Muntazir Haider’s journey as an Entrepreneur, Marketer, Strategist, and Brand Maker is interesting and inspiring. In this interview, Muntazir shares his early life and the major turning points in his career path, the inspiration behind setting up his venture, and mitigating the risks in this interview.
Michael & Parker is aiming for global reach with local thoughts – by providing quality outsourcing services to clients – with the intent to make life easier for businesses. While delivering customized quality solutions, the brand is helping other businesses rise above their vision and fulfill their requirements with various business solutions. Muntazir’s take on fostering innovation, embracing the latest trends and innovation, offers valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs in the industry.
Critical Milestones in this Journey
We started the interview by asking, “Can you share key milestones and turning points in your journey as an industry leader or entrepreneur?”
Muntazir Haider shared, “From an early age, I enthusiastically traded things around and loved to explore the junkyard. This nature of being an opportunist and explorer is the prominent foundation of my present position.
Every opportunity that has come across – proactive or otherwise, that has led Michael & Parker into global expansion has been a critical turning point. But the big turns came when taking this ages-old conventional brand out of the readily explored Middle East area into the global landscape.
Today, our brand is one of the fastest-growing Asian Management Consultancies with global reach and local thoughts. With a presence in 03 continents and over 14 countries – strengthening, consolidating, and expanding. So to conclude, every time we entered a territory with the intent to conquer, has been a milestone and each revision of mission and alignment to vision has been the turning point.”
Connecting The Dots
We were curious to learn what inspired Muntazir to build his venture. So we asked, “What inspired you to start your own company or venture in this industry?”
He replied, “My ability to connect the dots by turning gaps into opportunities and then adding them up to create a customized product that has different dynamics, despite looking similar, is my major inspiration. So in a nutshell, we aim to offer customized solutions to every client despite having similar underlying concerns. And that is really what makes us the first choice of our clients. I’m sure that a decade down the road, Michael & Parker will have created a system – a value chain that will revolutionize how the outsourcing industry works today.”
Fostering Innovation
Innovative approaches lead a business to the heights of success. So we asked, “How do you foster innovation within your company? Can you provide an example of a successful innovation initiative?”
Muntazir shared, “The formula of instigating creativity, encouraging innovation, and appreciating ideas has worked well for us. Having a diversified workforce gives us the edge of having diversified mindsets and experiences – each thinking in a different dimension when it comes to problem-solving and creative thinking.
There was once a client who had an issue pertinent to change management and was unwilling to accept that the solution was quite simple, which turned out to be challenging for us.”
He added, “As we brainstormed on prospect solutions and invited our interns to join us with their fresh ideas, one of them came up with a remarkable methodology on Acceptance Algorithm (AA), a nearly forgotten technique. We applied the same, and it worked perfectly. Since then, involving the young heads, previously a norm, has become a rule at our organization.”
Attracting The Right Talent
We were intrigued to learn how the brand ensures having the right talent in its team. So we asked, “How do you attract and retain top talent in your organization?”
“We work aggressively on employee branding – our work requires heart and soul and is tiring for the brains, so we accompany our challenging work with aggressive and effective employee branding techniques. Thus, our employees are not our employees anymore. Rather, they are our associates, our partners, and are realized to be the owners. That sense of connection gives them an ownership feel, resulting in retention and talent attraction becoming easier.” replied Muntazir Haider.
Priceless Aspects
We asked, “How important has mentorship and networking been in your professional journey?”
He continued, “Mentors and Networks – both are priceless for me in my journey. Though I never had any formal mentors, I always looked up to my seniors, instructors, managers, and any and everyone in search of a lesson to learn and then apply to my work.
Conclusively, mentorship is less about having formal mentors; it’s more about learning and having an all-time learner attitude. As for networking, I built mine from scratch, and a significant role in my success comes not just from developing those networks but also from knowing when and how to capitalize on those networks. For me, the latter is of more importance.”
Handling Risks
Risks and challenges are an inevitable part of any business. We asked, “How do you assess and mitigate risks in your business?”
“In Service Sector organizations, risk is more subjective than objective; more to be concluded by behavioral traits at first. Having a proper understanding of it is essential. So, monitoring clients and competitors is very important to assess potential risks.
For risk mitigation, we combine various strategies rather than one at a time. For example, our treasury ensures to engage in futures, forwards, and derivatives based on the company’s financial situation, forecasts, and need for funds. Several other matrices are used for the same purpose.” Muntazir shared.
Adapting To The Latest Trends
To learn more about how Muntazir Haider’s business adapts to the latest trends and market dynamics. We asked, “How do you adapt your business strategy to capitalize on emerging opportunities and industry shifts?”
He replied, “Being a consultancy firm, we rely heavily on technology. One of the emerging opportunities and industry shifts is towards the AI tools that support business strategy. Foreseeing these upcoming trends, we started AI program enrollments in 2021 to ensure that by the time AI breaks through in the industry, our experts have already enhanced their skill sets. This is exactly what happened.”
Advice To Beginners
“What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs in this industry? What key lessons have you learned along the way?”
Muntazir Haider shared, “Always remember that experience is priceless. People will make and break you, while merit will prosper you. Also, loyalty will strengthen, and sacrifices will make you shine. Your sweat will be everything’s price.”
Long-Term Plans That We Asked Muntazir
Our last question was, “What are your long-term goals for your company? How do you plan to remain competitive in the evolving business landscape?”
He concluded, “Our primary long-term goal is to be the global one-stop shop for Consultancy needs. To remain competitive has become the most competitive question in itself. We will always lead and direct towards bringing constant innovation.”
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Find Michael & Parker on LinkedIn or visit Our Website.
