Name: Dr. Mohammed Vaseem Ammar
BBM, MBA, TESOL, Hon. Doct., (LLB)
Company & Job Title: Founder Managing Trustee, Director at Province Group
Province Group includes Province Degree & PG College, Province Diploma Academy, Westline PU College, Pro Coaching Academy, Province Consultants, and Province Foundation.
While I was pursuing my MBA, I felt there was a Gap between work life and college life. I felt there was a need for a bridge between practical and theoretical knowledge.
Hence, I started Province. I dreamt big but started small and expanded to what it is today.
As I entered the field of education, I started meeting people and going places.
- I realized there was so much lacking and so much to do for the weaker section and financially weaker section of people.
- I started an organization to help and guide people to get education loans and scholarships.
- I started to train people to get jobs and settle their families.
Today we have streamlined and organized our services
- We have the Province Foundation which facilitates scholarships, and education loans for deserving students.
- We have Province Consultants who identify important individuals from families, train them, certify them, and get them jobs to run families.
- We have Pro Academy which identifies bright students who are capable of cracking professional exams. We train them here.
At Province College, Academy, and Westline College we work towards providing quality education, at affordable prices and best facilities. Here we work on building the gap between college life and work life by providing work while studying internships. Bridge the gap between practical and theoretical knowledge via interactive sessions, industrial tours, foreign study tours, social activities, etc.
Your Role & Responsbility
I have made sure I build a network, have proper relations with stakeholders in business, and have healthy competition and ethical relationships with competitors. Treat my staff like a family, create an environment where there is no senior or junior concept, and everybody is open to opinions.
- Encourage, motivate, and counsel staff and students.
- Perform regular activities in the neighborhood and the vicinity as a part of social activity.
- These things help a person to sustain and stay in the market/field for longer.
The most pivotal role in shaping your life
My parents. Every parent deserves this for the sacrifices, challenges they face and compromise for their children. They are the real-time heroes.
In terms of learning, I have always been influenced by Prophet Muhammad for the kind of simple life he lived and led. For the life lessons, he taught us to make the world a better place to live in and how to love God.
What do you believe is the most significant hurdle brands face in the digital landscape?
Now, online degrees are also recognized. A student will have no contact with a teacher or college/university. According to me, learning is always in a classroom and with a Guru. Regular degrees should be given more importance and value.
Coaching/tutorial institutes have made use of digital and software tools to make it attractive and charge exorbitant fees from students. This is spoiling the image of education as a Noble industry.
What are the toughest obstacles you’ve faced in life, and what strategies did you use to get past them?
1: Competitors are always the biggest challenge any business faces. I made friends with competitors, made an association to work as a group, and enabled healthy business operations.
2: Funds and finance to run the business, pay rental/salaries/bills/government fee. It took time and many challenges, but we have been very patient and strong. We have now streamlined a system that takes care of each responsibility and expense in an organized manner in advance.
3: Collection of fees is a major challenge. Again, we had to form a team and build some software solutions to manage and efficiently do that.
– Lockdown was a major challenge. We learned that we had to shut down some of our branches which were running under the support of branches that were making a profit. So we planned it well and now we run and make sure each branch/unit takes care of itself in terms of expenses.
What activities do you enjoy when you have some time to yourself?
- I love to travel and explore new cultures/food.
- I love to spend time with my family.
- I spend time with pets and researching.
Your product/solution
As I said earlier, our concept of work while studying enables students to save time, join internships get trained in the industry of their choice, and finish the course simultaneously. By the end of the course, they are not freshers like others, they are also exposed to the field they wanted or aspired for rather than forcibly working in other industries.
Apart from that our concept of practical knowledge enables a student to be startup/entrepreneurial ready. He gets global exposure with foreign study tours, he gets to know how factories and industries work with industry trips, he understands the importance of social responsibility with our regular social activities, he is exposed to talents, realizes his talents, and unlocks his stage fear with our cultural activities, the college trains them on basics of soft skills and personality development to be ready to enter the competitive world. He will be fitness and health-conscious in his life with the meditation, martial arts, and sports activities organized at college.
What tips do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs or chief officers?
- Yes, patience is something you need to learn and adapt.
- Aim big but start small to sustain.
- Last but not least, calm dealings are always successful dealings.
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