Mian Mohammad Fazal is the founder and chairman of the Orient Group of Companies, a Pakistani conglomerate that operates in various industries such as textiles, cement, chemicals, and power generation. The company was founded in 1957 and has since grown into one of the largest private sector entities in Pakistan. Fazal is known for his business acumen and philanthropic efforts in the country.
In the early 2000s, Orient Group of Companies became one of the most successful home electronics brands in Pakistan. The company had its very humble beginnings almost five decades ago from a small retail operation in Lahore. The man who led the company from its humble beginnings to inspiring heights was Mian Muhammad Fazal. He along with his team worked hard towards bringing new product lines to Pakistan and introducing them to professionally managed marketing activities. Today, the company has a huge production setup and a sprawling dealer network nationwide.
Mian Muhammad Fazal Chairman of the Orient Group of Companies made the Orient Empire just by working hard and enduring sleepless nights.
Bao Fazal has an inspirational story behind his success, Bao Fazal was born in the Misri Shah area of the walled city of Lahore, to a poor family, where his dad was running a tea stall near Railway Station, Lahore.
Bao Fazal who just passed 6th grade from school left school and joined his father to help him at his tea stall in the late 1960s, Bao Fazal would serve tea to passengers at the railway station and wash the cups of tea at stalls.
While working at a tea stall for several years Bao Fazal became sick of the customers’ opinions and discussions on current affairs, he wanted to do a different thing other than selling tea.
In those days Still Photography business was at its peak, Bao Fazal took some money from his father, purchased a used still camera, and started taking pictures of tourists who came to visit Lahore.
All the day he would spend in the walled city of Lahore, taking pictures of people with his old manual film camera and at night he would develop film rolls and print the photos in a small store room at his father’s tea stall.
After working for 5 years Bao Fazal opened his own shop near his father’s tea stall and shifted his studio from the footpath to his shop. Now he would do a photo shoot at his shop and develop prints there as well.
In those days photocopy machines were introduced in Pakistan. Bao Fazal also buy a photocopy machine for extra income. With the photocopy machine he started earning more money, and now Bao Fazal also started selling rolls of 35 mm film for cameras.
In the 1970s his sons also joined his business, now they started selling rolls of 35 mm film for cameras at wholesale and expanded their business.
Later in the 1980s, Bao Fazal made a color lab, where he would print color photographs and started importing film rolls, and printing papers from Mitsubishi company and became whole sellers for Mitsubishi in Pakistan by 1995.
In 1998 due to the growing popularity of Digital Cameras, their business went down. By this time Fazal’s youngest son who graduated from abroad joined the family business.
Fazal’s son came up with the latest idea of that time and started selling Motorola Mobiles and energy saver bulbs, but having no experience in the field, their business failed and they lost huge sums of money.
Bao Fazal who was working with Mitsubishi company for a long time contacted them again and started selling their other products including Air Conditions. Bao Fazal imported 500 units of Mitsubishi Air Conditions and in a span of a few weeks, he sold all of them.
They imported and sold Air Conditions till 2004 with a minor profit margin. In 2005 Bao Fazal purchased land on the outskirts of Lahore and with the help of Mitsubishi corporation, started a plant with the name ‘Orient Group’ to assemble air conditions in Pakistan instead of importing the whole units. In 2007 Orient Group started making its own air conditioners. Now Orient Group is one of Pakistan’s largest consumer electronics manufacturers & a key player in the IoT & E-commerce space apart from providing innovation-led products & helping organizations transform digitally, it has also positioned itself for sustained growth in the digital economy.
Today Orient Group of Companies, has a huge production setup and a sprawling dealer network all over the country, selling their own products, Air Conditioners, Refrigerators, LED TVs, Microwave Ovens, Water Dispensers, and Washing Machines.
