Ranked seventh among the Top 100 Indian leaders in the UAE List by Forbes Middle East, as well as all other media, Rizwan Sajan is one of the most prominent UAE businessmen, who is a strong voice of the private sector and an advocate of the UAE’s economy. He has been on the Forbes Middle East list for sixth consecutive time.

With multiple awards to the company’s credit, including the prestigious Dubai Quality Awards, MRM Business Awards, the company has created a benchmark point of reference for success amid challenges for others to follow.

He has transformed a building materials trade – a very traditional business – in to a popular household brand. No one has ever created such as strong brand in the building materials sector, reflecting his acumen in marketing and branding.

Solid foundation

Danube Group owns a number of companies, including Danube Building Materials – its flagship business with 25,000 types of building materials under one roof; Danube Home, its home furnishing arm; Danube Properties – its real estate development arm; Milano, an Italian bath and bathroom solutions provider; Alucopanel – an American aluminum composite panel brand; Danube Hospitality Solutions; American Aesthetic Medical Centre and Starz Media.

Over the course of the last 28 years, the company emerged stronger from every crisis, reflecting a recession-proof sustainable business that could be a role model for others to follow. It has grown amid multiple regional conflicts, wars, economic and financial crises including the Gulf War, global financial crisis of 2008-10, Arab Spring in 2011-2012 as well as global health crises including SARS, H1N1 bird flu and the latest COVID-19 pandemic, making it the most resilient business in the GCC.

As a businessman, Sajan is known for picking up the best people, train them, empower them, monitor them and create a fool-proof enabling system to help the business grow. Today, he remains a relaxed businessman while his people and processes deliver good results year after year, even in crises and pandemics – making it a good case study for business management students.

Despite running such a large group of businesses, Sajan remains a family man, enjoying his life, meeting with family and friends – always wearing a smile. His mantra is to be happy and make others happy – his family, friends, colleagues, customers and other stakeholders.

What is the biggest leadership lesson you learned in 2020 amid the pandemic? 

The most important thing during pandemics is to identify what not to do. Do not panic and keep your cool. Pandemics create knee-jerk reactions among most people.

This is where things could go wrong. Keeping your cool, making an assessment of the situation and then develop a strategy to overcome the pandemic is important.

Pandemics create unusual and sometimes unbearable situation. So, it is important to make an assessment of the situation and undertake precautionary measures to tackle the situation.

That’s exactly what we did at the beginning of the pandemic. Due to loss of business, we made a call to cut costs, temporarily freeze payments, reduced salary for a few months during the lockdown period, to ensure availability of resources to survive for a longer period, if need be. However, as soon as the lockdown was relaxed, we started to get back to business gradually, till the time demand picked up.

One thing we all know that pandemics pose short-term challenges to long-term businesses, institutions and establishments. Pandemics, by nature, do not stay for long. And this is not the first pandemic faced by mankind. However, this is happening in a more globalised world where things spread too fast across the world. That’s why the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic is too high. So, to cut a long story short, keeping cool and focussing on business sustenance are key for a comeback.

What do you think the biggest economic game changer will be over the next five years?

Digitisation. Digital disruption will transform the brick-and-mortar business and usher in a new era – the glimpse of which is already visible. Traditional businesses will lose out, giving way to a completely new economic model driven by technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, etc.

Instead of people going to shops or offices for products and services, products and services will come to consumers. Machine-to-machine interaction will replace human interactions. People will be talking to and dealing more with technology and machines. The world will become more dependent on machines and technology. It’s a whole new world unknown to most of us.

What are the biggest opportunities that growing trade relations between India and UAE represent?

Scientific and strategic collaboration. In a layman’s term, this means: India gives the UAE what it doesn’t have or can’t have and the UAE gives India what India doesn’t have or can’t have.  For example, India needs energy to power its economy that the UAE can provide. The UAE is dependent on imported food – that India could provide to ensure food security.

India could help the UAE in scientific and space technology sectors. India needs capital investment that the UAE can provide to help Indian economy grow. The time-tested UAE-India relationship will evolve at a strategic cooperation level. Similarly trade flow will grow based on the strategic collaboration.