BACKGROUND OF THE ENTREPRENUER Mr.

Muhammad Shafiq is the founder and owner of an advertising agency Sunrise Digital which was formed in 1993. We decided to interview particularly him, because we are also working in this field for the last one year, so we thought it could be a good opportunity to get knowledge from a more experienced person in this field that would help us become successful entrepreneurs. Before starting his career, Mr. Shafiq did a diploma in Graphic designing from Karachi, this lead him to join Paragon advertisers as a junior designer in Karachi, in the year 1980. He worked there for 2-3 years and then went on to work in different advertising and designing companies in Karachi (spectrum, Sun Dying). In 1988 he came to Islamabad after joined Ad age here, it was a Karachi based company which started its office in Islamabad, due to some reasons. The first reason was that the office of censor board of advertisements was located in Islamabad, and it was a time taking thing for a company to get the advertisement cleared from the board, which was working in Karachi. And also Islamabad market was at its initial developing stage and there was huge scope for advertisers to tap this market. Mr. Shafiq joined Ad age as an Art Director. He served with this company for 3 years and then moved to Ad group. While he was working in Karachi, apart from his job, he started his own small company with the name of Fast Communications which was consist of two rooms along with his colleague. This venture was more like a part time business, because his major focus was on his job. With all this working experience and strong network of clients, he decided to open his own advertising firm, Sunrise Digital in 1993. Which now is his family business, because later on his three brothers also joined him, who had background of designing and printing? Companys first office was in Sector F-8 in Islamabad, after some years they moved to Blue Area, both these places were rented, and in 200 the company bought its own office in Sector I-10, and has been there since then. Sunrise digitals focus was on below the live activity, which included printing and designing of posters, banners, panaflexs, etc. The company deals with four different types of activities which are: Designing Offset printing Digital printing Large format printing

Alongside carrying on Sunrise Digital, Mr. Shafiq joined Interflow in 1996 and worked there till 2006. Interflow is a big name in advertising with many major projects. Working here provide Mr. Shafiq with more experience and more public relations, which eventually brought business to Sunrise Digital.

MAJOR CLIENTS Major clientele of Sunrise Digital include companies like, Ufore US Aid IUCN Aurat Foundation Paiman Plan Pakistan Unicef Saudi Embassy

Apart from these, there are small companies to whom Sunrise Digital offers its services. REASONS FOR SETTING UP SUNRISE DIGITAL Sunrise Digital was formed because, Mr. Shafiq saw that the market here in Islamabad was not very well educated in the field of advertising, that is use of billboards, posters, banners, etc. for promotion. And also there were not many companies were working in this specific field. So he seized on this opportunity and formed Sunrise Digital. Because of his strong network he was confident that this could be a successful line of work because of lesser competition and much more profit margins. In 1988 when he came to Islamabad, he explains that there were none-few private organizations here and majority of businesses were government owned, these offices were not accustomed to marketing techniques of advertising. So during his stay with Ad group and Ad age, he and his team worked hard on developing the advertising culture in Islamabad. With time private firms started operating in Islamabad, and hence created new opportunities in advertising business. By this time Mr. Shafiq had already developed strong relationships with his clients, and so he decided to open up his own office. COMPETITIVE ADANTAGE The main competitive edge that Sunrise has over his competitors is its Creative Designing and quality of printing. As there are so many advertising agency working in the capital city, the competition is on the bottom line. Cost efficiency and quality are two important factors to get business. OPERATIONS AND STRATEGIES Since its formation Sunrise did many major projects, like it launched advertising campaign(print media) of Ufone, and also worked with US aid, IUCN, UNICEF, Plan Pakistan, to name a few.

Sunrise Digital deals with all types of printing, from visiting cards to large scale printing like pana flex and bill boards, etc. Sunrise Digital does not take any walk-in customers, but rather focuses on working only with corporate clients only. The reason for this is, walk-in customers have small orders and the printing cost is constant whether the order is small or big. So it is more beneficial in working with corporate clients who normally order bulk quantities. Its main focus was to cash upon the network developed by Mr. Shafiq. When he joined Interflow in 1996, he handed over the operations to his younger brother Mr. Muhammad Sadique. While working with Interflow over the period of 10 years, he kept giving business to Sunrise because of his links. The main strategy or focus of the firm is to develop networks. Since it is dealing with corporate clients, it is very important that a strong customer relation is built so that it induces regular repeated orders. Sunrise also focuses on providing the best designing solutions to its clients as it gives them a competitive edge over their competitors. SIDE OPERATIONS In 2000, Mr. Shafiq started a side business of real estate, which went on well until the recession hit the market in 2008. And now this business is moving slowly, because of the market conditions. The profits earned from this side business, helped Sunrise to run, because during that time the business was very sluggish because of the market conditions. Apart from real estate, Mr. Shafiq has some other printing operations going on in Dubai and also in London. FUTURE PROSPECTS Along with its printing and designing efficiency, Sunrise Digital is soon going to launch its own brand of spiral registers, copies and note pads, with the name of A-Zee. Mr. Shafiq also revealed that he is planning to move his business to London because the economic conditions of the country. Suggestion for New Entrepreneurs By Owner He said when he started business then people had no awareness regarding printing business and opportunities were available in printing market.Due to no competition prices were high and the quantity or print margin is low.Bot now market is saturated and competition is increased.Due to yhis the prices go down and print margin or quantity increased. So the entrepreneur who want to come in this field have experience otherwise have a huge investment if they want to be successful.

Suggestions for Sunrise Digital

Expand your Service Offerings They are just focusing on corporate clients.They need to provide their services for individuals.No doubt in saying that corporate clients are potential customers but segment of individual market is higher than corporate clients. Improve customer service and communication with customers Use Technology to Improve Efficiency

Islamabad new project kay liye b kam kia hai ye b ad karo.ministry of population,health ye b clients thay when he was working in adage