेकिन जो commercial है never leave it to the bankers and and the consultants. हां वह अपना पैसा लेकर निकल जाएंगे और आगे आपकी survey पर पड़ेगी. At the end of the day उनको तो retainer मिल ही जाएगा. They will get one of the two retainer या success fee. तो अगर success fee ना या सिर्फ retainer हुआ तो that's a lot of money for six to eight weeks or what not. So that was the kind of role. Interesting and so you were there for six years? So यह दूसरा role था and then I think I I went into one business improvement वाले के अंदर a little bit too much which was the retail business. Was not doing well for three and a half, four years and then the the the group chairman and vice chairman they said कि तुम कब तक यह decks और यह excel sheets पर काम करते रहोगे? So do you have any interest in actually operating a business because this is not doing well. तो या तो हमने इसको डेढ़ साल के अंदर जो है ना हमने इसको lease out कर देना है. So we we it was like a तो if you think you can turn around, we hope that you know you will be able to do it. We will try to find you something if it doesn't.

मगर if you are interested तो go ahead and I said कि यार यह तो मुझे मतलब for a person. That's an experience of a lifetime, right? Experience of a lifetime. Because वह आपको पूरा उन्होंने एक playground दे दिया कि भाई तू खेल और अगर तू successful हो गया तो MBA degree के साथ तूने इंसाफ किया आज.

I I just cannot thank my bosses and and specially my mentor over there enough. Were these Pakistanis? It was a mix. So there were there were South Africans, there were Sri Lankans, but there was Pakistani crop at the top.

It would have been difficult to There are lot of Pakistanis in the Middle East right at the top.

Difficult to say. Like what, so there are पाकिस्तानीs. There are lot more other nationalities. Right. And let's say certain other passports always get preference more. Right. But but there is a fair number of पाकिस्तानीs in leadership positions. Interesting. Mostly it's very interesting कि उन्होंने कोई काम किया है where they have come and they have actually set up something like a telecom business या airlines and then they have handled over to somebody else and moved on. So it's been a bit like that. More consulting and no no actual business building but then then you know something comes in as wave of localization or MRN organization so or then the job is done and then they have to go back home. Operations के लिए वो फिर अपने मनो को ले आते हैं.

What so you were there and this how did that turnaround go by the way? It went out better than we thought. अलग अलग अलग आसान है. But

आज कहना है easy है retrospect में. We all feared for our jobs and and and the issue was there was another problem जो कि कुछ fundamental चीज़ें थी जो कि सिर्फ करने के बाद idea हुआ नहीं करते तो नहीं पता चलता which was कि it was a totally demoralized team like for three and a half years they were just told कि यार you were just wasting this company's money because हर गुज़रताशा बोलता है ये ये business क्यों करते हैं हम? Like ये करते ही हैं? Like so so just imagine what's going through their minds. So even if all the numbers are fine just the team the lack of morale there is going to make sure की कोई काम नहीं हो उस काम का. नहीं हो सकता and just think about it एक एक company ने gas station लगा दिए हैं और वो यह कह रहे हैं कि gas station तो लगते रहेंगे लेकिन ये brand जो है ना अभी नौ पे रोक दो, रुक जाओ. अब मज़ीद जो convenience store है वो नौ के बाद ना खोलो. It's it's demoralizing कि यार just our business is not going to be grown. शायद हमें बेच देंगे कोई और brand आ जाएगा. क्या होगा? And and you know it is a huge challenge and then think of where they're sitting. कि there is this guy who has never really managed a P and L. मतलब what what's going to happen? So it was very very interesting. And if I can drive the number,

you were maybe, what, 30 at the time?

नहीं, I was, I was probably 33.

33. 33 at that time. Okay. But still fairly young. Right. In that position तो it's a, it's a, it's very difficult. वह resentment आ जाती है. यार यह, you know,

क्या चल रहा है? I had older team members who I had to manage for sure. And they were also different nationalities. Yeah. So so they were Indians, they were Filipinos. Filipinos का बहुत Middle East में like from a customer service angle यह वाला perspective है कि यार यह काम तो यही अच्छा कर सकते and and to be honest it is

by and large

and multiple nationalities and different age groups so quite interesting.

Do you think that experience is what made your in a lot of ways जो एक बंदा एक breakout role होता है हमेशा जो कि आपको हमेशा याद होता है कि यार इसके बाद से my trajectory was different. Would that be this one? I would say so. I I I think it would have to be very close between this role and the previous corporate strategy role. Interesting. Yeah. So why do you why do you leave? Why do you leave Saudi and and come back? Because आप considering your pace of growth, even if you had sort of laterally transitioned to another place, maybe the, you know, you were bored of of what you were doing or you were already done with it. Why'd you come back?

So so there were two reasons, I would say. The the first one was, again, my father retired in 2018 और वह आ गया था Pakistan and it had started to play on my mind कि यार now I again they are alone. This career looks ok, यह सही जा रहा है लेकिन यह क्या है they they would need me. They they already do and I miss them like वाली बात है तो अब करना क्या? And while that was playing on my mind, something some changes happened at the board level and and some of the people who were very close to me in terms of mentors they started to transition out and then kind of it became a no brainer कि यार you know things are going well लेकिन comfort zone हो गया मुझे तीन साढ़े तीन साल हो गए इस role के अंदर now things are set. एक चीज़ जो stuck थी उसको nine store से 33 stores तक grow भी कर दिया क्योंकि अभी got the mandate कि आज जब turnaround हुआ है तो now you can start growing it. तो what's really left? Now there is no real support potentially at the top and my parents are not here. So it started playing on my mind कि यार I need to start looking.

Interesting. Pakistan में जब आ पाए हैं तो what was your मतलब क्या किया है? Did you land into food panda or? नहीं, so so I did a very short role

for about five months at as chief operating officer of Spark. तो Spark is is a global chain of like 13 and a half thousand stores. But but इधर जो उनके जो license था, वह it was with Burke which is a very large distribution group, family business in Pakistan. So I started off with them. They we we had, like, this whole LinkedIn exchange, and then it kind of made sense after multiple rounds. I joined them first. And then, again, through LinkedIn, I got restart by Food Panda. And while things were going ok there, the pace was a bit not the same. The excitement was not the same. It seemed a little bit more कि यार वही काम जो Saudi Arab में कर दिया है वही करना है. यहां पर इनके दो से तीन stores उतना अच्छा शायद perform नहीं कर रहे हैं लेकिन कर लेंगे इंशालाह. हां. लेकिन time लगेगा और फिर वही होगा turn around करो, time लगेगा, mandate लो for further growth. But the more important thing was that at the age of 34 at that time I thought कि अगर मैंने अभी tech नहीं किया

तो I will I will rule this for the rest of my life. Right. यह मौका नहीं आता. तो आपने देखा कि यार दुनिया आगे change होने वाली है and you need to converge into that that sort of space. Then you finally joined Food Panda. Yeah, I speak COVID.

So there was a little bit KR. There will be some tailwind as well. Like like, I I was very confident que things are headed in a way K. This has to this this will have adoption anyway, but there will be accelerated adoption because you would see it front in front of your eyes कि यार इस time पर जा सकते हैं, supermarket इतने time से इतना time खुलेगी, इतने लोग से ज़्यादा एक वक़्त में enter नहीं हो सकते. So it kind of started to make sense कि you know convenience will now take new meaning. Right.

उसका role आपका क्या था जब आपने start किया? तो when I started off it

has been the same role. It has kind of grown over a period of time in terms of number of businesses but the core job at that time was just to launch Panamate. So food panna and grocery में enter करना है. We want someone. दो हज़ार उन्नीस में? बीस. बीस में. July-twenty

twenty. अच्छा, so you joined. Pre COVID? Pre COVID? एक second. You joined a startup pre COVID. How does that? Wow. घर वालों ने कुछ नहीं बोला कि बेटा सोचते हैं क्या कर रहे हैं?

नहीं, नहीं बोला. Again, I think जो tech quality चीज़ थी नीहों कि I was pretty sold कि यार this is the chance to kind of do it. And then obviously there's the whole support system that I've अलम्दा developed over time. People have been kind enough to advise besides family Senior business leaders कि यार मैं क्या करूं? The same people who are my bosses in Saudi for example या in Pakistan. I always went back to them कि यार क्या ख्याल है? And they were like कि भाई no brainer है. क्या मतलब करो इसको explore करो. Right. So yeah. Ok, so I am going to now sort of dive right into food panda.

And I am gonna start off with a simpler question that maybe the both of you can touch upon based on your own but पहले तो मुझे यह बताएं कि कैसे हालाते हैं? You know there is the economic situation going on. So it's multi layered both in terms of the current पाकिस्तानी economic situation and global sort of sentiment shift away from quick commerce where at one point we were like, wow, like you mentioned, you know, convenience is going to reign supreme, and we're going to grow into this sort of interesting lifestyle where everything will be delivered to you rather than you going out. And in a lot of ways, we've seen that to not hold true, where human behavior hasn't been as easy to change as a lot of people hoped, even with a great pandemic, altering it in a lot of ways. So with with the context of Food Panda and Panda Mart particularly, how do you see the current economic situation and the changing dynamics of the sort of quick commerce business?

काफ़ी layered question है. Is it easy to run this business? The answer would be no. But is there traction?

I think for sure there is traction even post COVID. Is there a business? I think let's start with that. There

is a business. There is a business provided you think as a business person first rather than की आप ये बोले की यार for example there is somebody, some investor to appease in terms of GMV alone and I think वहां पे I think we as a group are very fortunate to have delivery hero quite sane in that way. 70 countries में operate करते हैं, listed company है, उस तरीके के pressures नहीं हैं. तो I think they are quite clear कि यार grow करना है, market share भी चाहिए but it is never going to be market share at all costs. It has to be prudent और यह कि अगर fight करना हुआ तो fight करेंगे. But but really ऐसा नहीं है कि fundamentals of the business get compromised for the sake of some rapid growth specially अगर ऐसा लगता है कि fundamentals का एक element at least यह है कि fast adoption means giving deep discounts to people who might have zero loyalty to you and might never come back. Yeah.

तो यह business नहीं है. You're not economics but आजकल site होता है. Where does that stand? Know, मास्तेम maybe you could add to that.

So I think we started in December 2020. November December? November December. That was our first store, first inaugurated

store. Karachi में हुआ था? Karachi. पंद्रह.

So before that Food Panda was an extremely asset light company. Asset ही नहीं था, कुछ नहीं था. मेरे बाद आए. उन्होंने फिर retail आया. हमने कहा हमें physical store चाहिए होगा. So and then उसमें inventory चाहिए होगी and then, you know, it it all sort of, came in. I think and back then when I was just hearing about I was recalling that, उस वक़्त आपको याद होगा जब COVID का peak चल रहा था. एक shout आई बीस minute, फिर उसके counter shout आई पंद्रह minute, फिर उसकी counter shout आई दस minute, फिर पता चला दुनिया में हो रहा है छह minute में delivery हो रही है. I'm like where this as a finance guy I was like कहां जाकर यह रुकेगा? मतलब it it has to be. Yeah. But then over time as you said, you know, it evolved. Uh-huh. So we did get a lot of traction. But then it was more that sort of creating that convenience for an end customer. Mhmm. कि उसे कि convenience, ऐसे price point भी अच्छा मिले, convenience भी अच्छा मिले and you know the the tick that a person has कि यार मुझे यहां से यह चीज़ लेनी है तो यह सारी चीज़ें fulfill हो रही हैं. उस basis पर हमने उसकी तरफ़ बहुत fundamentally काम किया. So I think जो basics हमारे Panamaart के business के भी जो हम जिस base पर हमने खड़ा किया था those basics were very important and they were sort of outlined in a great manner to begin with. Right. तो उसकी वजह से हुआ यह कि अलम जो है month on month stores भी खुलते हैं, growth भी मिलती रही. फिर एक time आया that, you know, we said that ok, you know इससे डरा कर रहा है. Expansion करने की हमें ज़रूरत नहीं है. Let's go back to all the stores that we have. Optimize them. उसे optimize करें, grow करें and उसे वह करें. So I think अल्लाह का शुक्र है. Things have been going in the right direction. आपको याद होगा beach में I think it's it was last year when a lot of globally as well, questions were raised and even today questions are raised around QuickCommerce. जैसे आपने भी कहा था is it a business to begin with, right? Yeah. So I think अरुण देला we are out of that sort of question and माशिला we have a business which is growing. Yes, it's no longer those COVID numbers पर से. यहां पर 100 x और 10 x और इस तरीके की जो हम numbers देखते थे वह नहीं है but yes it's now steady growth है.

Burn कितना आ जाता है in the entire story because burned सेमराह मेरा ख़ासकर वह होगा कि हमारे operations चल रहे हैं, पैसा आता है, पैसा जाता है. Grow करना है तो marketing के ऊपर और x चीज़ों के ऊपर पैसा लगेगा. वह पर principal decision है यार जब पैसा होगा grow करने के नहीं करना होगा, रुक जाएंगे. Where do you stand? I think for us it's something similar as well. The only thing is I think हम हमें हमारे पास थोड़ी सी किट्टी बज जाती है marketing के लिए भी. अच्छा. But I think हम इसलिए Within the same, Yes, within the same p and l, Right. Which is there. But I think,

it is it is an investment based business because आप देखिए अभी वाली burn तो नहीं है because this is all CapEx, right? मतलब आपकी inventory जो आप stores setup करते हैं this is all purely investment that you do. But as of today I think from an operations perspective we are doing well and operationally we are profitable and इंशालाह growth के लिए भी I think we are venturing into things जो I think अभी बात भी बताएंगे and

things things are going in the right direction. Right. एक बात मुझे यह बताएं कि आप was the idea for getting into retail as you mentioned was that your idea or was that coming from the group and then because it was coming from the group they sort of coached you कि यार आपका retail का experience है and maybe you can come and check it out. I think group

का ही idea था. I think it was in fact it was all part of those interesting interview conversations कि यार यह सोच रहे हैं क्या ख्याल है? Like a lot of the interviews were mostly around क्या ख्याल है? यह अच्छा idea है? यह चलेगा? Like obviously they also wanted to do two things कि one was I think probably leadership also wanted to bounce off कि यार कि हम जो एक चीज़ सोच रहे हैं तो the good thing is that things are quite decentralized relatively as compared to many other groups. Not that they are fully decentralized but we have a lot more autonomy in food panda at a country level than perhaps many other organizations. और ये I think this is what makes us distinctive in terms of फिर हम क्या achieve कर पाते हैं या नहीं कर पाते. लेकिन फिर ये होता है कि यार कोई ये नहीं है कि ये करना है. तो so I think there was a lot of back and forth कि अच्छा idea है नहीं है. So उसमें एक यह भी चीज़ होती है कि भाई fit होगा if the person himself is not sold on the idea तो then what's the But also कि यार कुछ सीखते हैं कि मतलब retail background से आ रहा इसको कुछ पता होगा. तो that's how the conversation went. I said कि यार धंधा धंधा है. जिसको करना आता है वह survive करेगा. हां. And obviously उस वक्त हमने कुछ देखा नहीं था कि आगे blood बात क्या आने वाले हैं. हां. लेकिन it was very clear कि यार देखें retail is a very thin margin business even for walking you know walking brick and mortar stores. अब आपने उसके ऊपर एक added leg delivery का लगा दिया तो margin is going to be even more depleted. तो आपके fundamentals ठीक होने चाहिए and I think alluding to what Mars had said and very rightly saw कि हमने कुछ चीज़ें we feel अच्छी की compared to others which put us in that spot because there were certain compromises that we never wait for day one. तो हमने यह नहीं कहा so एक for example एक यह था कि many times startups start off in a way कि यार we are just learning on the go. हम सीखेंगे हम सीखेंगे Ideas चाहिए फिर देखेंगे ना क्या करना है. हमने इससे हमने disagree किया. हमने कहा कि यार हम launch कर रहे हैं concept अच्छा है लेकिन हम launch नहीं करेंगे without having direct contracts with CPGs. तो we will go and we will pitch the vision and we will tell them कि यार this is the future of of direct to consumer. तो अगर आप आप sold हैं इस पर तो हमें काम आपके साथ करना है. So just to confirm

इसमें आप distributor margins को absorb करें like how do you what's the difference between a बाजू वाली दुकान and you doing these contracts? देखिए

हमने हमने ये कहा कि यार हमें ये concept बेचना है. ये quick commerce है क्या बला? और quick commerce जो है for for a company you have to think from their perspective कि जी वो काम करते हैं तो वो क्या कर रहे हैं? उनके पास different channels हैं. वो wholesale भी करते हैं. ठीक है? वो and जिसको आप general trade कहते हैं किरियाने को भी वो provide कर रहे हैं. They have this huge army of you know distributor people going to them and you know pitching कि जी यह काम कर लो. Then they have modern trade चाहे वो हम उसको just to make it easier to understand we have large chain stores जो के हैं, कुछ international chains हैं हमारे पास like the likes of metro and car four. Then we have international local stores like the likes of इम्तिहाज़, अल्फतेह, so on so forth. यह भी इनका channel है और दोनों channels में बहुत फ़र्क़ है कि क्या हो रहा है and then e commerce is a separate channel and then within e commerce there is a B2C channel and there is a B2B channel and we said कि यार हमें लगता है कि यहां पर कोई actually B2C कर नहीं रहा है. This this is actually how we started this whole journey कि जो B2C कर रहे हैं वह भी actually potentially ज़्यादा B2B कर रहे हैं. And I think आपके लोग ज़्यादा area में बाहर निकलते नहीं हैं वरना उनको नज़र आ जाकर यह कहां का जा रहा है. तो we are not here how to cannibalize. This this was the whole pitch के. अगर यह work कर गई तो inshallah this for us our business model is gonna work. और हमने कहा कि यह incrementality है. आप हमारा pitch यह होता था कि यार आप general trade देख लें यानी किरियाना देख लें या आप superstores या आपके supermarkets and hypermarkets देख लें. साढ़े दस ग्यारह बजे in the best case बंद हो रहे हैं. हमारे पास एक offering ऐसी है जो कि round the clock है twenty four hours है and there are many products जिनकी एक immediate need है, urgent replenishment, distress purchase और वह उस वक्त चाहिए. Right. So एक एक यह चीज़ थी. जो दूसरी थी incrementality की वह यह थी कि actually Pakistan obviously the economy is growing just by virtue of population alone if nothing else. Size of the pie grow कर रहा है. Pie में कहां किस तरफ से split जाता है grow सपने करना है. लेकिन नज़र आ रहा है कि because of the economy कुछ चीज़ें हो रही है जो कि consumer based dynamics है. For example, many couples are now dual career couples and so you have the you know the higher tier who like to experiment a lot. They might try you and stick. They might be like, we keep on still trying. So we won't stick and we'll try something else. या यह कि मैं you know, घर का जो भी I don't know छोटू है या driver है या जो भी एक support है उसको दौड़ाकर यार because I can afford to have that. Then there is this real upper you know middle class segment जहां पर यह dual career couples exist करते हैं and they do not enjoy grocery like their parents did. क्योंकि पंद्रह बीस. और they don't have time. I mean I love, I love grocery. This is the best time. I just don't have the time.

मैंने वैसे ही try किया food panda panda माट भी जाकर पांच करोड़ खोला available था. मैंने मंगवा लिया और we had a great beautiful evening because of that. Great

to know यार. That because because it's not a typical shopping mission और यह जो चीज़ है ना मुझे बहुत touch करती है.

Literally वह जो आपके गंदे boys ने तो यह चर्चे procure कर रहे होते हैं. उस experience से ज़्यादा मुश्किल कोयला procure करना होता था and you know I I I thought about this. I think it's it's an extremely smart product because अभी यह है कि यार और मेरे द्वारा में Panda Mart क्यों आया कि यार हर कुछ मिल जाता शायद यह भी मिल जाए. So I think it was it was very interesting and very well delivered by the way by your that's people as great to know. मुझे यह बताएं कि जब भी आपका आया था I remember because I was talking to I I spoke to your previous CEO as well and someone from your team. उस time के ऊपर originally you you were a platform and platform को यह expand करते हुए it made more sense कि यार you know I'm going to connect. मैं restaurant से connect कर रहा हूं. Why don't I connect the the इंतिहाज़'s and the D Watson's and the so on and so forth? Makes more sense. A lot of these bigger stores are also connected electronically. So it's it's fairly easy to just create an API and connect it and then just have, you know, my rider go in, buy it out, and leave. And we could have had that future today where every store could have had a ecommerce counter similar to how restaurants now, bigger ones KFC का तो मुझे याद है देखिए उन्होंने पूरा so KFC had one F 10 में dine in and take away. They've now created a dine in and F 11 and F 10 को उन्होंने सिर्फ और सिर्फ literally food पैन्दा KFC बना दी है क्योंकि उसके बाहर तीस बंदा food panda खड़ा होता है और वो सिर्फ़ delivery handle करता है. So it's changed the way that the even businesses think, right? But start हुआ था और जब early on start भी हुआ था तो it was I remember चार पांच छह shops आ गई. Shops के अंदर पांच सौ SKUs में से दस SKUs होते थे और वह भी बड़े random होते थे. मैं बड़ा excited था and I never hopped on to that as well and then over time I saw कैसा जी suddenly पैरना मार्ट आ गया and so my thought was कि either of the two could have happened. First because they were smaller shops उनका जो tech onboarding थी with so many SKUs was very difficult. Margins are very thin compared to food. So either it didn't make business case and so you decided to just go in and get into a CapEx heavy business altogether. दूसरा जो मुझे समझ आया वह मुझे समझ आया आप कहे आपने देखा आपने कहा यह तो बेहतरीन market है vertically integrate करते and why don't we get a bigger slice of the pie? So what happened there? That that's a very interesting and an excellent question.

वह जो दूसरा model है that is also not unsuccessful. Now we can just say कि probably there are levels of success that we had. I think आप आपके लिए थोड़ा सा यह interesting होगा शायद जाना कि APAC के अंदर बहुत सारी markets ऐसी हैं जहां पर shops वाला model, mart के model से ज़्यादा successful चल रहा है. Right. Pakistan is one of the exceptions but not the only exception.

Phases of launch का भी फ़र्क पड़ता है कि कौन पहले चल गया और किसने attraction gain कर ली. And किसने वह user experience build कर दिया ना? Like मेरे दिमाग में shops, I was excited for shops didn't work out and so now I am all about Panama. Could have been the other way around. So-so just-just

to put that context के so when I was joining this was one of my biggest concerns के you know, ex CEO अनुमान से मैंने कहा कि यार what do you want like like we really need to figure this thing out, right? Like This or that yeah. This or that या यह कि at least under one helm. हां. So that there is an overall strategy. Right. Rather than two businesses which are in some sense internally competing against each other. यह तो मतलब मुझे नहीं समझ आ रही and and eventually after I would say probably around seven eight nine months probably I did get it. And then we said कि यार इसको पूरा overhaul करने की ज़रूरत है इसको as a concept. So so there are certain obvious disadvantages that the shops model has जो कि कभी भी वह शायद उस तरीके से नहीं कर सकेगा. You rightly alluded to. आप अपना POS जो है हर हर हर retailer के POS के साथ आप integrate नहीं कर सकते. It is just not possible और उसके नतीजे में consumer experience suffer करेगा relatively क्योंकि you you need all those retailers to buy into the concept of online as a percentage of their sales कि यार मैंने e commerce grow करना है और मैंने फूपाणा को support करना है. इसका मतलब है मैंने यह ख्याल करना है कि मेरी inventory सही रहे और जो इनके पास reflect कर रही है वह उससे match करें और हमने कभी आज से technically inventory मांगी नहीं है. हमने सिर्फ यह कहा है कि भाई है या नहीं है. And and you know a simple API refreshable file के भाई at least हर दो से तीन घंटे बाद I need to know कि SQ है या नहीं है based on जो भी आपने अपना safety stock या buffer रखा है. यह ना करो कि it runs out and then the phone call has to go कि sorry बाजी. हाँ हाँ. You know that's that's bad. Yeah. Some retailers are good there than others. A lot of them are not as good क्योंकि उनके लिए यह उतना serious channel नहीं वन सका. Right. So this is one inherent problem. This is some battle that we have on a day on day basis कि यार आप इसको serious लें. Right. हम यह battle ले क्यों रहे हैं? Like why do we still have that battle is for two reasons. Number one, अगर अगर कोई serious होता है तो technically वो जितने SKUs list करवा सकते हैं वो कभी Panda Mart पर नहीं होंगे. Because we are only going to always keep the most you know fastest moving product. Its a inventory heavy business तो उतनी range offer नहीं कर सकेंगे जो कि एक अगर shops वाला serious तरीके से एक retailer जब जो भी हमें हमारे से कुछ partners करते हैं तो they have a range that पाण्यमार sometimes does not have. So that's one thing. The second thing is कि उस range के अलावा there is a pricing element because जो operation हम run कर रहे हैं, in many cases we match but in some cases SKU price level पर we are expensive. We always strongly felt consumer के पास choice होनी चाहिए कि यार if if that's an affordability seeking consumer which is a completely totally okay thing for a marketplace to strive for तो उसको choice होनी चाहिए. They should not feel कि they are trying to shove their particular concept down our throat and it keeps the Panamaat guys on their feet and in check कि अपने ही platform पर price check हो रही है, बाहर तो छोड़ दो. तो वहां बाहर का तो price survey और benchmarking करनी थी. खुद भी you guys like अपने platform पर the same SKUs available for cheaper. Guys we need to pick our game up. Right. So there are multiple benefits of doing this. लेकिन they are not the reason of existence of the business. The reason of existence is कि अगर यह जो भी retailers हमको इस तरह seriously ले लेते हैं, there is one other element. Sometimes पैना might might might not have something but that might be available on a shop. Right. Why should I lose that customer to another platform while I can keep it still on that platform, right? Like I can sustain it. But the most important realization that we had was कि यह grocer, grocery business नहीं है shops. Shops cannot be just an e grocery mechanism via marketplace. This is technically hyper local mall at your finger tips. हमारे typical जो delivery radii होते हैं, radiuses जो है वो चार से छह kilometer होते हैं on average. चार से छह kilometer जो भी आपका location pin है उसके अंदर कौन कौन सी सहूलियां आते हैं जो आपके घर के या जिस भी जगह है उसके करीब है जो हम आपको offer कर सकें and this is the transition we have started to make and that is why we still have a lot of promise for this KR. Grocery रखें लेकिन grocery is not the core because like you rightly mentioned एक चीज़ already low margin है. उस low margin के अंदर आप किसी के साथ revenue sharing या commission basis पर आते हैं तो that means it is even more depleted. The important thing is कि how do you up the ante by saying कि और कौन कौन सी चीज़ें हैं जो आपको पहले नहीं लगता था कि एक घंटे में आपको ज़रूरत होगी but you can have a need for them which includes pharmacy, which includes selective apparel, which includes के यार perfume, flower shops. Nicotine products, vapes वगैरह बड़े सारे. 100% and and there are things that people need. तो हमने कहा कि यार ये वो categories हैं जिनको हमने build करना है ताकि एक proper mall at your fingertips वन सके. अच्छा so अगर मैं इसमें flip करूँ. इसको बहुत सारे तरीकों से देखने का देखा जा सकता है but

crave mart वाले हिसाब से podcast हुई थी. Great guy I mean one of the best we've had. Consumers loved it. Considering everybody was out there. He came right at the thick of the airlift crisis, so everybody was out there to get the quick commerce folks. But, when I spoke to him, he had a similar idea as well, you know, कि really the the the game is not in the groceries उसमें margins थोड़े हैं but when you get into apparel and perfumes and this and that that's much bigger margins and immediately वह आपका जो है ना वह cart size कहां से कहां ले जाता है? Right? So so suddenly the delivery seems fairly irrelevant when the cart size grows. But तो उसमें आप एक तो चले मुझे समझ आती है आपने कहा यार shops को, मैं mall बना दूं. Why not make Panda Mart the mall? पहला question तो यह आता है. दूसरा यह आता है कि again with the कोयले वाली example कि is it more like a sure the faster way to get to a mall is use the shops, learn from their data, get the most most recurring item into the mart and that would make sense कि, you know, साथ साथ दोनों चीज़ें चारों निहाली है, learn and you grow. So how would you contextualize that?

तो definitely there is a bit of number two going on. A lot of number two going on because we need to know what really moves before we make a choice about कि यार इसको अब हमारी inventory का part होना चाहिए. Right. And and shops is excellent for that. It's it's a very relatively low risk way of finding out कि यार what people are searching for? What are they going for and if it's actually selling? और अगर हम इसको internalize करेंगे तो हम इसी experience को इतना अच्छा और बेहतर बना सकेंगे जब हम खुद हर चीज़ control करेंगे end to end operation के अंदर. So that there is definitely that. जो दूसरी चीज़ है वही है कि कुछ चीज़ें ऐसी हैं जो शायद need के बावजूद हम नहीं रख सकें अपनी inventory में for some particular reasons. For example size, volume, weight. We are still and and that looking we into how to potentially explore other avenues but we are still by enlarge a two wheeler company. That is that is what we have mashallah mastered. I would like to say कि mashallah our operations and logistics team has done a great job. तो two wheeler के ऊपर there are only as many things that you can provide. लेकिन जब वो shops पर होते हैं तो हमारे पास एक opportunity होती है कि आप हमारे through deliver कराएंगे या आप अपनी delivery करते हैं तो may be a four wheeler will come along. Right. Shops is that that that way for also for us to also test कि beyond immediate immediate gratification what works within same day but not within one hour. Right. तो कल को अगर आप let's suppose master multiform आप चाहते हो तो मैं तो two wheeler के ऊपर तो मैं नहीं कर सकता. लेकिन

they have this distributor network. I mean so you got you you want to be Amazon with Amazon basics at the Panda Mart and Amazon everything else on the shops. Fairly accurate description. Makes sense. मुझे एक और यह बात बताएं and माल pipe काफ़ी ज़्यादा ख़ामोश है. I'm gonna move towards him as well. But मुझे यह बताएं कि आपने early on mention किया कि SKUs को add करना, यह करना, seriousness का एक मसला है. How do you see two things? First, जो bigger retailer है by and large वह तो as uh-uh POS को digitize कर चुका हुआ है. ख़ासकर अगर मैं चाहे grocery से हटूं भी मैं apparel पर जाता हूं. तो apparel आज तक properly नहीं हुआ delivery के ऊपर. आज तक it's so fascinating. Apparel is such a huge industry. क्या आप गुलायम से कुछ order करें और वह आपको दो दिन बाद तीन महीने बाद ही मिलता है. It makes no sense to me considering कि अगर मैं इस्लामाबाद में बैठा हुआ हूं तो दस stores हैं उनके यहां पर. वो है. And that would have been very easy right because दस food panda का बंदा जो है वो 5th Floor पर जाकर खाना pick करता है वो तीसरे floor से जाकर मेरा perfume pick करके मैं जलाकर दे सकता था. उसके तो SKUs के ऊपर call की भी ज़रूरत नहीं है. उसका तो centralized आपने Pakistan level पर जाकर उनसे वह करना है जहां जहां पर आपका footprint available है वहां पर availability आ जाएगी. Why haven't shops grown as quickly as they should have maybe? Because now the digitization of the of the sort of, inventory management system and all of that has has been fairly good post COVID. But also how do you see the the bazaars and the retailers of the world, जो कि e commerce पर लाकर sort of पिछले दिनों भी there was company that came in who were, pay mob वाले हैं जो कि POS integrate कर रहे हैं. So, a lot of this digitization is happening, right? And so, suddenly twenty twenty may the entire process was you were gonna go in and you're going to get a dumb customer and you're tell him, listen. Here's a beautiful world of digital and we're going to do this for you. Now you really have to plug in the last mine element, and everything else is being done by some other partner. And the scale can be much less costlier compared to what it was in 2020. So how do you see that?

यार इसमें I think दो चीज़ें हैं. The first is every particular brand's e commerce strategy. I think, there are a lot of people, who have jobs which hinge on them selling a dream that they can totally execute this on their own themselves, which is perfectly fine. Q नहीं, Why not end every part of the chain yourself? Maybe you will command better margin. So I think there's a bit of that going on. And and especially, I feel with a lot of apparel brands, it has been the case that they have been wanting to own this completely end to end as an entire platform and they have run into challenges. Some have run into challenges around last mile delivery execution, some purely customer acquisition or the cost of it. So I mean it's personally

I don't think that works. I think optimization is always going to be king and

वही वही आ जाती है बात कि it's a matter of time then. It's it's it's a matter of time but then there is there is another argument to be made where where I understand where they are coming from is and and I have no you know hesitation in in bringing in doubt is कि my brand which is somewhat premium if not fully premium on food पांडा? Why would I have clothes on food पांडा? And I think there is a lot of that going on as well because for a lot of them it's like नहीं I I it's not about not wanting to associate with Food Panda as a company but as a brand how does this tally? Yeah. How do we figure into the scheme of things and and to be fair to them it's it's I I understand where they're coming from because because they did not see us coming out of that food delivery space the way we did and the the you know the plethora of things that we are doing right now. So I get it. I I do think over a period of time उनको समझ में आने लगती है कि यार नहीं यह करना पड़ेगा and it's there's a little bit of you know who blinks first. अच्छा, oh they're doing it. So then let's There's do a bit of transition also कि यार they have this thing called PandaGo which is one of the businesses that I particularly love because it's called it's it's it started off as logistics as a service. Now we call it deliver anything

and and essentially even today it is about ok हमारा customer नहीं है. UBRTs आप चलाओ अपना काम. आपको सिर्फ rider चाहिए ना? Last mile. हाँ because my question was कि यार चले ठीक है एक तो आपके app पर कुछ available है. मैं अगर उनके store से भी order कर रहा हूँ why can't they utilize your entire army of exactly. Last

yeah. So वो I think that has now started to become a great entry point. होता ये है कि once you are sold on that then it naturally becomes कि delivery अच्छी चल रही है, मज़ा आ रहा है, customer लाने में मुश्किल हो रही है, shops पर list करें हैं क्या? So, so, so it just becomes another channel then. Correct? It's not no longer a question mark of oh my god we doing this huge thing.

Yeah yeah yeah. Interesting. मास भाई मुझे ज़रा बताइएगा थोड़ा सा and I wanna circle back a little bit. Food panda now जब हम देखते हैं इसको तो एक एक एक बहुत बड़ा giant feel होता है with the hustling hem ads and the three d panda roaming around. But obviously back in the day and I remember before food panda there was Eat oy. Eat oy. Right and it was always like क्या लड़के बच्चे हो गया भाई उनको phone यार कितने कर रहे हैं. And then somehow that's become this huge conglomerate at this point in time at least in terms of perception. If I were to ask you the financials of it कि जब वह startup था, वह किस तरह से था? अब किस तरह से है? How has it grown? And really now with the way that the world has evolved and learned post 2020 frenzy, How do you see startup financing and and and and, you know, किस तरह से business चलता है startups का? और अगर कोई दूसरा भी startup देख रहा हो आपको तो उसके context में.

So I think, I joined back in the day 2018. 2018 was the year when I think we really did not take off by then, because things started happening later. I remember, वही एक छोटा सा office था, limited लोग होते थे. वहीं UC office में call center staff, UC office में, Sarah staff UC office में and we were basically, more of an, marketplace because we we only had a very, very small segment of own delivery, 150, 200 writers max. उसके बाद फिर हुआ यह कि twenty nineteen came in. So हमने, what has happened is that everything has happened in in one step at a time. So 2019 was all focused around, creating our own rider base, right, and sort of penetrating into more cities. Rider base अपना पूरा हमने खड़ा किया. क्योंकि we wanted to move away from just being a delivery, just being a marketplace to sort of providing the last mile delivery because we felt that with providing the last mile delivery, we'll have more control over the experience that we can provide the consumer. हमने उसी तरीके से उसे, किया. So I remember from rider to I think right now with around, every day active दस पंद्रह हज़ार rider से ऊपर ही हमारी it's even more than that. So फिर उसके बाद हमने restaurants को move करना शुरू किया. हमने कहा कि अब हमारी delivery पर आएं, वह सारी चीज़ें हुईं, सब कुछ हुईं. 2020, we saw COVID hitting us. Fortunately, I think, यह it was not actually planned, but I think, yes, we wanted to move it to that direction. But with COVID, what has happened is कि उसने हमें बहुत accelerate कर दिया and we were like before COVID started we were ready with our our delivery. So that sort of gave us that, you know, that last mile delivery opportunity to provide and so forth. So, फिर twenty twenty में हमने फिर slowly gradually हमने shops को, you remember 2020 peak COVID के time पर food panda started showing shops. आपके nearby shops भी आना शुरू हो गया है, वह सारी availability मिल गई. And then with पाण्डा mart coming in हमने कहा गया अपना retail and you know overall सारे SKUs वह सब करें. फिर, फिर 2020 was a when we went into dark kitchens which is the ghost kitchens that we have and then उसके बाद I think we have been opening verticals after verticals and aim बहुत simple है. Convenience provide करना है and with the last mile delivery services, right? So मतलब convenience उसी वक़्त हो सकेगी कि जब अगर आपने perfume order किया है तो वह convenience उस वक़्त होती है अगर forty five minutes में या one hour में आपके पास वह आ जाती है and that's that's the idea. तो हमने, we have gone into opening various verticals, and it's no longer the name can be a bit consume, confusing, but it's no longer just food panda. I think it's there are multiple, multiple things that we are doing. On the financial side of things, so I came from a manufacturing concern, बहुत ही orthodox company से, जहां पर ROI का बहुत सवाल होता है, जहां पर, you know, आपको नीचे profit दिखना ज़रूरी है. Like, you know, that's how, that's how and and that's how you feel. That's how finance works as well. Like, मतलब आप बोलते हैं आप काम क्यों करते हैं? पैसा कमाने के लिए, right? हां. That's basic. Food पंडा आया तो we were burning money. उस वक़्त तो मैंने कहा अच्छा यार we are burning money. यह इस तरीके से हम देखते हैं. But then when 2019 and 2020 came in, we started burning even more money. And I remember that that is where like, you know, that is for me I think, fortunately that is where I learned e commerce per se that ok, you know, दुनिया इससे आगे भी है. It's not about like, you know, your conventional businesses per se, but this is how disruption model works. So काफी and एक आपके साथ होता ही है कि जब आप बहुत speed में grow कर रहे होते हैं, when you are growing so fast, your systems, your controls, they are not build in a way कि वह उस growth, उस माहम्मद growth को फ़ौरन ही support कर सके, फ़ौरन ही उस तरीके से handle कर सके. तो वह एक एक race against time, against your own self ही रहता है कि आपको system build करना है, processes build करना है, चीज़ें build करनी है so that with time, you know, आप you need to stop the leakages that are there. And, you know, the the company is running faster than you and you're just trying to catch up everything. I think, on the, we grew, we grew largely. I think a large multinational conglomerate is something that is there. But I think if you'll come to our office or, know, generally the people who work there, the culture that we've been able to still maintain is that startup culture Because we that is something that we build that culture, and that is something we love about it. So, like, that is something that we want to keep. On the financial side, yes, I have seen a lot of, sort of, I have seen some very red numbers, which has over time now they became, yellow, and now they're, like, you know, going towards the greens as well. So I think on the financial side operationally we are doing well, अंदर अल्लाह. And, I think, it's it's we are in on the right trajectory per se, from a from a numbers perspective, from a business perspective. इस time के ऊपर अगर आपको पैसे pump ना करने like, do you do you still have to massively pump money in or is that exclusively for growth only? So देखिए, that is something again that depends on us. Like, as in do we feel that the pie that we have right now is the right representation of the country we are in? I think absolutely not. It's like, you know, the I think the pie is even bigger. From that context, we are always focused on sort of bringing in that growth. Right? It it won't be as crazy as the COVID times. Right? But growth अभी भी आएगी और आना चाहिए because अभी भी there's still a long way to go. Right. So I think the the the only money pumping that we right now do is around creating more and more growth. From an operational perspective, I think we are we are we are fine. We it's it's it's not something that we need to in order to sustain per se. If I were to ask you numbers, do you do you have any that you can share about the total number of let's say the riders

on the platform on average जो daily active होते हैं, on the number of orders let's say on Panamaart या कुछ? Give me some numbers just to understand what's happening.

So I think numbers on the number side, I think I'll have to be very cautious. But I think, yes, there are certain numbers that, on the rider side, for example, we we generally have a fleet of around thirty, thirty five thousand riders, and everyday active riders hover around 15 to 20,000 in general. Right. यह हमारी and we we are operational in 35 cities. So obviously KLIR में सबसे ज़्यादा base है and then उसके बाद वह tier two cities में and tier three cities में जाता है. And जो क्या पेना मार्ट है वह कितने शहरों में जा चुके हैं? So right, right now we are in four cities.

Three, इस्लामाबाद and पिंडी is one, right? So कराची, लोहौर, इस्लामाबाद. You are in हैदराबाद as well? Yeah. And if you would want to count Wakant as a separate city then as a other one. So so the, let's say five.

चले I will give you that. I will give you that. मुझे एक एक यह बात बताएं आपकी जो engineering है of the product the app itself वह Pakistan में होती है या वह globally जो है वही आती है Pakistan में?

Product is something जो कि basically centrally होता है lead. हम अपने requirements और requests, local features request करते हैं and then based on how well we are able to make that case तो उसके बाद product development expedite होती है. Typically there are multiple reasons that it gets expedited for example अगर कोई control risk होता है तो फिर एक चीज़ expedite हो सकती है. GMV alone के अंदर तो because of euro वो हम नहीं कर पाते लेकिन there are certain things कि जब उनको एहसास होता है कि यार they want to something and it makes sense so they expedite things towards that. Right. छोटी सी for example है कि आप like one of the things in the works is KG prescription upload कर सकें क्योंकि pharmacy करनी है. So there is right now no such feature available but it is going to happen because we are like यार this seems to be very interesting for us to enter and Pharmacy Panda Mart के ambit में ही है? तो shops पर तो है लेकिन अब Panda Mart पर भी in a in a very prudent way we're going to start doing that. Interesting and pharmacy has that issue with the licensing and the So that was already sorted otherwise we would not have gotten clearance. तो हमारा जो legal और हमारा जो compliance function है. उन्होंने सारा पहले sort out किया है. पहले sort out किया हम तो I think we have been wanting to do it for the last five months or so. I think उसके बाद जब when we felt we were ready, you know, ये सारी चीज़ें I think that that is the beauty of also being structured and not just being a pure startup. Same thing applies up to exports etcetera as well. तो जो भी requisite licenses हैं उसके बाद ही फिर आऊं. And we're looking at within sixty minute pharmaceutical

deliveries? Correct. So what happens to one or the other? Pharmacy, e commerce, startups raising so much money and delivering in forty eight hours? But anyway I'll leave that question to the viewer but मुझे यह बताएं एक तो product development है and that's that's basically the hardcore app itself and and a feature that comes in. But then there are a lot of, in a lot of ways within the ecosystem of the app, there are certain, let's say, user journeys that are mapped out. Right? One of the things that I found in Pakistan to to be missing when it comes to the digital ecosystem. Recently, was in Dubai and and Dubai में वह मगरमच्छीता ना चल रहा है और और in a lot of ways the platform itself is irrelevant. Like YouTube as a platform to where you can upload videos and the other person can see it is no longer that. YouTube का core is the engine, the recommendation engine where you basically last time मैंने food-food panda मुन्तका से भी ये सवाल पुछा था कि you know थोड़ा थोड़ा मुझे उस time से अब तक नज़र आना शुरू हुआ है कि वो एक appear हो जाता है और वो कुछ उतना से hack करने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं. But by and large you we don't see profiling on a very extensive level where एक user आता है तो उसकी एक पूरी journey map हुई भी हो जाते हैं कि यार so it's very automated right कि वो आता है अगर वो आकर ये ये ये कर रहा है तो then he is most likely to do ये ये ये and therefore you can recommend him much better stuff. Even अगर मैं Panda Mart की बात करूं the basics are there. It's clean. But it's still for most part the same experience again and again and again. Whereas let's say if I was to go to Walmart they would know कि यार checkout के वक़्त मैं ये चार चीज़ें ख़रीदता हूं तो मैं ये इसको दे रख दूं and you know so so you have the opportunity to utilize data and and and do so many interesting things with it and I'm not even talking about raffles and you know, discounts and whatever. I'm talking about hardcore कि मैं जब Panda Mart पर जाता हूं for one specific thing, I be sold three extra things just because I like a late night chocolate snack? Yeah. You know, so-so why don't we see a lot of that and do you have that capability in house? That

is a very fair question. तो पहला इसका जवाब है कि this is already in the works. But we also have to put into context कि यह overall company क्या है? यह पूरी दुनिया में भी एक पहले food delivery company थी. Right. और और जो जो quick commerce की journey है वह पाकिस्तानी के लिए दो हज़ार बीस में शुरू नहीं हुई, overall भी दो हज़ार अठारह के end में शुरू हुई. Right. So you were actually looking at food people who were starting a grocery business and maturing along the way thinking कि there's a lot that we don't understand about it and we need to start getting professionals who tell us what needs to be done. Right. And I think that evolution has happened not just for Pakistan but for multiple countries. That includes our central you know Berlin office as well. So now they recognize this and they recognize this for another reason. तो एक है customer profiling और journeys. फिर उनकी local customization और adaptation and then उसका link with what actually can help make this business stick in terms of profitability whereby you help that D2C angle you know be extended to brands for audience targeting in the right way. So so this has started to pan out also because everyone understands कि ad rev अगर चाहिए आपको तो यह करना पड़ेगा क्योंकि और तरीका at the end of the day you have only as many banners and swim lanes and you know you push notifications to give. So what else do you do? You come in is to say कि you know हम हम एक basket को identify करें और यह देखें कि मुज़मिल के घर में for example baby diapers जा रहे हैं and there is this particular brand which says कि अगर diapers जा रहे हैं तो इनको definitely infant formula भी चाहिए होना चाहिए. इनको potentially baby rash भी चाहिए and what are we doing about this? So this is already in the works.

And उसमें आप फिर sort of hyper optimized. अभी आपका यह ना here is a 30% discount on everything. आप hyper optimize करते कि यार इस consumer को मैं पक्का करने के लिए इस particular product के ऊपर 15% off देकर के यह return निकलवा सकता Correct.

So this is happening. The only thing is कि उसके पीछे पूरा product engine भी revolutionize करना पड़ रहा है. So, so it was only I would say perhaps around twelve fifteen months back that Quick Commerce got its dedicated product team. Right. कि यार, यार. But that team is in Pakistan or globally? No, they are based globally. So they, the, क्योंकि that's my curiosity is, would the global team have the context of what's happening in Pakistan and can they create those journeys culturally contextualized way? Correct. So so so so so the great thing about what I have I have loved about SK, one of the things that we also learned at SKG, if you want strategy well executed, it is going to be followed by incentive to drive that behavior and structure even more importantly. So globally at the Berlin level what is interesting is that the product senior person उसके नीचे brand भी है और उसके नीचे customer experience भी है. And then they map out कि यार all all these tribes are going to get in touch with respective countries to understand what they need. Right. So so what that means is कि वह सिर्फ product के लिए काम नहीं करेंगे. वो brand को जानते हुए performance के लिए भी काम करेंगे. For example CRM life cycle या या जो आपकी life cycle journeys है in Pakistan they will work very different because यहाँ पर sali नहीं है. यहाँ पर मायरा या सुलेखा है. I don't know. Right. So so so that is already happening. They are asking us for inputs and I think we are going to see a manifestation of that very shortly. We do it already लेकिन कुछ चीज़ें ऐसी हैं कि जो कि journey में आपको नज़र नहीं आती हैं. So for example, most people add things to cart by search or or by going into category. आप category में जाते आप एक चीज़ add करते हैं आपके cart में add हो जाती है. अगर आप सिर्फ double click करके SKU के अपने description में जाएं you will see customers also bought. So the recommendation engine is there and now we are saying it doesn't make sense because people don't double click. People are in a rush. We need to bring that customer also bot to the forefront just like you see past orders or past purchases. Right. And and then you don't only need to see them on the main page, you also need to see them at checkout. Checkout is the best point like exactly as you mentioned कि यार waiting in the line and suddenly जाते ही चल जाता है. Exactly. So this is already in the works. It's just that अगर हम अपने लिए कहते हैं कि अट्ठारह foot का trailer है और उसको चलाना है तो I can only imagine कि वो जो सत्तर countries के अंदर जो product चला रहा है उसके लिए यह कितना मुश्किल है. That makes sense. माज़ेब मुझे एक बात बताइएगा.

Currently आप पहले मैंने finances की बात की but वह by and large एक regular आपने बोला कि इसमें हम you know हम grow कर रहे और हम देख रहे हैं कि ठीक है हम ऐसे ऐसे करके grow कर लेंगे. एक international investment climate change हुआ. Pakistan में जैसे खारात खराब हुए हैं उसको आप किस तरह देख रहे because that's really going to start hampering the the buying power in the coming months and it's going to that problem is going to aggressively increase. और इसके अंदर मैं दो properties को मैं multilayer करूंगा कि आप एक ही में मुझे go में कर दें. देखिए इसमें दो ends पर problems आ रही हैं. एक end पर product इसके use महंगे होंगे और जो buying power है वह decrease कर रही होगी and उसी के अंदर तिम्यान में fuel prices जो हैं वह continuously grow करती रहेंगी और वह जब grow कर रहेंगे तो उसमें आपकी direct operational cost है. तो how do you see all of that then impacting your bottom line? एक तो आपकी है ना कि मैंने grow करना है चार शहरों से पांच शहरों से मैंने पंद्रह पर जाना है a little bit with Panda Mart old school conventional trials. तो how do you how do you expect to maneuver through that situation?

So I think, it's a very valid question and especially not just like पहले तो global footprint और global environment को in general देख रहे हैं. I think वहां भी there's there's just like, you know, inflation, recession, ये सारे elements they are kicking in and then उसके बाद जब हम Pakistan की बात करते हैं so वहां पर भी हम जो देख रहे हैं the fuel prices going up by good, I think in the last few months by good fifty fifty odd percent and then the inflation sort of striking at, you know, at such high numbers. So हम, it is a challenge. I won't say that नहीं. It's not a challenge. Everything is is fine. Every business is facing those challenges so we are no exception. We are also facing it. हमने सिर्फ़ किया क्या है कि वक़्त के साथ साथ, so पहली चीज़ जैसे मैंने पहले भी एक बात की कि the pie that we are, that we currently hold जो हमारे पास है, वह अभी भी it's not the sort of right representation. अभी भी I think उस पर growth के बहुत अभी भी उसके we have that potential of growing. Mhmm. तो that is something good for us. In a way if if if you would have sort of targeted or completed that target market, तो हमारे लिए फिर यह problem होती है कि number हमारे shrink होना शुरू हो जाती है. हमारे लिए यह है कि अभी भी growth is something that we can foresee. There are still classes that there are still people who are not users and we are trying to bring them as a user for us. जो second चीज़ है जो एक overall the inflation everything that's kicking in उसमें हमने फिर यह किया है कि देखिए हमने different verticals खोले पर हैं. हमने जैसे पांडा mart में we understand B2C can is can get impacted but we have also ventured into the B to B part of it as well. Mhmm. जहां पर we are like यार, you know, we can provide the raw materials to restaurants, to companies and we can make money from that as well and that's going to eventually improve my top line per se. On the food side what we have done is हमने थोड़ा सा home chef जो है जो last time मुद्दा का ने बताया था हम उसको और और बड़ा करने की कोशिश करना है because that is where sort of the person gets, you know, अगर कोई price point के लिए आ रहा है तो वह price point देख ले और उन्हें as compared to a normal restaurant he'll be able to get a a cheaper food from from Home Chef. फिर उसके बाद what we are also trying to do is we are venturing into the digital side of the world as well. So which is What do you mean by that? So that is the fintech fintech side of of Food Panda as well. So we we are now introducing that fintech leg. We are trying to partner with a lot of companies on the digital side, and we're gonna use the ecosystem that we have within Food Panda to get more and more business out of it. So, yes, in the current scheme of things, the economical conditions are bad. The cost of doing business is growing, and then eventually the people are seeing a direct impact into their real income or the disposable income that they hold. तो हम यही कर रहे हैं कि we are trying to, you know, spread our sort of, the businesses that we are in, increase sort of the footprints of other, of all the businesses that we are trying to do. And I think उसी में ही even in the current scheme of things try to grow in the numbers because we feel that the target market that we have is still bigger than where we are currently operating right now. How big is Panda Go at this point in time? Panda Go. Haven't seen a lot of that. No. So Panda Go B2B and as I are back behind the scene So Panda Go is just like your normal rider.

He'll who'll be delivering who No. No. But what I mean by I haven't seen a lot of that is I haven't personally I've I've shopped a lot on websites but I haven't seen a an option or maybe even I'm not an option ordering something and then getting it delivered by a panda person. So अभी यह क्या early stages में है या क्या scene है उसमें? Yeah, so I think

this is another sort of beauty of our company. We have multiple segments and हर segment अपने life cycle stage में अलग अलग level पर है. So I think when I talk about Panda go in general, I think it's still in a very that is a startup you can say. वह एक startup है जो हम, जो हम उससे grow कर रहे हैं. I think, we recently got some very big wins. I think I'll ask you to sort of order Sana Safinas and then you'll be surprised food panda rider bringing it to you, right? Right. फिर इसी तरीके से हमने यह किया है कि we have ventured with, we have partnered with a lot of pharmacies as well and then, you know, the list goes on. But अभी भी this is more it's still at a at, I would say, at an initiation stage per se. Market cap because providing that last mile service, you know, that in itself is something that a lot of companies struggle with and also उनका forte भी नहीं होता. But for us, I think we feel that we have that ecosystem, we have that, you know, manpower with us and हम उसे use कर सकते हैं to provide companies with that last mile service. Makes sense.

Fuel का आपने originally मुझे कहा था कि, you know, fuel बड़ा है and that is going to be going to affect. Are you looking at potential alternatives now? I know for a fact that EZ Bike is beginning to make these sort of battery swapping stations and they have an interesting model and EZ Bike is up north but कराची अभी I know there are few players जो कि दराज़ and उन पर कर रहे हैं. तो have you explored that area?

So हमने इस podcast के start में बात कर रहे थे strategy के एक function के बारे में. So we have a strategy function in फूट मांडे as well. So you're right, fuel in general, it's already quite expensive and is going to become more expensive as well. Mhmm. हमने, so EVs are something that we have been testing out, for I think good one year now. So pilots different partners Right now we are in partnership with, I think, four, five partners where we have this option for our, for our delivery riders that they can they can, you know, opt for, for an installment, mechanism और उसको हम इस तरीके से हम उसे easy installment बनाने की कोशिश करते हैं कि उनके payout से small reductions हों और वह eventually इस cost को cover कर लें and so forth. On इसका सबसे बड़ा मसला वही है जैसे आप कह रहे हैं कि because एक if you look at sort of the economical EV bikes that we have उसके kilometer ranges, they're quite they're quite small. Like, you know, उनका distance ज़्यादा नहीं होता. हम उस पर भी अब हम जो देखने हैं, वो what we are try trying to explore is कि we have this network, right? So apart from writers, we have that network of partner marks, right, and across countries, cities, sorry. And then we also have rider hubs where, you know, writers can come in and so forth. Then we have the dark kitchens. तो हम यह सोच रहे हैं कि क्या किन किन जगहों पर हम अपना potential एक तरीके से battery swapping stations बनाते हैं या वहां पर you know batteries fulfilled करके रखें riders के लिए and they can just come in and swap it and then continue with the shift. तो obviously यह भी चीज़ें explore कर रहे हैं. But I think वह वही है एक as the as चीज़ें जैसे ऐसे मुश्किल होती आती हैं आप फिर, you know, you come up with new ideas and new ways of sort of dealing with it. So, we have a lot of things in the pipeline because rider can be important. So, for example, fuel cost, but then there's this rising inflation as well. It's not just ensuring that his fuel cost is covered, but it's also ensure that his sort of, his lifestyle or that disposable income in real terms that he was getting maybe six months ago उसको किस तरीके से हम balance out कर सकते हैं. Makes sense. मुझे यह बताएं कि how do you compare the KLIR

revenues versus a lot of these sort of second tier cities, मुल्तान, फैसलाबाद, the newer markets that you're getting into within Pakistan?

So they can obviously every every company begins with sort of the tier one cities, right? The population landscape की हम बात कर लें या SSCs की बात कर लें, वह आपको KLIR में बहुत different बनेगी. But then when we started exploring new cities, हमें and it for us it was a surprise as well that a lot of we thought that it was more of a it it is a tier two city. But I think the RPO sort of it generates is, better than a lot of zones in the in the tier one cities per se. Second आपको यही वाली चीज़ है कि देखिए so for tier a cities options भी बहुत ज़्यादा हैं. For tier two cities options थोड़े से limited हो जाते हैं. तो हमारी कोशिश भी यही है कि हम tier two cities में भी हम उसी तरीके से penetrate कर सकें, उसी तरीके से हम provide कर सकते हैं services और सारी चीज़ें and and माशिला we have most most of the tier cities, tier two cities with us and they're doing quite well. On the basket size या जैसे हम बोलते हैं एक तरीके से जो from a layman perspective के order size कह लेंगे, उसमें obviously difference होता है. Tier A का is generally higher as compared to tier tier two cities but even in the tier two cities I think सियालकोड is one of them. मुल्तान, फिर उसके बाद वाकेंट and all these are such cities जहां पर basket size is equivalent to कराची और लोहौर पर. And in terms of user experience or user onboarding,

have you, what have you found? Because जाहिर है कि a lot of these cities have for them this is a newer experience कि यार मैंने delivery करवाकर घर बुला लेना है. उनका तो अभी वह generally markets इतनी mature नहीं हुई थी. जहां पर जो है वह एक तो restaurants उतने नहीं होंगे I'm sure. जिनको आप onboard कर सकते हैं. फिर उसके बाद जो है the idea that a consumer is able to move एक होता है ना कि पहले हम पहले time के ऊपर बाहर जाकर खाना वज़ा very वह thing doesn't matter कितना पैसा वह एक एक हमारा culture ही ऐसा था कि महीने में एक दफा जाएंगे. फिर वह ICICI became a thing urban urban particularly again major cities के अंदर. छोटा में शायद वह ना हो. This is my very it is not a data back to anything. This is just my thought process मेरा bubble वह यह कह रहा So what's the experience like in these cities? अच्छा देखिए इसमें भी ना so it's important sort of the consumer that we are targeting, right? So a lot of times

मेरी अक्सर meetings हो रही होती है senior bankers के साथ और बाकी so they'll be like I don't have a food panda app installed on my phone but आपका rider तीन दफ़ा मेरे घर पर आता है, right? So it's basically the generation sort of that we're targeting is the younger lot, right, is the teenagers. And and with that, with how this, this social media penetration and everything that has kicked in, I think even in the tier two, tier three cities, the young generation, they have that idea. They are privy to, like, you know, okay, how the delivery apps work, how everything. Like, example the content creators that we have. Like, even in the tier two, tier cities, they're doing great work. So I think this Internet world has given us that sort of access where, the the younger lot understands that, okay, you know, this is a this is a convenience model that we can use to our benefit and they're using it. And I think यही होता है कि हमारी कोशिश यही होती है और हमने देखा भी है वह उन tier two cities में जहां universities

हैं, hostels हैं, वहां पर it's like, you know, it's a very different ball game. Orders, traction मतलब हम pluck करते हैं before we do any big campaigns or big marketing पैसे. We we saw that you know the orders started coming in, the people had had to know about it, of it as well and they were using food partner to from the starting day. Makes sense. एक बात अगर मैं इसी सवाल को expand करूँगा मैं globalist में लेकर आऊँ. What's in it for the for delivery hero? Because if I were to go to let's say Dubai or The Middle East anywhere in The Middle East the margins are just absolutely nuts, right? वह एक मैं वहां पर करीम app use कर रहा था. Competitor है आपका sorry लेकिन करीम यहां पर food नहीं करता तो चले ख़ैर. तो वहां पर मैं करीम food मैंने deliver करवाया. मेरा average order जो होता था ना वह मैं चारा सबसे सस्ता burger भी order करूंगा वह भी करूं तो वह पचास पिहत्तर दरम तो कहीं नहीं गया. Right? Which basically और एक delivery की fee होती थी वह होती थी कोई तकरीबन दस दरम which is $7.50 rupees. Can't even imagine compete with that. या तो साठ रुपए से ऊपर जाती है तो अगला कहता है यार क्या कर रहे हैं क्यों था? जब मैं और platform के वो अलग कोई दो एक तीन धर्म में ही ले लेते थे यार यह भी इधर ही ऐसा करो अब पांच थे. On top of the सुख पचास में से या पचहत्तर में से ज़ाह रहे हैं वो एक percentage margin जो वो रख रहे हैं versus जो यहाँ पर है it's a huge difference. फिर यहाँ के दस खपे हैं और अलग. So what's in it? मैं इसको contextualize particularly करूंगा with what's happening in the telecom industry right now in Pakistan. Lot of people aren't following it. They should definitely check out the tweets of the CEOs of different companies. कि वह एक price war है, अर्पूज जो है वह इस वक्त बिल्कुल ही dead हो चुके हैं, heavy tax industry है. Telecom is being squeezed to death right now in Pakistan. और यह वह industry one of the fastest growing like जिस time पर आप university में थे I am sure आपको सुनने में आया होगा कि यार सब छोड़ दूं telecom में Right? जब वह industry वन गई और वह हो गई today we are seeing a very different वह and Pakistan की economy में unfortunately इस तरह के moments बहुत ज़्यादा आते हैं. यही आप दुनिया में कहीं और चले जाएं तो वहां पर आपके लिए for for business environment is much much easier to sustain. Consumer भी easy है, margins भी ज़्यादा है, bucket size भी बढ़ा है. So what's in it for your global player? I

think इसके अंदर दो चीज़ें हैं. The first is कि यार you know bastion of growth कौन कौन सी markets हैं? And if you really look at it, mature markets का एक बहुत बड़ा problem है. The first problem that they have is कि उनको उतनी growth नज़र नहीं आती. I know कि मैं एक बहुत ही शायद probably superficial बात कर रहा हूं with you know everybody does that to 20, to 40,000,000 and but part of it is true क्योंकि अगर आपको कोई चीज़ capture करनी है you know then then you want to be in larger size markets and if I talk about delivery hero, Pakistan is by far from a population perspective one of the largest markets they have globally because they're not operating out of North America. They are in LatAm. They're not operating out of China, India. They're not in Indonesia. So so so, you know, coming from there, Pakistan is a very, very interesting market for them. So that's one. The second thing is, to their surprise, adoption has been faster than

many other markets. Really? Correct. And and Was that because of COVID?

Partly but not only. I think जो कुछ चीज़ें हमारी market के बारे में उनको interesting लगती है वह यह है कि कुछ behavior बड़ा बहुत ज़्यादा interesting है. For example थोड़ा सा segue है पिछले question के उसमें BKG. क्या super app बनने के लोगों को शौक होता या इसके पीछे कोई purpose भी है? And the purpose is that when people are operating only on one vertical for example if they only order food, there is a relatively lower switching cost. But when you hook them to your platform because they are a multi category or multi vertical user, their their chances to churn out reduce by two thirds. So so if you've hooked someone and if you've gotten them early and right now their basket sizes are lower because they have not entered the job market, just think like it's it's a it's a and so so there is growth, there is this fact that it is a relatively relatively uncontested market. Let's be honest about it. Right. When you look at the Europes of the world obviously it's a bloody red which is not the case for Pakistan. तो क्यों नहीं? Why not? And then think about it from another perspective. What's happening with our currency? There's not really much that they're losing in a sense because because माशालाह we are doing well from a performance perspective. On top of that, if you look at investment coming in, that investment is not like a lot in in comparison to what they might have to do in some other markets. So so it it is a great bet for them. So the cost of doing business is low comparatively.

Yes. Right? But then while that cost of business is low, as the currency depreciates, extraction becomes more expensive as well in the future. Right? So एक तो वो element है दूसरा ये कि बहुत लोग आके हमेशा ये बात करते हैं कि and that's its true जो आपकी बात है वो भी खुद दोस्त है वो एक cliched बात है दो सौ चालीस की population है ये है वो है That notwithstanding, it's it's very important to zoom out and really begin to understand that inherently this is a consumption driven product. And as societies, all societies all over the world will have consumption driven products. जब आप थोड़ा सा zoom out करके देख रहे होंगे कि यार यह दो सौ चालीस million की population ने x y z point तक पहुंचना है तब हम उसका dividend sleep कर सकते हैं. तो उसमें एक element ज़रूर यह होगा कि यार आपके core fundamentals कैसे हैं? हमारे unfortunately core fundamentals बहुत out हैं. Which basically means that Pakistan year on year actually loses money in the global scale then makes money and so unless you're making money, your wealth overall of the country does not grow. And if the wealth doesn't grow, you don't increase the middle class and so on. Yeah. In that context, how do you see the future? And secondly, are you just a consumption driven product? या दिरम्यान में आपने कुछ देर पहले कुछ फेंका था नगेट मेरी तरफ़ के export का कोई word use किया था. तो have you dabbled into other areas?

यार तो देखिए जो पहली बात है वो तो हम there is not much that we as a country leadership team can do. मतलब you know where we are trying to do our best you are absolutely right कि मतलब जो cards आपको मिले आप उससे ही खेल सकते हैं. मगर जो एक चीज़ Pakistan के बारे में true है and and that makes us very proud internally within our universe is we are one of the innovation labs for delivery hero for certain businesses specially q commerce and and why I say that is कि हमने तो इस तरह देखा है कि यार जितनी ज़्यादा constraint होती है जब proper creativity unleash होती है. Like like this is not कि वह जो think out of the box नहीं है, it's just about thinking amidst new boxes when when pushed against a wall. Right. And and वहां पर there are a few things that we are doing that no other market has done. Classic example being मास बात कर रहे थे B2B. Something I am personally very proud of you know, and very close to my heart. Why? Because it was a platform play. Why? Typical restaurant discussions, time for renegotiation of yearly contract, let's talk commissions. Difficult conversation, especially in this period. Then you come in and you say, let's not do this. Let me not just be an account or a sales manager, let me be a consultant to your business. Let me help you lower your cost of operation. मगर आपने एक चीज़ commit करनी होगी. अगर मैं आपकी cost low करता हूं, सारा का सारा अपने पास नहीं रखना consumer को भी pass on करना. The platform has to remain affordable and that then that is you know वो जो cliched flywheels हैं but that genuinely is a flywheel कि आप एक शस्क को कह रहे हैं कि क्योंकि हमने Panda Mart किया और अब हमारे पास जो है volume synergies आ रही हैं and it's it's beautiful because our B2B is different from the B2B that exist in Pakistan. We are not going into the wholesale market. हम GTs के पास, किरयाने के पास नहीं जा रहे हैं. हम उन्हीं पच्चीस हज़ार restaurants को पहले focus करें जो हमारे platform पर हैं. So there is perfect complementarity और उस complementarity के नतीजे में आपका platform affordable है, आपका vendor ज़्यादा खुश है. पहले के मुकाबले में कि यार ज़बरदस्त यानी कि you are really helping me out with my procurement जो कि पहले मुझे problem हो रहा था. So ये कुछ चीज़ें ऐसी हैं जो हमने शुरू की जो उनके लिए था कि यार this is very interesting. I obviously I cannot throw a lot of numbers but what I can tell you is that for most things within Asia, if I talk about Food Panda's operation in in 11 countries within APAC, food Panda Mart Pakistan, like the quick commerce arm, is either one or two out of three instances within Asia. So this is how big martial light has become. That's why I said कि adoption has been unnaturally different. And and and and you would be surprised कि this has translated not just to units sold, this has translated not just to transactions or customers but actual GMV you know play as well in terms of what is your clout and we strongly feel that some of those that strength of CPG relationships is something that now we are extending on to other markets कि यार हमारे बड़े ज़बद्दस relationships हैं. Let us help you you know, break into some of those players where they might not have been interested previously earlier on because maybe उस वक़्त आपके volumes छोटे थे. But let us talk to the regional team XYZ. So that's one. Another part of the ideal lab has been exports. What do you do when pushed in a corner? What do you do genuinely for your own business? And then we said कि यार, there are a few things that we have learnt and that we are going to do as a way for business and also because it's good for Pakistan and and then hopefully there could be some benefit from an advocacy perspective for food panda as well कि यार हमारे पास कुछ चीज़ें हैं जो कि कहीं नहीं हैं और जिस cost पर हम आपको दे सकते जिस quality की हम दे सकते हैं हमें यह करना चाहिए. So it was perhaps only a few weeks back we started having these conversations कि we will probably because we are not a deep seaport तो हम आपको कुछ nuggets देते हैं, really think through them. You should look at the potentials for trading hubs in Dubai and potentially Singapore later on. Because what we can then do is do proper cross border. So we kick started a project. They saw the wait and then they said, okay, interesting. So now we do it for a few categories because we we will see that few categories coming out of Pakistan, but then there are a few other categories in x country and then in y country and then Okay. So just to contextualize that because the because Delivery Heroes has such a huge footprint,

What you're saying is you begin to optimize operations on a multinational level and you begin to say कि listen, you're delivering किन्नू in that market at this rate when it's so cheap in my Why don't I manage कि मैं आपके वह जो आपका warehouse है वहां पर आप जिस बंदे से procure करते हैं I'll deliver that to you. Yeah. And then you can deliver that to the consumer yes. And

oh interesting. So so बहुत सारे लोग नहीं जानते कि क्योंकि Delivery Hero itself कोई brand नहीं है. हां हां. Food Panda उसका APAC brand है और आप Dubai की बात कर रहे थे तो तलबात is our sister company. Right. Hunger station is our sister company in Saudi Arabia.

So that way you then become globally integrated into that economy as well in a lot of ways and because there is grocery and then there is food and there is this and there is that and then through that you can oh and you can do it for their marks first and then you can say कि यार हम जो B2B कर रहे हैं तो आप भी तो अपने restaurants को बोले उनको भी तो आलू चाहिए. उनको

भी तो you know potentially chicken चाहिए. So, so let's talk you know. But but then let's do it in a in a mutually you know in a proper symbiotic way. So maybe selectively right now our channels are not as sorted on imported products. तो हम आपके through वह explore करना चाहते हैं. There are certain amazing brands of European chocolates, sparkling water, many other categories और वह हम आपके देख सकते हैं. Obviously not now but when the situation kind of improves but there is genuine need for that and we try to do it लेकिन हम उस तरीके से शायद execute नहीं कर पाते but if we did it via you so now this is genuine cross border. So so the trading hub potential has kind of been you know has stemmed out of that ideal apps stemming out of Pakistan in a sense. Pretty pretty happy and proud about it. Right conversation थोड़ी लंबी हो रही so I just going to wrap it up. मैं एक elephant in the room के बारे में बात करना चाहूंगा.

आजकल बहुत social media भी भी होता है वह होता है. Riders का बहुत ज़्यादा कहा जाता है कि यार उन लोगों का you know the pay isn't enough or the model isn't very people friendly. What are your thoughts on that?

यार, I can talk about it. I disagree with the opinion but but also I feel that it's not my place to talk about it. I think our director operations and logistics फरहान would be the best suited to answer that. वो देखते हैं सारे writers को? Correct. वो सारा. Yeah. अच्छा interesting. क्योंकि मेरे दो तीन और सवाल आती थे writers related considering के

again वो economy भी plane कर रही है. जो जो financial model है उसके अंदर the core cost essentially here is the cost of delivery. Then maybe we'll just have that conversation with him. Guys I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you one last question. I ask all of my guests and I want your opinion on that. Considering कि आजकल हाला थोड़े up and down है तो एक एक एक negative opinion है so I want you to disconnect yourself from the current environment the blip in history जो मैं that I call it होता है downward spiral आता है but things get better as well. You know एक बात you've been in so many different countries. Europe आपने देखा, आपने Africa देखा, Middle East में तो आप रहे हैं. And then you've also been in Bangladesh बड़ा आपने उसको बड़ा closely देखा उनकी हमसे तो हमदुर अलाव बहुत बेहतरी जा रहे हैं. तो उस context में knowing what you know now seeing what you've seen if I were to ask you how do you see Pakistan twenty seven years from now? What would your opinion be? If we can start with you. Twenty seven years from now. In 2050? What's the 2050 का पास्तान रहा कि निर्भय? The

tech landscape has made us not device strategies that forward looking as other companies. यार मैं यह ज़रूर समझता हूं कि there are few things that naturally go in your favor. Demographics is one of it. Not just population size but age, youth really matters and I also feel that if you if you really look at it, that that also means a lot of other things in terms of health care not becoming a burden and, you know, so on and so forth. I think the the amount of people I've met outside and their perception of Pakistan is is that they are some of the smartest people in the world that they have worked with. I think I think we we just need to come across and and become a team. Sometimes we have this tendency of being that individual contributor shining bright a little too much and I think that if if we really understand कि यार we we we really need to rally around each other. चाहे यहां रह रहे या चाहे बाहर रह रहे हैं. बाहर रहने में बुराई नहीं है मेरे ख्याल में. Obviously, you know, it's better to fight from the inside. But but if if the system is becoming a little difficult, then maybe there are some fights that you can better fight from the outside. Yeah. So, but but contribute. Right, remain connected. Remain connected to your roots and and and with with that support and we see that. We see that reflected in the the charity of the country. In the remittance of the country. In the remittances of the country, probably that has played a bigger role and we would have been in a lot of trouble otherwise. Yeah. So, I I think that in in the grand scheme of things, I I see people in our region, in our country playing some massive role in in how things evolve and and and it's it's just those numbers again. Those numbers mean that you stand for something and and you will always be taken seriously and that that means that not only will, you know, people find ways and means to support each other hopefully, but also that whatever the power structure of the world is, you know, bipolar, tripolar, multipolar, doesn't matter. Everyone will know that Pakistan is an important player just because of where we are situated. Right. And and they will do whatever it takes to make sure that there is stability here because that's in everybody's interest. So I I think that forget the blip, things will be good. Go for the long haul. Go for the long haul and twenty seven years out I think we would have sorted ourselves out. Again, seventy five years is not that long of a history. Right, makes sense. माज़, what do you think? So I think,

adding to what इबाद said, अगर मैं Pakistan को देखता हूं, I think not being very patriotic, but generally, I think the resources that we are blessed with, apart from the demographic, scenarios, the youth and everything, I think this country has, even today with all the negativity and everything, I think this country, has huge potential. And when we, like, you know, when we talk to people across different countries and everything, it's Pakistan को लेकर in general sense एक अच्छी like एक अच्छी discussion होती है. The people, the sort of, you know, the thought process that generally the people have, the smartness that मशहलार people convey their work with. I think in the short run, yes, there would be course corrections. There would be corrections happening. It's going to be painful. I mean, if someone feels that, you know, something's gonna come in and, like, कुछ कोई या लदीन कचराग या कोई ऐसी कोई चीज़ होने वाली है, unfortunately that's not the कोई magic नहीं होने वाला, हां. Correct. There is going to be course correction. I think we all are going to be part of that correction. But I think with sincerity if if we if even if from today, if we start working in that right direction, I think 2050 by 2050, I think Pakistan could be a very different in a very different landscape from where it is today. Do you think there is a certain level of inevitability

in the course correction now?

I mean, the course correction होना है. I mean, that's my personal opinion. Again, I don't, like, I am not an economist per se, but course correction होना है because आप एक चीज़ को एक point तक drag कर सकते हैं. You know, you can, you can kick a can down the road for a particular time and then eventually, you know, you will face reality and eventually I think we will also be facing it. But then it's important that, you know, with with sort of everyone coming together, we need to figure ourselves out of it. We need to come we need to come out of it, as well and then look at the broader picture, right? मतलब एक एक I mean this is something that I see in general within my circle as well. सब बाहर जाना चाह रहे हैं and they're trying to move out but दो सौ बीस million लोगों को कोई बाहर नहीं accommodate करेगा, right? And this is your country. You need to fix it. I think that's where sort of we all need to come in together

and sort of do that course correction. Makes sense. Guys, thank you so much for coming in and sharing all that insight. I hope that the troubling economy is not too much of a trouble for you guys. It's it's exciting what you've created. Personally, I'm a huge supporter of the cause by proxy of me ordering a bunch of stuff every single day. But, you know, I'm I'm glad you've done you have done and created a world class product and ran it in Pakistan. I hope के इंशालाह आगे भी growth आपको मिले. इंशालाह. And for all of you guys thank you so much for watching. अगर आपको episode पसंद आई तो दोस्तों यानों से शायद ज़रूर share करिएगा. नीचे comment section में आकर बताएं do you use food panda? If not why not? If you do how do you like it and how do you think it can be improved? इसी के साथ साथ मुझे बताएं कि what are your thoughts on the startup ecosystem and the industry now that globally हालात थोड़े different हैं और economy के Pakistan में हालात ऐसे हैं क्या आपको लगता है कि यह छोटा सा मसला eventually इसमें growth आएगी? क्या जो भी हो पा रही है ना let me know in the comment section below. इसी के साथ साथ YouTube वाले बर्हाई कर्म subscribe कर लें. 70% of you do not subscribe to the channel just algorithm shows you the videos and you watch them. Subscribe कर लेंगे तो हमारा number पड़ेगा अच्छा लगेगा और अगर आप like करेंगे इस video को तो ज़्यादा लोगों के पास conversation पहुंचेगी. So would urge you to like that as well और योजना वाले subscribe का button दबाएंगे. तो आने वाले episodes के आपको notification मिलेगी. इसी के साथ साथ हमने Discord पर अपनी community launch की है जहां पर हम we creating leaders from Pakistan who are connected to the global economy and are now tying their income to the dollar whether that means you are able to find opportunities abroad जो कि I am a huge proponent of sending as many people as possible to outside of Pakistan as long as they are connected to Pakistan. But इसी के साथ साथ बहुत सारी industries Pakistan में rise करेंगी in the coming months and years जो कि dollar based होंगी and outward focused होंगी rather than inward focused. And we're sharing a lot of insight there. We're connected connecting people who are focused on the same mission. You can join that community if you're interested. इसी के साथ साथ this was सैयद मज़हब अलासन जैदी. You were watching Thought Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.