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food culture and change yeah you've just
had lunch food culture and change how
does that all work in together Muhammad
and payman alawwa are our next speakers
[Applause]
which is hello in the marati as you can
see up there I've used English numerals
to replace the alphabets that are not
there in uh in in Arabic and you
probably see that a lot on on the
internet uh that's something that you'll
see a lot of in our
Outlet how many people here don't know
what a shawarma is can I see a show of
hands so most people do what know what a
Sharma is you probably recognize this uh
gentleman over here my
hero his name isim sha or for
short MIM means teacher and it's a title
that that's has a high regard given to
the people that actually make Shawarma
for you what is a
shawarma succulent pieces or slices of
grilled chicken and meat
meat smothered in sesame seed paste or
garlic
Mayo rolled in warm pza bread
M how could you improve
Perfection H let me see if we can top
that thank you very
much m is that a a Indian sauce Shawarma
an Italian white sauce on my shaa and a
veggie
Shawarma I heard that you guys give
discounts to your Facebook and Twitter
followers is that true
true I believe it's called a Twist count
that's
true well thank you for using this
recycled bag but I won't be needing it
thank you very much see what we wanted
to do was we wanted to take a well-loved
middle eastern sandwich and give it an
international flavor in other words PC
Mac do you guys believe that things
happen for a reason we sure do we also
believe that there are a lot of learning
opportunities in this world and it's
part of the greater master plan over the
next few slides we're going to take you
on a journey our journey and we're going
to show you how certain experiences that
we faced in our lives helped us realize
our
dreams personally I felt like I never
fit into the education system um words
like Daydreamer can't concentrate lazy
were things that you'd see in my report
card unfortunately I failed the second
grade true story
so imagine how a 5-year-old feels when
that
happens uh but luckily I I did uh take a
keen interest in the Arts but later on I
found out it was because I was more
right brain
oriented I actually like school and I I
like the educational system honestly and
I went on to become the High School
Valedictorian and delivered the speech
in three languages one of those
languages English I learned before
before I even went to kindergarten and
that's because my brother my older
brother and my father used to speak
English at home all the time and I was
dying to learn that language so now you
know who the showoff is in the
family you know straight out of high
school I uh I thought why don't I get a
hotel management degree so I said okay I
can do that I thought I'd go to a
fivestar hotel and do some sort of
internship and I did that for seven
months I worked at a festar hotel as a
cook a waiter a front office Clerk and a
telephone operator and although I ended
up getting a business degree it gave me
a lot of great insight into the
industry uh if I were to think back and
and say what was the one thing that got
me into food got me into cooking I would
have to say a book a book called Kitchen
Confidential by a writer called Anthony
bdan um you know what another thing I
want to share is I ended up exploring my
right brain some more and uh I started
to get into the world of jazz as a
singer and I know what you're thinking
he looks like a jazz
singer from my side I took a keen
interest in sports from a very young age
I I love the way it taught me structure
uh it taught me competitiveness and it's
it also taught me how to motivate teams
to to to win and that's very important
for me today I love the game of
basketball I can't sleep at night
without checking news on basketball not
just to know the scores but also tactics
that are used by teams in basketball to
win which I use in my uh workplace and
in my life the other thing that Muhammad
and I did as we were growing up uh
Summers and on weekends my father would
take us to his shop and we have to work
now we didn't like that all the time but
it was truly the first time we got in
touch with the entrepreneurial spirit
that we have today
Believe It or Not Muhammad and I at one
point in time were corporate
suits we knew from a young age that we
wanted that International exposure and
we knew the only way we would get that
is if we would compete for jobs in the
competitive private sector now we didn't
always agree with the principles of
consumerism or the uh or the strategies
by by shareholders of these companies
but 24 years of experience at companies
like buers dorf British American Tobacco
Philip Pepsi and master Foods we learned
so much those are some of the biggest
brands in the world and we have to say
along the way we met a lot of teachers
and these teachers taught us some great
lessons in leadership managing teams
planning for success and more
importantly
branding so nine years ago we had this
crazy idea of evolving or changing a
perfectly good sandwich called the
Shawarma and we thought today if you
want to order a shawarma you have a
choice of two sauces and we asked why
why can't you have more sauces why can't
you have 10 sauces so we said why can't
we create you know additional 10 or 15
or whatever sauces sauces from all over
the world so you can choose between
American sauces and Asian sauces and
European sauces and African sauces and
by doing so give this this new Sharma or
a fusion Sharma an international
positioning the second thing we looked
at was if you wanted to open up a a
shawarma place you would have to hire a
mu Sharma as we saw in the previous
slide so this is a person who who does
this his entire life and we saw that as
a barrier to starting such a business so
we thought what if we automate the
entire process of this this Sharma
outlet and simplify everything so that
we can hire anybody off the streets and
he can make a Sharma right there on this
spot you know there's a lot of great
sharmas across the region across the
word world I I can say but there isn't a
truly great Sharma brand you know unlike
the burgers unlike the the pizzas so so
what if we
created you know a brand of shawarmas
and we gave it a national identity
something to be proud of and what if we
use this brand to encourage people to
think Global but eat local support local
produce now if there's one thing that we
learned um from the corporate suits was
the plan so we put in place seven years
ago a plan A business plan that covered
every aspect of our idea our business so
we we looked at Finance we looked at
marketing we looked at sales operations
and so forth and so forth we even
studied certain competitors whom we used
as benchmarks for our own business
wow being a small
business you would get no respect nobody
would even talk to you we didn't have
our own private uh funds unfortunately
so we couldn't start the business on our
own we approached Banks but the
governance wasn't there and they
couldn't fund small businesses like us
we looked at other models we looked at
Partnerships we looked at private Equity
unfortunately none of that went anywhere
either we approached malls to get
outlets and they said no you're not an
established uh Des ation brand suppliers
we would go to them and say can you
please give us good uh terms they said
no you don't have the minimum quantities
funny enough they were small businesses
at one point in their life but we
persisted we never stopped one day we
were at the Sheik Muhammad establishment
for young Business Leaders on something
totally unrelated and they asked us what
were your aspirations and we said we've
got this crazy Sharma concept and we
talked to them about how unique that
concept was well what they said was is
it possible for us to come tomorrow and
present to their Chief Financial Officer
lucky for us we spent s years working on
that business so it was easy we put the
presentation together that night we went
in the next day we presented fantastic
then they said can you come the
following day and present to the board
of
directors wow you it was you know by
that time we went in we presented but by
that time we were so anxious we were so
excited because we worked seven years on
this and now suddenly in a few days
things were were moving
What followed over the next few weeks
was that the Sheik Muhammad
establishment for young Business Leaders
approved jointly funding our
concept unbelievable
unbelievable could you imagine how it
felt to work on your dream for seven
years and suddenly in a few days see
things move to the next level things
just get pieced together from our side
uh we really like to thank and and a big
thank you to His Highness sh Khalifa bin
Z AL Nan the UAE
president His Highness Sheik Muhammad B
Rashid Al makum the UAE vice president
prime minister and ruler of Dubai His
Highest Sheik hamdan B Muhammad Rashid
Al makum the Dubai Crown Prince and
chairman of executive Council and the
Sheik Muhammad establishment for young
Business Leaders without these
people great ideas of young UAE national
entrepreneur would never see the would
never see the
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light
yeah our story would not be complete
without mentioning our
tribe our
tribe so let me get out of the way
there anybody know Seth go Goden is it
or Goden yeah okay apparently he's uh
he's registered this word so so let's
rephrase
this uh sorry about that Seth and sorry
about the terrible Photoshop job I did
on your
head uh g g WPA it literally means the
wapa tribe in
khi uh they are invisible board members
who make decisions on our on our
business so it's it's not uncommon for
them to make decisions on our processes
on our interior design and even what
goes into our
menu uh it's helped us democratize our
brand um and today we have about 2,000
people following us on uh on our social
media sites on Facebook uh and Twitter
with whom we have daily dialogue with
and and it's terrific um if you are on
on Twitter or Facebook as as a business
because we we listen to goita and they
they keep us in line they tell us what
we're doing right what we're doing wrong
and where we need to improve and that's
the key word we
listen so what is it that we've done
what have we created
exactly basically what we've created is
a brand with heart soul oh sorry that's
the wrong
soul soul and a national
identity so uh
um in terms of a
message we were thinking what what can
we impart to to everybody on this
platform uh and we and we wrote down a
few uh few uh words absolutely
performers
perform creators
create writers
write thinkers
think Challengers challeng
all entrepreneurs
persist so it was about 7 to 8 years ago
where we came up with this crazy idea of
evolving a shawarma and we sat down and
we came up with this crazier name and we
went on the internet and we registered
wp.com 7 to eight years ago and here we
are today if two simple ordinary people
can make their dreams come true what's
stopping you you from realizing
yours thank you
very gentlemen thank you thank you very
much fantastic thank you
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all