Ahmed El Koutbia of Morocco went to the U.S. to study business and information technology, and for six years, he worked for a variety of U.S.-based companies. After September 11, however, Ahmed felt strongly that it was time to return to Morocco.

Upon his return, Ahmed looked around at the quality of services that were offered in Morocco and knew that with his experience and his education, he could offer more. “At the time, the services were really more of a continuation of what I had been doing in the States, which was software development and consulting.

I also felt that the fact that I was a Moroccan would help me in the long run. I had saved money over the years, so I had some seed money to get started with.”
“The idea of having my own company or running a large, successful corporation had always been my dream,” Says Ahmed. In 2002 in Casablanca, he founded Innosoft, which specializes in information technology (IT) training and is the first Sun Microsystems-authorized Java educational center in Morocco.

At first, he concentrated Innosoft’s efforts in the area of software development. But within a few months, he changed the direction of the company to training, where he has focused ever since.

Being an entrepreneur was part of his plan from the beginning, says Ahmed. “My dad owns a couple of clothing shops in Marrakech. These shops were targeted toward women and he was very successful. During the summertime, when I was out of school, I would sit in the shop, which was in a very dense and popular area in Marrakech. And I would sell my own stuff, such as Moroccan pottery. So there I was, 13 years old, making contact with all these different people, selling products that I liked and making money. My dad always encouraged me, fronting me the money to buy large quantities of these items that people really enjoyed looking at and purchasing. It was a great opportunity to watch my dad and observe what he did to run his small business. So my interest in entrepreneurship probably blossomed there.”

When he started Innosoft, Ahmed did not know much about the Moroccan IT market. He had not performed any market studies, and his knowledge came more from casual observation than from rigorous analysis. “The fact that I did not really know what I was getting into was risky behavior,” he says. “Plus, I was investing all my savings, so if I failed, I would hit the ground hard.”

Ahmed’s business smarts were put to the test when an important client took advantage of its business relationship with Innosoft. “The first contracts we got were in software development and we had very few clients, one or two. One client in particular was a government office. So we had spent all this time and money, banking on the fact that we were going to get paid from them at a given time. But that given time came and went, and we did not actually receive payment for a long time. When you rely on one or two clients too much, you give those clients the power to make or break you as a small company. Now, we have small and medium-sized contracts, and we spread ourselves out over a larger base of customers, so that if we miss one target, we have hundreds of other customers we can work with. This way, if something does not work out, it does not have a major impact on our existence.”

Ahmed cites his lack of experience as a definite challenge when he was starting out. “When I was in the United States, I had the background of an engineer or systems architect. I did not really have the experience of running an IT company. I overcame my inexperience by making lots of friends in the business community who were always there to give me advice when I encountered an obstacle or had a question. Knowing the exact niche your company seeks to target in the market is very important, so that your period of experimentation, when you are first starting out, is limited.”

With only three employees at the present time, Ahmed worries about growing his business. He plans to hire a few more employees this year, but, like many entrepreneurs, he got used to doing all the work himself, and thus maintaining a certain quality of service that he could count on. “We have built a great reputation here in the market. When people hear about Java training and Innosoft, they know we offer excellent work here. We just want to be able to continue that kind of service. But the business has grown such that we need to recruit other instructors and get them accredited so that they can teach some courses. In order to do that, we have to establish different procedures so that the company can operate efficiently and successfully.”

When asked what makes Innosoft stand out, Ahmed points out that the company offers concrete value for its clients. Over the years, they have come up with training programs that they believe, “are the best in Morocco with respect to Java and J2EE and technologies of that nature.” Participants in the training get course materials directly from Sun, which include the latest innovations in the JAVA technology. They also receive the source code and everything that would normally come with the training. But it’s really the style of teaching that makes Innosoft a leader. Says Ahmed, “I feel that I can relate to people well in the classroom and they can relate to me. I have been able to develop friendships with these students. Clients usually end up taking not just one course, but three or four. That’s what’s helped us a lot, the affirmation that comes from having repeat clients.”

Culturally, Innosoft and its founder stand out from many other Moroccan businesses. “From the beginning,” says Ahmed, “we wanted to operate the company on sound ethical principles. We don’t give bribes to get business. We don’t evade paying taxes to get above the law. We do our very best to do things by the book and our clients appreciate that. Once they get to know us they feel comfortable. So we get repeat business because of both our ethical nature and our technical excellence.”

But even high ethics and excellence don’t guarantee a competitive advantage. Being the only authorized Sun Java educational center in Morocco helps. But so does the business’s focus on two different markets: individuals and institutions. To encourage individuals to sign up for the company’s training courses, Innosoft offers them a fifteen percent discount. Big companies don’t always pay on time, but individuals come with the cash upfront, which helps maintain a positive cash flow. To differentiate themselves from the competition, Innosoft also does a lot of web advertising as well as offering free monthly technical presentations to the public. “In order to get people in the door, we offer a free seminar on a particular technical subject that would be interesting to lots of people. Toward the end of the presentation, we mention that if they need to know more, we have this course or that course that they can take. Lots of people sign up that way because it offers clients the opportunity to experience the training up front and ask questions before they commit to a course.”

Since Innosoft intends to grow, creating an environment for attracting good employees is important. Ahmed says, “When people come to work at Innosoft, they learn a great deal. Then they go out into the world and put that training and knowledge to work for themselves. Plus, the fact that we have an ethical environment makes people feel safer. We really want to encourage a company culture that celebrates its employees and makes this a place they do not mind spending all their working time in.”

Sometimes the celebrations are small, as when Ahmed treats his staff to a pizza lunch when the checks come in. But in order to attract the best and the brightest, Ahmed admits that he’s going to have to go beyond simple interviews and asking a few technical questions. He needs to develop a schematic approach to hiring that helps him determine not only a potential employee’s experience and knowledge, but their ability to fit in with the business culture he has already created.

In terms of getting the company started, Ahmed believes that using other people’s money is not a great idea. In Morocco, capital funds for risky entrepreneurial activities are not readily available, and it’s not easy to get money from banks. Ahmed had borrowed from friends and family to launch Innosoft, but he does not feel comfortable with debt. “We don’t owe anybody any money as of now. Some people would say this would be an obstacle to our growth, but I think there is really something to be said about trying to do something by waiting until the market responds, and building the company little by little based on that response.

I’ve seen lots of companies come up with lots of capital, only to overextend themselves and go under.” He supports consistent, orderly growth rather than “doing something really big and not knowing whether it will work or not.”

Doing much of the training himself, Ahmed can deliver the highest quality services to strategic clients, and he has built a solid reputation with his hands-on approach. But he admits that he has to learn more about delegating operational tasks and focus more on strategic planning if he’s going to make the leap from small business to large. One step he has made in that direction involves the expansion of his operations into Rabat, which is another large city in Morocco.

One of the hard lessons that Ahmed had to learn was about cash flow. The fledgling company had been renting office furniture, desks, tables, chairs, projectors and the like from an American. With only 30 days’ notice, Innosoft was informed that the equipment would no longer be available. Says Ahmed, “We had training courses scheduled and had to scramble to come up with all the money to buy the equipment in a very short period of time. That taught me just how important it is to have business capital or cash on hand.”

That’s not all. “I’ve learned so many valuable things over the course of building this business. It used to take me too long to make decisions, and I realized that to be successful in business, sometimes you have to make quicker decisions. Also, I have progressed from my purely technical background to one that now includes human resources, marketing, financing, etc. Innosoft has taught me all those things.”

In offering advice to entrepreneurs just starting out, Ahmed says, “The one thing that has seen us through the dark moments is faith. You really have to believe in yourself and your vision, even when everything that is happening seems to contradict you. Building a business is a journey and to continue that journey, you have to produce excellent products and services, but you also have to have faith in yourself to deliver them.”

As for the future of entrepreneurship in Morocco, Ahmed believes his country has made a lot of progress in the last few years. He says, “I think that Morocco has a great future and that there are lots of opportunities here for entrepreneurs. But you need to study the market carefully, get advice and keep learning so that you stay on top of the market and learn from others who have knowledge to share, and keep building on your business plan so you know where you are headed in the future. You have to keep your eyes and ears open, because sometimes opportunities have to be grabbed immediately, and you never know how they can change your life or your business.”