Ghasem Monajati is an Iranian student who belongs to this year’s GEB group. Just like Martin his ambition is to develop a new company.
In the following interview you can get an idea about what his professional project is about.
GEB blog: Hello Ghasem, what professional back ground did you have before doing the GEB?
Ghasem: Hi, my name is Seyed Ghasem Monajati. I graduated in the mathematical field in Iran and I got my Bachelor of Management and International Marketing from the Russian Federation. I have a good experience in international trading and especially in machine tools trading.
GEB blog: Could you describe briefly what your project is about?
Ghasem: FANYAB is a E-Marketplace project which works in the field of machine tools. In fact this is a business project which contains two environments of businesses:
1) An industrial environment: because the products in this marketplace are machine tools for the manufacturing process.
2) An internet and electronic environment: Because we use the internet and a website as tools for our business, the tasks of these tools are to provide a way for our customers to access to our database (E-catalog).
The objective of this project is to buy second hand machines in France and sell them in Iran and Turkey.
For the GEB project (a group project that every GEB student has to choose in the beginning of the year) a team was built to develop the business plan for this project: Selim Cheblal (French), Ali Onur Arisoy (Turk) and me (Iranian). Thanks to our team collaboration we achieved very good results for the phase of the project planning.
Let me indeed that FANYAB was already created in 2004 in Iran but it was working just for the local Iranian market. In this “new GEB project” we implement new ideas and did some market research and found tools to develop this business by expanding the market. Our main target was “ to create a connection between the French and the Turkish market – to create an international business.
To achieve our “goal”, nowadays the best and efficient tool is the internet and to launch an e-business at an international level.
During working on our project we found out more about the weaknesses and strengths of the current FANYAB web site and tried to build an improvement plan to have a more dynamic and active web site.
Also generally speaking, from a business ethics point of view, the FANYAB project team tried to focus on very important values, which we are going to be created in this project:
ü The gap between developed and developing countries will be reduced.
ü Useful machines will not be wasted anymore (environmental aspect)
ü A virtual union between occidental and oriental countries will be built.
GEB blog: In what the GEB could help you to develop your project?
To be honest, the GEB Master was a brilliant chance for the FANYAB project.
If I should describe in one sentence what the GEB taught me, I would say: “Think globally (internationally) and act locally!”
You probably know that, in the GEB Master we all came from different countries, with different cultures, different ideas and for sure from different markets. So this atmosphere was a great opportunity for me to learn about other markets and also the economy of other countries. This permit me to get good ideas from those other countries and act in my local market by implementing specific characteristics of the Iranian market.
Another good point about the GEB Master were the IT courses we got. The skills that I achieved there are very important for me and the FANYAB project, which is based on e-business. Courses like: Internet security, Networking, Competitive intelligence, Database etc. helped me for sure to have more “power” doing FANYAB project.
But you know….for me personally; the most important fact which I REALLY LOVE this GEB Master (out of professional matters) are the “perfect friendship relationships between students of this master”. I found very good friends in this master from other countries and I really enjoyed it a lot with them.
GEB blog: Are you going to launch your company soon?
Ghasem: To create an international company like FANYAB, which we worked on in GEB project, we should analyze more precisely the financial needs and also the legal enquiries. It is an international project with a lot of specific technical parameters (machine tools), so we need more time to be sure about every thing. As we will solve these matters, we won´t establish our company directly. But I hope it will be soon.
Lastly I would thank all professors of the GEB Master from who I learnt a lot of things and also special thanks to Mr. Sirven for organizing and managing the GEB MASTER. Also thanks again to the FANYAB project team for their collaboration.
I wish success for all my friends in GEB.
GEB blog: Thank you a lot for speaking about your project with us and we also wish you the best for your future.
