South Asian Business news and information

Shameem Ahsan is the founder and CEO of eGeneration Limited. eGeneration is a software outsourcing services company of Bangladesh and it is involved with application development and maintenance, web solutions, customer relationship management solutions etc. The company has a number of clients in USA, Canada, Denmark, Russia and Japan. Shameem Ahsan is one of the youngest but successful entrepreneurs in Information Technology (IT) sector of Bangladesh. He is also the Vice President of BASIS, the national association of Software and ITES companies in Bangladesh. He also received the best young entrepreneur award from Prime Minister of Bangladesh at Dhaka Chamber Business Award. Mr. Ahsan, along with a very strong team of young professionals, is working to expand his company in different international markets and create an international brand.

Shameem Ahsan gave me an interview for SouthAsiaBiz where he talked about his company and his future plan. Excerpts from the interview here:

 
 Razib Ahmed: Tell us about yourself and your company.

Shameem Ahsan: Before establishing eGeneration, I was in the USA where I did my graduation in Management Information Systems from the University of Central Oklahoma. Upon completing my graduation, I worked in the IT departments of Supreme Court of Oklahoma and AT&T Wireless. While working in the US, I dreamt about forming a global outsourcing company which will be headquartered in Bangladesh service global clients. Then I made the business plan of eGeneration and came back home to fulfill my dream. After returning from USA, I launched eGeneration in December 2003. Our company mainly works on software outsourcing services. We have clients in USA, Canada, Denmark, Japan and Russia. In Bangladesh, we provide our services to some multi-national companies, Non government organization and banks. Currently we are offering four types of services - offshore and onsite software development, customer relationship management solutions, web solutions and web content management systems, and IT consulting.

 
Razib Ahmed: How many employees are currently working in your company and what are your company's recent successes?

Shameem Ahsan:  Currently, we have around 20 full time employees and 10 part time employees. Because of their hard work and dedication, eGeneration has received many awards and recognitions. We recently received "Best IT User Award" for developing customer relationship management solutions for IOM, which is sole distributor of TOSHIBA in Bangladesh.

 
 Razib Ahmed: Working within the limitations in Bangladesh what kind of problems are you facing?

Shameem Ahsan: One of the main problems we are facing is to market Bangladesh brand before marketing our own company. In various IT fairs in abroad countries like Vietnam, China, India, Pakistan take big pavilions with beautiful decorations . IT minister, commerce minister, other major government officials of the corresponding country remain in the stall for sometime during the fair or EXPO to promote their country. They organize seminars and invite various potential buyers. On the contrary, Bangladeshi companies remain in small stalls in one corner and hardly anyone from the government are present. This gives a poor image of Bangladesh to the clients. Our government should spend more money in building country image and country branding.

Another major problem is the price of internet bandwidth. It is too much even compared to our neighboring countries. BTRC recently pushed for reduction and we appreciate it but the price must go down even more. BASIS has taken an arrangement for buying bulk bandwidth and provide this bandwidth to its members without making any profit. It is a praise -worthy initiative and when implemented, it will be helpful for our companies. Still, I feel that the price of bandwidth must be reduced substantially.

  
Razib Ahmed: What is the future plan of eGeneration?

Shameem Ahsan: Very soon, a Danish company is going to set up a offshore development center in eGeneration. Within one year, we will set up an office in North America and another office in Europe. Thus, we will be closer to our clients. We also have plans to double our head count every year. Regarding finance, we have plan to get listed in Stock Exchange and float our share. We would like to share our profit with the people of our society. We are also targeting to get CMMI Level 3 certification within 2 years.

 
Razib Ahmed: You have worked in USA and now you have some employees in Bangladesh. What is your evaluation about IT professionals and software programmers of Bangladesh? 

Shameem Ahsan: I feel that in programming level we have some programmers and they are equal to or better than any programmers in the world. However, the problem is that many students in our country are not aware or well informed about the tremendous growth that has been taking place in the software industry recently. Ten years ago, many students were interested about computer science and engineering because of the hype created by training institutes like NIIT, Aptech etc. And at that time, they got frustrated when they saw that there were not enough jobs. Now, the situation is reverse. There are many software companies in Bangladesh who are getting a lot of overseas jobs but there are not getting enough qualified programmers. Not too many students are enrolling in computer science department as they are unaware about the current and future opportunities in local and international IT market.

 
Razib Ahmed: We sometimes hear that Bangladeshi software companies are weak when it comes to marketing. You are a success story and your company is working with companies from several countries. What is your advice for the entrepreneur of a new and small software company?

Shameem Ahsan: First of all, I would suggest them to become member of BASIS which  I would recommend them to make an international standard website with enough information and also make a good brochure so that they can present themselves professionally. They can also register at websites like eLance, Guru etc to get some experience about small outsourcing projects. They should also participate in different workshops and training programs organized by BASIS. Participating in this kind of events will most of the time cost them little or no money. So, they can get valuable experience, knowledge and information. If all the IT companies, BASIS, Government, Educational institutes and media can work together for the development of the ICT sector of Bangladesh, I am confident that we will be able achieve our goal to establish our country as one of the leading IT outsourcing destination of the world.