Picking up the Baton

He represents the third generation of leading family business conglomerate Elite Group. He has left behind the lure of North American corporate life and devoted his time and energy to his family business. He is Shayaan Seraj. In the span of five years, he handled multiple portfolios of the group and continuously innovated through new ventures such as NEW FACE fabric masks and Bashae K-Bab food delivery. Kazi Sifat speaks to Shayaan Seraj to understand the dynamics of the group and challenges and opportunities of the Bangladeshi market.

True Pioneers of Industry in Bangladesh

Elite Group, a multi-generation family business, has withstood the test of time. The journey of the group began with Serajuddin Ahmed establishing Elite Paint, the first local paint company of the country in 1952. As one of the region’s first industrial titans, his early days of perseverance have inspired many today. He travelled the country, far and wide, personally transporting paint on ‘pushcarts,’ and ‘dinghies’ to his clients wherever they were. It was this attitude that led paint dealers to become fiercely loyal to him. And many even break down in tears when speaking of their relationship.

Understanding the growth trajectory of Bangladesh, he expanded aggressively into other portfolios including banking, garments, insurance, steel, tea and more. With a clear and distilled vision, he single-handedly dominated multiple industries and turned the Elite brand into an empire of enterprises. His business acumen resulted in placement on multiple committees of the government so that he could share his opinion on behalf of the private sector for critical issues such as International Trade and Public Finance. His contribution resonates across government offices till today with access provided by simply uttering his brand’s name. 

Three Generations of Change Makers

Today, the second and third generations of Late Serajuddin Ahmed’s bloodline uphold some of the industries within the Group. One of the key members of the organization is Shayaan Seraj, the younger grandson of the late founder. Under the guidance of his father and uncle, Ramzul Seraj and Sajedur Seraj, he is energizing the relatively smaller but still mighty portfolios of paint and steel, Aqua Paints & Elite Steel. 

Born from Paint—a New Brand in an Established Enterprise

British educated chemical engineer and oldest son of Late Serajuddin Ahmed, Ramzul Seraj set up a state-of-the-art paint and chemical factory in Tongi, Gazipur in 2001. Aqua Paints was established to give the family conglomerate a foothold in the capital of the country, Dhaka. His engineering strength can be seen through its backward linkage speciality of formulating and producing high-performance binders, resins and emulsions which can constitute up to 50% of a paint product. In addition to its own Aqua brand, the factory supplies these binders to paint companies across the country. 

Asian Paints entered the market roughly twenty years ago. Akzonobel and Jotun, the global leaders in decorative and marine respectively, joined around five years ago. Nerolac recently purchased a local company’s operations. There are rumours of American based Sherwin Williams’ interest in the market too. As a reference, per capita, paint consumption in Bangladesh is 1.15kg against the Indian average of 4kg and global consumption of 15kg. This is why there is so much interest in the local paint market.

According to Shayaan, there is a need to differentiate brands. What appeals to the masses may not appeal to niche audiences. Youth today are digital natives. They are tomorrow’s consumers of paint and need to be approached differently.

The word, ‘Aqua’ comes from Latin and is intended to symbolize one of the earth’s most natural and purest resources, water. Through its moniker and actions, the organization takes climate change seriously. It was the first paint factory in Bangladesh to install an Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to treat wastewater and reuse it in production processes. The greenery inside the factory compound was an industry first and meant to show both workers, suppliers and clients the importance of preserving the natural environment while doing business. Product packaging is designed featuring social messages that include, ‘Gaach Lagaan, Poribesh Bachaan’ (Plant a Tree, Save the Environment) as well as the latest prevention tips against COVID-19. It was also the first paint company to innovatively colour circles outside tea stalls, pharmacies and wet markets to demonstrate how to maintain social distance.

With deteriorating air quality and a general lack of awareness from several industries on issues such as global warming, Aqua Paints aspires to lead the next generation of leaders in joining the fight against climate change. This is exactly what Shayaan believes to be the spirit of the Aqua Paints brand.

Struggles of joining the Family Business Conglomerate 

Elite Group is a vast empire having its roots entrenched in multiple industries. As Group Director, Shayaan Seraj is involved with influencing key decisions across the business. However, it was quite a challenge to adapt to the local climate and culture of Bangladesh.

Shayaan graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto in Canada where he specialized in Finance and Economics. While studying, he was kept on a tight budget by his father and worked multiple part-time jobs to earn money. He worked at a call centre reaching out to alumni for donations and even acted as a brand promoter for multiple brands including Coke Zero. He proudly claims that these menial jobs taught him essential skills in communication, it gave him the confidence to approach anyone and everyone. Upon graduation, during the recession of 2009, for a brief period, he worked as an assistant at a VOIP company and even made coffee runs for his senior colleagues. This grounded Shayaan and made him appreciate the contributions of junior colleagues. 

Understanding the growing influence of digital media, Shayaan moved to and progressed the ranks in three global communication agencies, British WPP, American Interpublic and French Publicis. While in the latter, he managed the multi-million-dollar media budget of Canada’s largest financial services company, TD Bank. He drove multi-channel marketing and led the bank’s efforts in using technology to retarget customers across their digital journeys. This resulted in numerous awards including the distinguished Rising Stars by New York-based Gramercy Institute and he also helped the bank in achieving YouTube’s Most Viewed for one of their videos. 

In late 2015, Shayaan returned to his homeland, Bangladesh. Bright-eyed and hopeful, he wanted to implement what he learned in Toronto in the family business. This however was not going to be easy. He realized that the work culture was completely different. The people were completely different, their attitudes, their behaviours and their integrity. Technology was not familiar to all. Teams were afraid to use email for fear of record keeping. Many were unfamiliar with Excel or Word. There was a reluctance to adopt new technologies due to the transparency it brought.

To acclimatize, Shayaan apparently had to ‘unlearn’ everything that he knew and ‘relearn’ how to work locally. With time, the relationship with his team grew stronger. This was accelerated when the team saw Shayaan travel all over the country, far and wide, visiting clients and project sites. Whether large contractors or shop boys, chief engineers or assistants, ‘montris’ or ‘mistiris’, his grounding allowed him to mix with everyone and adapt to all environments. The hardware stores who worked with his grandfather were reminded of the times when Late Serajuddin Ahmed travelled and carried goods physically to each site. 

One difficulty that persists with Shayaan in local business is the system of ‘credit sales.’ He feels that in Bangladesh, the weak enforcement of contracts makes it very challenging. Once products are sold on credit, if the customer defaulted or fled, it becomes next to impossible to realize the funds. Many dealers simply refuse to work with security instruments such as post-dated cheques and bank guarantees. Shayaan hopes that the government increases financial oversight among retailers, grants power to legal bodies to ensure enforcement of contracts and brings a higher degree of transparency in transactions.

Formula for Success in the Paint Industry

Whether it be painting your bedroom, kitchen or even megaprojects such as the Padma Bridge or Metrorail, the business is influenced by painters or colloquially known as “rong mistiri.” A person rarely looks for a painter himself. He usually asks the house or building caretaker. There is a Do-It-For-Me culture here compared to Do-It-Yourself in the west. As such, painters are the gatekeepers of the industry.

Shayaan’s strategy with clients involves ‘deep linking.’ When asked, he says, “this is essentially connecting the client’s operations with mine to such an extent that both are integrated and accessible 24/7 in real-time to address each other’s needs. It brings together all functions of the business across levels, from the managing director to production and supply chain, even the delivery drivers.”

This insight was generated during Shayaan’s Canadian work experiences and his menial part-time roles while studying. Everybody can contribute if given the opportunity to. ‘Deep linking’ enables fast communication and coordination. For rong mistiri specifically, through WhatsApp voice notes alone, he can have the product delivered to the site with minimal effort.

Shayaan coined terminology for each product in their paint portfolio to align with the current generation’s philosophy. His exterior protective coating or paint is called DEFENDER, intended to echo thoughts of a football player protecting his team from getting scored against. It is meant to demonstrate a Captain Planet styled superhero protecting one’s home. While the luxury interior paint category is called Silk nationally, he developed the brand Muslin for their own. This was for users to envision Muslin as superior to silk due to its delicate and fine handwoven legacy from early Bengal. “Essentially, nobody wants to provide a below-par product, almost everybody is on par, we are all trying to differentiate through brand.” 

Shayaan is focused on youth empowerment and has allowed internships every quarter in their organization. By allowing them a high degree of access increases their ability to learn and impact the organization. This mentality likely comes from his time in junior roles in Toronto.

On another note, when asked about his views on solving business problems and advice for peers, he strongly advocated that the key to solving problems was to go to the root. According to him, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is one of the easiest tools. What’s the problem? Why did it happen? What will be done to prevent it from happening again? And make sure to probe why continuously till you reach the root.

Reinforcing Foundations with High-Grade Steel

Through Elite Steel’s marketing efforts, Shayaan has been able to differentiate its Pure 60 Grade features. Although there are over 100 steel factories in Bangladesh, the market is dominated by the Big 4 of BSRM, KSRM, AKS & GPH. “With our brand, I host countless seminars and virtual dialogues to prove the due diligence we practice in our manufacturing. We are one of a handful that can claim the Pure 60 label due to the ASTM guideline chemical composition of the rods,” says Shayaan.

Due to capital limitations, he cannot become a titan in this sector but would like to play a role as a reliable partner for government infrastructure.

Innovate, Innovate and Continuously Innovate

While people speak of innovation as coming from startups only, Shayaan feels that it comes from manufacturing too. In July of last year, he experimented with fabric masks under the NEW FACE brand and to his surprise, there has been only praise. Along with the quality of fabric and workmanship, he wanted the masks to bring about a change in attitude. The brand, once worn, was supposed to give the person new energy, a new spirit and a new philosophy. Diplomats such as the Turkish and Dutch Ambassadors are regularly seen wearing the masks.

Understanding the growing importance of satisfying the youth while in lockdown, and to keep people home, he is experimenting along with a few partners on delivering unique cuisines such as Balinese and Uzbek Bukhara Kababs. Through Bashae Balinese and Bashae K-Babs, he hopes to soon get into peoples’ stomachs. “I think it’s important to give people tasty food while at the same time controlling the levels of sugar and salt to make it healthy,” says Shayaan.

Breaking the Hierarchy— Connecting Teams

“Everybody should be able to come to my room [and share ideas]”, said Shayaan in his interview with COLORS. Being the down-to-earth person that he is, Shayaan believes one should be equally comfortable going to lunch with both the president and the peon. Such humility in corporate leaders is very rare in Bangladesh. The philosophy behind this is that if the corporate leaders directly connect with the employees, it produces a truly collaborative workforce. And forces every member to communicate and be accountable. It was his initiative to develop the free-flowing organic structure of communication instead of hierarchical. 

Shayaan played a critical role in ‘deep linking’ teams in Aqua Paints and Elite Steel. He introduced WhatsApp in 2017 and made group chats for each department in the organization as well as their ecosystem of suppliers. By studying Toyota’s supply chain, one can understand the importance of free-flowing information, from the widget to the finished car. 

Personal Life of a Young Changemaker

Since 1952, the seeds planted by Late Serajuddin Ahmed have journeyed a long way.  Elite Group along with its many business units travelled quite some distance. Now, it rests in the hands of a new generation of leaders such as Shayaan Seraj. 

Aside from work, he stays active with social work and sports. Shayaan is the on the Executive Committee of Gulshan Society and the Convener for both the Traffic Management and Civic Utilities Teams. Continuing his drive to digitize, he raised sponsorships to give each of his community police and cleaners a smartphone with data. This resulted in him coordinating his team to assist Dhaka Metropolitan Police in keeping away pedestrians from the 2019 Gulshan 1 Market Fire. He is also the Country Alumni Representative for the University of Toronto and one of the drivers of the Canada Bangladesh Alumni Association.

Shayaan is a superfan of Manchester United and happy to see his childhood idol Ole Gunnar Solskjaer manage the football club and feels it has been tough since the club’s glory days under Sir Alex Ferguson. “It takes a while to bring about stability after the departure of such an experienced manager.” He is also a runner and misses his freedom on the paths, trails and parks of Toronto. As a nature enthusiast, he misses hiking. He fondly remembers the oxygen-rich environments of the Rockies in Alberta. Banff National Park holds a special place in his heart. In addition, he plays squash and practices yoga believing it to bring calmness to the mind and soul.

Shayaan is extremely passionate about music with tetra bytes of audiophile-grade music spanning classical to jazz, rock to metal, deep house to the world. However, it is the emerging genre of Lo-Fi that has caught his attention and occupies his playlist these last few years. 

With the Chessboard pieces in place, it is Time to Thrive

All four sons, Ramzul Seraj, Selim Ahmed, Feroz Ahmed and Sajedur Seraj and their respective children are leading different establishments laid by the founder, Late Serajuddin Ahmed. From banking to steel, all members are working hard in their own ways. 

With such a strong guiding business principle, Shayaan is confident that the brands, Elite, Aqua as well as their recent introductions in fashion and food are here to last.

“Inshallah, through dedication and perseverance, we hope to carry forward the light set forth by our parents and grandparents!” Shayaan ends.