Country Manager, Bühler Pakistan

EVOLVE: Please share something about yourself, a brief overview of your professional journey? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: I grew up in a small town of Southern Punjab, named Firoza, Pakistan and had secondary level education there but then for higher education moved to Lahore and completed BE Mechanical Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore and MBA from COMSATS, Lahore. After spending 10 years in various local and International organizations at various positions, I joined the Bühler Group in 2010 as a first employee in Pakistan to develop a very challenging business in the area of Grain Milling and accomplishing various successes in this business, I was given the bigger responsibility to lead the overall business of Buhler in Pakistan in February 2017. 

EVOLVE: Tell our readers about Bühler’s products and services, especially its achievements and future plans in Pakistan? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Bühler is a company with the image of innovation, high quality standards and exemplary after sales support. With this background in mind, every day, billions of people come into contact with Bühler technologies to cover their basic needs for food and mobility. We are the global technology leader in processing equipment for food such as wheat, maize, rice, cereals, noodles, chocolate and animal feed. We also provide high-tech equipment for advanced materials like inks, paints, die-cast aluminum and thin-film coatings used in the automotive, glass and optical industry. To keep our advantage, we invest about 5% of our sales into Research & Development. Here in Pakistan, especially since establishing our local sales force and service station, we can see a clear shift to higher quality requirements in all industries. As people put more emphasis on issues like food safety, production efficiency and energy consumption, our strengths become more relevant – this has helped us achieve breakthroughs in our key markets here. For example, in the last 3-4 years we have constructed several new state-of-the art plants for wheat, rice and animal feed milling.

EVOLVE: How do you opine about the contribution of Bühler in terms of successfully introducing and enhancing the quality and standard of industrial process technologies and solutions in Pakistan? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Being present in over 140 countries has taught us that in order to be successful, you need to first understand the local taste and practices – it’s all about learning from each other. For instance, we developed an entirely new process to produce Whole Wheat Atta safely and hygienically, but with the familiar taste people here prefer. Most customers here have to operate with very limited resources, so we had to adjust our solutions for maximum cost-efficiency. Thus, here especially we need to observe and adapt to local needs.

EVOLVE: Kindly enlighten our readers about Bühler’s claim that “we contribute significantly to feeding the world’s population, setting the focus on food security and safety”? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Looking into the future, we know that by 2050 about 9 billion people will live on this planet, with dwindling resources. So together with our customers and our partners from science and the public sector we need to ensure that all of them have access to safe and affordable nutrition. About 30% of our food is wasted either on the fields or during the processes of harvesting, preservation and distribution, so we are developing processes to reduce this significantly. Secondly, a more efficient production at lower energy consumption will mean a higher return for our clients, which in return encourages them to provide more food on people’s tables, at lower prices. Thirdly, with the advent of more diseases, microtoxins and antibacterial resistance we are investing heavily in optimizing the safety and hygiene of food production. Finally, we are also exploring new alternative sources of protein, such as pulses, algae and insects.

EVOLVE: Pakistan is at its best in producing world’s finest rice. Like Vietnam, is there any probability of setting up a factory, providing high-quality rice processing solutions in Pakistan? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Undoubtedly, Pakistan is producing some of the world’s finest rice and I am privileged to be a partner to the largest rice processors here. This market has huge potential to serve the local as well international clients. But as compared to the total sizes like in SouthEast Asia, China or South Asia, our market is not of large enough size to start manufacturing. Wherever our market is large enough to make a local machine factory viable, we seriously consider these kinds of investments.

EVOLVE: At the 10th European PhD Workshop on Food Engineering and Technology, Buhler aimed to provide a platform to bring together the best young European researchers in the field of Food Engineering. Do you think that any such initiative can be commenced in Pakistan?

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: First of all, let me say that I have immense respect for all the research institutions here as they are producing quality work with limited resources. Pakistan is home to many brilliant institutions and we are lucky enough that some of them are working with us. The above workshop is only one example of the many initiatives we take to connect our practical solutions with the latest development in science, and we are always looking for new and creative ideas. I strongly encourage any institute or individual research to contact us to see how we can collaborate.

EVOLVE: You must be facing a number of business challenges. How do you address them? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: The biggest challenge we face is price sensitivity. As you are well aware, being provided with the limited resources, many here are forced to make short-cuts, like less capital investment and aiming higher rate of return, however, these can often create larger problems down the line. To address this challenge, we conduct workshops to educate our customers about the risks & good practices in their business. We also try to be flexible: if a client cannot afford a complete solution from us, we offer a combination of local and imported key equipment, which often offers a significant performance increase at a lower cost.

EVOLVE: How do you manage a rapidly growing company while focusing on operations? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Simply put, by trusting a talented team to work in the interest of the company. I see a lot of executives here in Pakistan who run their company to the minutest details – as a result, they are exhausted and overworked. In my opinion, you can’t run a larger business efficiently all by yourself. For me, the key functions of a chief executive are hiring the right people, giving them a certain amount of responsibility with freedom and pushing their limits. Then also we develop the process and try to manage these processes.

EVOLVE: Please share any significant ingredient for achieving long term success? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: I think there are few main ingredients for success. Passion for what you do – which will come from the commitment and effort you put into whatever you do – and humility to accept that you can never know enough and you will need to keep learning and improving. Patience and consistency are also very important factors to consider while running long term operations.

EVOLVE: What distinguishes your company from its competitors? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Firstly, we are proud of our 150 years of knowledge, our engineering excellence – our products are the most technologically advanced in the market. Secondly, since we offer such a wide port - folio of products, we can provide our clients with integrated, complete solutions across the entire value chain. Finally, our local presence: no other company has the same number of experts speaking the local language and knowing the local customs as well as the extensive network of service stations.

EVOLVE: How effective do you perceive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Energy consumption of our plant and equipment in operation at our customers’ sites accounts for a large share of the total burden on the environment. We have therefore set for ourselves the goal of reducing both the ecological footprint of our own sites and that of our customers along their value chains. It is our declared goal to become the leader in these capabilities and to set the standard for products that spare resources. This enables us to make a substantial contribution to creating sustainable value chains. The reduction of the ecological footprint therefore goes hand in hand with new technologies for resource-saving production of healthy and nutritious foods, cost reductions, productivity gains, and reduction of food losses and waste. Our process technologies in die casting, dispersion and surface coating help improve sustainable mobility and the energy efficiency of buildings. 

EVOLVE: Is there any particular practice that you want to share with the world in order to make business more productive? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: I simply say to be down to earth and try to find the reason and logic behind each function you are performing in the organization.

EVOLVE: Any message for the readers of EVOLVE magazine? 

Mahboob-ur-Rahman: Most importantly, I want to thank the Pakistani business community and specially the people of Pakistan for their generosity in welcoming us here. If I had one final wish, I would hope that people here pay more attention to what they eat and from where it is coming from. Food safety and hygiene are mostly ignored while eating and then causes bigger problems to people.