Guddu Shani has been in the industry for more than 15 years, how have you seen your brand evolve within the years?
We grew our company from a team of two (Guddu & Shani) to a company of 172 people. It has been a tremendous journey. Shani started his career as an interactive designer and Guddu as a textile designer. At the same time, photography had been a hobby throughout student life for us and eventually adopted it as a profession when we finished our studies. The best part had been that we didn't stop there. We started brand consulting, explored film making, design thinking, data-driven creative & marketing, and so many other things. Some people think that we are mad.
Guddu Shani is known for innovation in terms of photography, advertising, marketing, and growth hacking – how did the brand manage this transition?
Our secret sauce had been a constant RND and study. We never stopped studying even during the busiest working days. A businessman has to continually do two jobs. A- living in the business B- living on the business.
We have seen various individuals who have worked at Guddu Shani within the past who have not set up their own businesses as well as winning multiple awards from photography, hair & make-up etc. Do you consider the brand as an institute where people tend to learn the know-how?
YES! that had been the vision of the company: 'To create jobs by being Pakistan's reputed data-driven company. A company that raises the bar to a level where it becomes a significant contributor in the national economy, human development and a catalyst in Pakistan's global recognition.' This is the reason that we worked on institutionalizing the brand, and eventually, in the 15th year, we decided to increase our focus dedicated towards enablement.
We have come to hear that the brand is further evolving with the creation of the initiative #IWillGiveBack – could you give us more details on this.
As mentioned above, we are dedicating ourselves towards enablement, this initiative is all about that. We have worked out a digital platform as NATIONAL GROWTH PLAN. This is an integrated and unified digital platform. The core objective is to Trigger Innovation Economy in Pakistan through Knowledge of Design Thinking. This will be consisting of multiple apps and web. It will work as an Innovation Lab for Industry, as a school for Learners (Youth & working professionals) and a Community to connect innovative human resources with industry for freelance work, jobs and resolve more significant challenges through crowd knowledge. The platform will primarily be working on fertilizing the mind-set of Pakistani's for the Innovation Economy. These 15 minutes are worth it for Prime Minister to listen to the National Growth Plan designed by Guddu shani.
https://youtu.be/Kk6q2KukasE
How will this help the industry in Pakistan--be it fashion or even other industries?
A whole fleet of trainers (trained through our train the trainer & teacher program) will be working on enablement activities, including webinars, workshops, and boot camps about Design Thinking that will eventually produce a more productive and innovative human resource for the industry. On the other hand, our master trainers will take the industry's pain points, involve expert professionals to prepare knowledge base around those problems, and resolve them through Community with the process of design thinking that is the intelligence of the crowd.
What are you looking at in terms of the outcome of this initiative?
The outcome is going to be huge, In ShaAllah. It will influence over 10 million minds of Pakistanis (Youth, Working professionals from labour to C-Level), It will work initially with 6 verticals (Medical, Education, IT, Communication industry, Export & Local Retail), It will train 1000+ trainers. those will be conducting over 11500 enablement activities in one year.