How an Indian farmer with Dh25 built a multimillion-dollar perfume company in the UAE

11 months ago
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From a farmer in India to a perfumer in the UAE, the journey of Haji Ajmal Ali has been a remarkable success story. The late Haji Ajmal Ali started his perfume business with Rs500 (Dh25) in India before reaching the UAE in the early 1960’s. Today the family-owned business is a multi-million dollar corporate entity. His labour of love, Ajmal Perfumes, is standing tall as a testimonial to his perseverance and business acumen.

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Transcript

00:00We celebrate 70 years this year. Our grandfather Haji Ajmal Ali was the founder of Ajmal Perfumes.

00:10UAE is a melting pot where expats have lived here for generations and I'm here at Ajmal Perfumes

00:16to meet Abdullah, his younger brother Asad and his cousin Mariam who are part of a family business

00:24and we are here to talk to them about how they as third generation have been part of this family

00:32empire. The business empire has been so successful started by their grandfather

00:37back in the 50s and 60s and it is today such a successful business. We celebrate 70 years this

00:43year. Our grandfather Haji Ajmal Ali was the founder of Ajmal Perfumes. We originally come

00:50from India. As Oudh was in the backyard that's how the trading of Oudh started. It started with

00:55the trading of Oudh and oil of Oudh which is called Dhan Oudh in Arabic. He then moved to Bombay

01:02to blend oils in a tiny little apartment on where one side was the family would live and

01:08the other side was a little factory stroke shop etc everything. After that he started traveling

01:15to the Gulf and at that time I mean the GCC Arabs have always had trade with Indians. It was

01:23early 60s, I believe it's 61 when Dada came to Dubai for the first time. I say Dubai but he

01:29landed in Sharjah at the time because that was the airport at the time. He had come for a GCC tour.

01:35During that trip he happened to meet a lot of his friends and customers at the time and he met the

01:43leaders of the country during that period and he was extremely enamored by the vision of the

01:50leadership at the time and so when it came time for his sons to sort of branch out he sent his

01:58second son, my uncle Mr. Fakhruddin Ajmal to Dubai to set up business. Our first store in the Gulf

02:05was set up in Dubai. We opened our first store in 1976 in Dubai. We opened our 100th store

02:12in 2006 in UAE. Today Alhamdulillah we have over 200 approximately 280 stores across the region.

02:21We export to about 45 countries around the world and now we are sitting with the third generation.

02:27I'm the first of the third generation and Asad is my younger brother. Mariam is my little cousin

02:35sister. Her father Nazir Ajmal was the nose of the company. He was my mentor and today I'm very

02:43proud to say that Mariam has taken her father's place as the head of perfume. It just seemed

02:48natural to me because my father was the head of perfume and sometime near the end of high school

02:57I don't know how it happened I think maybe I was taking a gap year from between university and high

03:03school and university and he was just like just come to work with me and he actually started

03:08training me in perfume and he recognized that I have a similar talent to him and I had a good

03:16nose. I had a nose and he started training me and then from there it just seemed like the most

03:22natural thing for me to follow in his footsteps. 15 years ago my dad he started a trend of overdosing

03:29perfumes with ingredients and it worked for him and the west is starting to pick up on that now

03:35and they're moving on that trend where they overdose one raw material so it's offensive

03:40in the way that it grabs your attention and it doesn't let go of you so that was something that

03:45he started so he was a person who could see ahead who could see the future maybe it wasn't the right

03:51time for him it worked for us. We do hope the BMW to Boeing there is an immense amount of pressure

03:57we do see a future there. For people who are in the business the only thing one can say is that as

04:06long as you can hold on to your whatever your roots are or whatever you're really really good

04:11at you know this is the time to consolidate your strengths and stick to that be true to

04:17your customer that's the most important thing.

How an Indian farmer with Dh25 built a multimillion-dollar perfume company in the UAE

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