From MBA graduation project to award-winning startup in demand

From MBA graduation project to award-winning startup in demand

As it states on the company’s own website, “CorporateStack started as the founder’s Master’s graduation project and was tested with a number of companies who absolutely loved it. This is when the CorporateStack team of talented and tech savvy engineers came together to create our 100% in-house developed solution.”

CorporateStack is a software company founded in 2016 in Dubai and specialising in developing Cloud (SaaS), on-premise, and mobile solutions. The company uses the power of technology to empower organizations to succeed with unmatched AI-driven data analytics and insights. The team of consultants and engineers work together to build a state of the art solutions that perfectly align with the business needs of hundreds of organizations of any size, across various industries.

Mohamed Abdin is the co-founder of CorporateStack who graduated in 2019 and confirms that his MBA experience was “100% linked to CorporateStack”. Reflecting on his MBA experience, Mohamed highlights the impact of specific courses on his experience and on the evolution of CorporateStack. He specifically mentions Accounting in Business and Corporate Finance, through which he learned about different financial concepts and theories and how to build a healthy business short and long term investment plans for the company. He believes this knowledge is one of the reasons that CorporateStack has received offers from five investors over the last two years, alone.  

Mohamed’s personal-professional experience in moving through the entrepreneurship innovation life cycle has played an important role in helping prepare the startup pitches to investor audiences and impressing them on how CorporateStack has been built (by the book, as Mohamed describes it) demonstrating how students and graduates can convert theories and concepts into real world examples.

CorporateStack is applying learning from the International Business Strategy course (“a brilliant course” in Mohamed’s own words) as the company prepares to set up its new offices in the second half of 2020 to support the launch of services in North America through CorporateStack Inc. in Canada (a joint venture with Maplepros Inc) and in Egypt (through CorporateStack E.S.C.) covering the African market, where the first five customers have already been secured. The expansion programme will also help in identifying and recruiting prospective international partners. 

Mohamed is a strong advocate for the Strategic Management course, which he considers to be a “mandatory course for any entrepreneur, startup, or company of any size. The course reshaped the CorporateStack vision, internal and external strategies, the relationship with customers and competitors, and how to design a sustainable competitive advantage.”

Mohamed’s MBA experience - not only his graduation project but the whole range of courses he studied and the assignments he undertook during his MBA journey was all about developing CorporateStack. “I can clearly say that the massive success we have achieved over the last two years has been because of the brilliance of my partner and co-founder, and the MBA.”  

The CorporateStack portfolio of solutions includes CRM, HRMS, Finance, Assets, and ERP, and while the current Covid-19 crisis has presented challenges for all businesses, the dramatic shift to digital platforms is working in the company’s favour.

The company has still managed to double revenues from January to June 2020, compared to the first half of last year, thanks to the team growing the customer base by around one-third over the period. This situation continues to attract interest in CorporateStack as VCs look for winners from the digital transformation experienced through the pandemic. The company has so far resisted the advances of VCs including an approach and proposal in 2019 from Saudi Arabia, which was politely declined and since when the value of the company has tripled.

Corporate Stack

Mohamed says: “The crisis is having some positive effects, as CorporateStack helps companies to digitally transform their day to day work, and remote working is our main value proposition. As a business technology company, we provide digital transformation business applications and adapt the technology to fit different business and market needs. All the development work is done in-house and managed and led by my partner Eng. Osama Mortada, CorporateStack head of product development and former CEO.” 
 
CorporateStack’s ongoing success clearly owes something to Mohamed’s MBA experience and he highlights some of the key learnings, such as how to be innovative, agile and using all circumstances to enhance sustainability. As the company continues to grow and hire, he is still in contact with his fellow MBA graduates. So, what are the key skills he is looking for in new hires? The University’s recent poll question on the EMIR Advisory Council meeting revealed that creativity/innovation and adaptability are the key skills that regional business leaders are looking for in new hires. Mohamed concludes: “I couldn’t agree more, absolutely correct.”