Star Tech: From a small store in Multiplan to a tech-retail giant
A customer service-driven approach has allowed Star Tech and Engineering Ltd. to become a tech-retail giant that employs 700 people, operates 15 branches and an e-commerce site; and also be the authorised dealer of 24 international brands
Not everyone is gifted with the ability to turn their vision into success. Those capable of it not only change their own fortune but that of millions of others. Md Jahed Ali Bhuiyan is one such example of a person.
"When we first started," recalled Jahed, "we very often had to endure prolonged periods of load shedding. Our customers had to take the stairs to reach our tiny shop on the ninth floor of the Multiplan Centre." That was 2007.
While others may second-guess themselves in such a scenario, Jahed remained unapologetically committed to his vision and his two principles: quality products and customer service.
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As a result, after nearly 15 years, Jahed's company, Star Tech and Engineering Ltd., has earned the status as one of the leading tech-retailers in Bangladesh. As one of the founders and its current director, Jahed has become a pioneering figure in this sector.
When Jahed was working as an employee of a tech company, he realised that Bangladesh needed to improve on its technological infrastructure to better integrate itself in the global economy. Knowing that the country will eventually require reliable tech-retailers, Jahed, along with his brothers, took an epochal risk; which, as we can see, paid off.
Their vision, from the very beginning, was to create a retail chain for tech products; a chain that will not only be accessible to people across the country but also provide them with the necessary aftercare for their gadgets.
There were no such stores in Bangladesh at the time. Most people did not even trust the tech products sold in Bangladesh. In a market which lacked customer confidence, Star Tech was a breath of fresh air for many consumers.
"From the very beginning, our aim was to provide customers with the best quality products and maintain better after-sales service. We wanted to achieve nothing but complete customer satisfaction and obtain their loyalty," Jahed remarked.
The consumer driven approach has helped Star Tech, not only to retain their existing customers, but also to add new ones. In Bangladesh, people usually put more trust in the recommendations from friends, family members and acquaintances than in advertisements and television commercials.
As a result, Star Tech's approach worked like a charm. Their reputation grew solely through word-of-mouth and that enabled them to achieve a stable consumer base in their early years.
But the company had to endure many adversities to prove its resilience in the market. One of the earliest struggles for the tech-retailer was in terms of manpower. As a new company, Star Tech could not afford overhead expenditure and therefore, had to walk a thin line between maintaining customer service and ensuring the well-being of its employees.
The company braved through those periods of difficulty, thanks in no small parts to Jahed. By prioritising customer service, Star Tech was able not only to get newer customers, but was also able to expand in the most sincere meaning of the word.
Right now, it has branches in five major cities including: Dhaka, Chattogram, Gazipur, Khulna and Rangpur. A start-up, which struggled with scarcity of manpower, Star Tech currently employs over 700 people.
To be able to provide specialised services for corporate clients, Star Tech has already assembled an experienced sales team. Their main goal is to assist corporate organisations to pick up the right tech products and, likewise, provide after-sales care.
But one of the main features of the company is its robust and effective e-commerce website. From letting consumers buy any gadget they need to helping them construct their dream personal computer, it has become a benchmark for other tech-retailers of our country to follow.
According to Jahed, more than 1 lakh visitors hit their website everyday.
The company has even begun to educate their customers about the available products it has and their usage via live sessions hosted through their Facebook page. This is yet another part of their customer care, as described by him, for it allows consumers to remain up to date about the latest products available in Bangladesh.
In less than 15 years, Star Tech has established itself as a major player in the IT sector of Bangladesh quite firmly. But what really has enabled them to achieve such an important place in the tech-market of our country?
"Everybody asks me what is the secret behind our success," said Jahed , "and I always tell them, there is no secret. Delivering quality products and providing effective customer support, that is the main job of a tech-retailer. If a company can provide that, they will be successful."
The company maintains a "zero tolerance policy." Both on and offline, it prioritises every single complaint and its employees work on those complaints until they are solved properly. Rather than seeing consumers just a passive part of the business, Star Tech has built a cooperative relationship with them.
Customers identify the potential problems with the company's products and procedures and the company puts great effort into solving them. This is how they have remained viable in the market for such a long time.
As the IT sector of our country continues to grow, Star Tech has committed itself to supplying the sector with cutting-edge tech products which are incredibly reliable.
Currently, it is the authorised distributor of 24 famous computer, gaming accessories and component brands like: Antec, Asrock, Razer, Lian-Li, Noctua, R&M, Bitfenix and Palit, etc. And even though the company already operates out of five major cities in Bangladesh, it is planning on further expansion all the same.
Despite having an effective e-commerce website, the company is not reliant on it alone.
Bricks-and-mortar stores, which Star Tech has, allow its employees to more effectively deliver customer care. This practice also increases the confidence of customers as they are able to just walk into a store with their problems and leave with a quick solution.
In this age, when a laptop and an internet connection can provide unlimited opportunities, companies like Star Tech will spearhead the technological revolution we have to undertake, to prepare us and the upcoming generations for the future, stressed Md Jahed Ali Bhuiyan in the interview.
