James Caan (born 28 December 1960 in Lahore, Pakistan as Nazim Khan is a British-Pakistani entrepreneur and television personality. Caan has been building and selling businesses since 1985, including Alexander Mann Group, Humana International, and the private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw.
Caan initially achieved success in the recruitment industry, having founded the Alexander Mann Group, which he sold in 2002. Caan subsequently co-founded the executive head-hunting firm Humana International. He is also the founder and currently CEO of the UK-based private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw, and in 2010 Caan launched HB Real Estate.
Caan is best-known as a presenter of the BBC television programme Dragons’ Den, in which he was one of the panel of judges from 2007 to 2010.
Caan graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. In 2005 Caan was voted one of the 100 most influential Asian people in the UK by Asian Power 100. Caan has been involved in a number of charitable activities. He founded the James Caan Foundation in 2006 and in December 2009 was appointed as the Chairman of The Big Issue Company.
We recently had the opportunity to interview Mr. James Cann on his visit to Pakistan, and discussed on some important issues of entrepreneurship and the potential of Pakistan regarding economic environment.

Dr Shahid Zia: Mr. James Caan, we are facing a great deal of problems regarding economy like recession, unemployment etc as well as natural hazards like floods, earth quakes, what do you see is the potential of entrepreneurship in such an environment?

James Caan: Dr. Shahid, the global economy is experiencing its own economic challenges, so Pakistan is not the only nation to face such problems, like in Britain we are observing a high unemployment rate especially among students, their economy has more debt than it was in history. If you look at Europe, countries like Spain, Portugal, France, and Ireland are also facing economic challenges. So Pakistan is not a unique case, but the question should be that, what we are doing to address these issues. So on my visit to Pakistan I have observed that Pakistan is a nation of shopkeepers, it is one of the most enterprising country I have seen, and the passion of people to getting into business is growing extraordinarily, also probably it has a very high youth population in south east Asia, the question is that with such amount of human capital what Pakistan is doing to develop the skills of the people to stimulate economy.

Dr Shahid Zia: What would you say about your transition to Britain and the business environment there, and how different it is from Pakistani environment while we have technologies like E-commerce and E-marketing, and what are the better ways to reach markets of developed countries.

James Caan: I think my first observation between UK and Pakistan is, that in Britain people are very good in saying “NO” while in Pakistan “No” means “Yes” and people are not very clear. So when people come here and ask whether some specific thing can be done, the answer will always be that, “Ok It will be done”, they don’t say “No”, no matter how extreme the issue is. In England you hear “No” more than you hear “Yes”.

Another important thing is that in Pakistan, people are so much inspired and motivated by the ability of the west to create an intellectual economy that is surrounded by branding, because brands generally are sold in premium, and Pakistan is very driven and motivated by selling things as cheap as possible, and cheap doesn’t always means good. And I am quite unsure that as a country, Pakistan has a brand strategy, so in order to taken seriously globally you need to revise the strategies to build up brands.

Other thing that I have noticed is that Pakistan isn’t good at communicating at which it doesn’t work very well because the county is actually doing very well. When you go to Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore the business working is as usual, they are working, and people are earning money, I recently went to see a project of a building which was going on they developed 600,000 sq. ft. up, so over all business environment is going fine. Though the economic environment may not be as good as it was in 2007 but it is moving along. I don’t see any kind of good news, because here people are becoming obsessed to hear the bad news and it travels faster and overshadows good things with its negativity. So if you want to encourage foreign investments and trade, you have to inspire and motivate and avoid repeating the cycle of bad news.

In England, they have Spin doctors, and there job is to spin the news to keep the economy moving and to keep the sentiment flowing. May be Pakistan could learn from that.

Dr Shahid Zia: You would agree that Pakistan is a brand, but we don’t have patronage for that brand that can own that brand, and do what spin doctors do to create a good image. But I would agree that bad news travel a lot quicker and it is hurting the economic flow. Having come to that, Brand is some what haven’t made place in this market, although we have some good brands yet people are reluctant to spend money on brands, but no doubt that brands pay more dividend. What do you say about the branding environment in Pakistan?

James Caan: If you look at the French and Italians, who I think are the masters of branding, they invest huge time, effort and energy on what I call brand experience. The perception of people here, to create a brand you have to advertise. It’s not only about advertising because it is only one component. The brand experience is about what a brand stands for, whether you are a manufacturer or a retailer, if for the sake of argument you step in to a designer’s store, the brand experience you see is the quality of the store, the presentation of the product placement, the thickness of the carpet you walk on, what all of your senses perceive is the brand experience, its not just because they place adverts on the TV or magazines. So here business community needs to have a great appreciation that branding is about brand experience, in every manner in which you touch or feel the brand, from your business cards to your website, to your people, to the people who answers your phone, these are all brand credentials. If you really are genuinely committed in going down a journey to create a brand then you really need to be sensitive about all of these issues, because it takes a life time to create a brand but it only takes a day to destroy that image.

Dr Shahid Zia: Agreed. Mr. James Cann you yourself are a brand and it took years to make it, your company Hamilton Bradshaw was one and now you have more than 30 countries representing your business, having 142 offices all over the world and that is attributed to brand recognition and the credibility you carry as a name and as a business. Would you like to tell us how this expansion has been brought about and how you manage all these things.

James Caan: I think there is only one way to do that is to recognizing that products and services within themselves don’t build businesses. Businesses are building by people, and my main strategy for all of my businesses is to attracting the right people, by investing in the right people, I have the opportunity to creating bandwidth; I have huge bandwidth internationally because I have some very good people. Since I have been in Pakistan I have been talking to many people what they invest in people and when you look at the average business here, we all have budgets, revenue targets and when I asked whether they have a budget to invest in people, not a single person raised their hands and to be there is a message for me here, that if you are not developing workforce, expertise, building bandwidth, you can’t achieve the desired level of growth. So in order to grow you should have people to execute them. And if you want to expand your business to Asia, Dubai or London, it really means that you have to question yourself that do you have such individuals in your organizations who are going to champion them into that region, and if your not developing people and their skills in order to gain intellectual workforce then it would be difficult to succeed. So my strategy was to recognize the need to hire the right people and develop the skills of those people and without that I would never have achieved what I had gained it now.

Dr Shahid Zia: Your making of business is truly a success story and has been inspirational for many wannabes who want to be at that level where you are at now but now here comes a question that were there failures and hurdles while achieving such success.

James Caan: I am afraid that it would take days to debate on the argument about the failures and successes, because like many entrepreneurs, I have a firm belief that failure is a part of the journey to success. I had businesses which had lost millions of pounds and I have more disasters than average people. But I recognize that to be a successful business man you will have to learn the experience on what happened wrong. To me a true entrepreneur is the guy who succeeds when things go wrong, because we can all do very well when things are fine, that doesn’t take so much amount of expertise. I had one of the largest food businesses in England. Sandwich shops named ‘Benjys’, we had 150 stores, 600 people and it collapsed because of me, I was inexperienced, I didn’t understand the business and I made terrible mistakes because of my lack of knowledge in the field that I had chosen to invest in. It was really a painful experience because after having so many successes in different businesses I thought that whatever I did, worked. But I quickly recognized that different industries run differently and if you don’t understand them you will very quickly lose money. So failure to me is to understand the fact that every time you fail you get one step closer to success. You should have the ability to rise and find another way.

Dr Shahid Zia: James you have written many books, are there any more in the pipeline?

James Caan: Well in January 2011 my latest book came out in the market, “Get the job you really want”. Personally I think that globally what people are facing is the challenge to secure a right job opportunity and having been into the recruitment industry for nearly 25years I had placed thousands of people in jobs and I had shared some of the best experiences that I witnessed of the people that really secured the jobs they really wanted, and what could other people do to avail such opportunities, so I have shared techniques regarding it because securing job is not a process, there are hundreds of things you can do that give you a better probability to secure good jobs.

Dr Shahid Zia: You have been on TV programs and one of the interesting programs you have been a part of was “Dragon’s Den”. How was the experience?

James Caan: Dragon’s Den is a very popular show in England, which principally is a show where entrepreneurs are coming having some business idea and they are looking for investments and they showcase their idea and get investment from the investors participating in that show, so its quite a unique show. I was one of the investor, where we have to analyze a business opportunity within 20 minutes. We can invest more than 100,000 pounds into that business. Since the show is on I have invested in 18 businesses and over one million pounds just to give opportunities to entrepreneurs to change their lives and the show in UK has massive appeal and has a huge following, and for me its one of the most enjoyable things I had done in my life.

Dr Shahid Zia: Coming to the part of philanthropy you have a foundation by the name of James Caan Foundation and it works here in Pakistan as well and you have great plans lined up for the future to alleviate poverty, taking part in flood affectes rehabilitation and also you have taken charge of a school to upgrade the educational system. So what are your plans?

James Caan: I think philanthropy is a very interesting subject, entrepreneurs in my opinion have a gift, if you are a successful entrepreneur you are good at making things happen, you have clear goals and targets, and this gift is to entrepreneurs can help people change their lives, and I suppose I am very proud of the fact that I can utilize this gift to create a difference. The people who are unable to get good education because I believe that every child has the right to get good education so it motivates me to focus on this issue to upgrade their level of life. The floods caused quite a disaster and we are in the process of making a village of 1000 people where we will be providing healthy living, electricity, schools. So the experience I learned from my business success, I am trying to utilize that to make people’s lives better.

Dr Shahid Zia: You have the entrepreneur business academy and that is your recent business venture, what do you suggest to the students of business studies that how to become and think like an entrepreneur.

James Caan: I think to become an entrepreneur you should have a dream, you should have a vision and a mission, but at the same time you need to have a credible business plan and idea. To be a successful entrepreneur you have to understand that an idea itself is not what creates success, it’s your ability to execute and deliver the plan. So the first lesson is to focus on how to make the idea a reality.

Dr Shahid Zia: Any message you want to give to the youngsters of Pakistan to be successful?

James Caan: I think the key element for the youngsters of Pakistan is, to be an entrepreneur you have build in yourself, you have to be able to walk, talk and feel passionate who you are and what you want to do. Entrepreneurship is very much about confidence and belief and to swim against tides, the journey of business is not an easy one, you will be facing many hurdles, you will fall many times. But all successful people that I have met in my life had the conviction, willpower and belief in their destiny and recognize that only the best will rise to the top, but the question is, whether you will be leading the crowd or be a part of a crowd. If you believe in yourself than no doubt you will have every ingredient to succeed. I left Pakistan at the age of two and I started my business with no money only with an idea but with determination and passion I found solutions to my problems. So if I can be a success story I think the same case applies to the youngsters of Pakistan who want to become a successful entrepreneur, so I wish them every success in their venture, their journey.