1. University of
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Migrating to Brighter Futures: A Case Study of an Immigrant Pakistani
Social Entrepreneur in Britain.
To be presented at the Asian Journal of Management Cases (January 2013)
Case Synopsis
This paper presents an illustrative case study for the purpose of case teaching in
entrepreneurship. The case presented in this paper is based on the real-life situation of a
British Pakistani immigrant social entrepreneur, Dr. Liaqat Malik, chairman of a diverse
portfolio of thriving entrepreneurial ventures, which includes: Malik Law's Legal Practice,
Manchester College of Higher Education, DM Digital Television Ltd, and DM Digital News
Plus Pvt Ltd. Dr. Malik started his entrepreneurial journey by establishing and managing a
legal practice for fifteen years in Manchester, before diversifying into other sectors to provide
an array of opportunities for the ethnic community in Manchester, UK. He managed to
effectively set up an empire of thriving businesses by capitalising on opportunities to fulfil
the social needs of a disadvantaged community and locality in the United Kingdom.
Key words: Immigrant, Pakistani, Social, Entrepreneurship, Manchester, Media. DM
Digital.
"A trip to the homeland, Pakistan"
It's 14th July 2012, 6.30am, and Dr. Liaqat Malik is watching DM Digital Television through
his iPhone whilst, sitting in the Business Lounge at Manchester Airport. The boarding
announcement is made and Dr. Malik prepares to board the Pakistan International Airlines
flight from Manchester to Lahore. As he boards the flight, he is offered a newspaper. Once
again, Dr. Malik has is featured in the newspaper, highlighting his contributions in supporting
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2. Pakistan. Dr. Malik places the paper in the seat pocket and reflects on the contributions he
has made to his community and homeland until date. All on course to his homeland, with a
one way ticket and a wealth of business and social ideas.
"A snapshot of the enterprise"
Dr. Malik, aged 50, chairman of the DM Broadcasting Network, owns a portfolio of
entrepreneurial businesses which includes a leading broadcasting company, available to over
17.1 million UK households and to over 30 million households in Asia. This has made the
DM Digital Television Network the largest of the Asian Free to Air1 channels. This company
was the first to broadcast programmes in six languages: English, Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi,
Persian and Hindi. The channel is available through Sky, Jadoo TV and Asia Sat platforms as
a free view for over 180 countries with several regional licenses and viewers from the UK,
Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The programmes cover a range of genres which
include Live TV, entertainment, news, current affairs, sports, and children's programmes.
Many of the brands in DM Digital's group of companies have a national and global appeal
particularly among South Asian working class immigrant communities. The appeal is not
only local, but also international, with many viewers tuning in from Pakistan, the Middle
East, India and Bangladesh. The company has grown since it started in 2005, and also houses
a number of well known brands which include DM Digital, DM Global and DM Arabia
which operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Dr. Malik has also diversified his
business interests in a property letting agency, and also a Higher Education college. In his
thriving portfolio of entrepreneurial enterprises, Dr. Malik employs over three hundred full-
time staff worldwide. This is divided between his national and international operations. In the
UK, he is managing a hundred employees who work on a full-time basis, and two hundred
full-time employees in Pakistan.
The DM Digital Monthly (2009) survey found the following key facts:
• 58% of viewers have been watching the channel monthly for over 4 years
• 42% of viewers watch at least one genre of program - News, Current Affairs and
Lifestyle
• 60% of viewers responded to adverts within the last 3 months
1 Free-to-air describes television services broadcasted in an unencrypted form allowing people with appropriate
receiving equipment to receive the signal and view the content without requiring a subscription.
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3. • 56% of viewers have access to the Internet and visit DM Digital Website
• The average annual spend of the DM Shop user is £51
• 82% of viewers are aged below 50
"A day in the life of Dr. Liaquat Malik"
A typical day for Dr. Malik starts with arriving at his office at 7am and continuously
networking with key stakeholders from all parts of the world. Dr. Malik's daily duties are in
many different areas, which include making key management decisions, policy decisions,
strategic direction, dealing with regulatory issues, generic marketing of the businesses,
managing conflict, and also deciding on the nature of live content broadcasts on his television
network on a day-to-day basis. Dr. Malik creates a business plan every five years for his
existing businesses as well as launching a new one every five years and therefore he is
continuously innovating in various markets.
Risk taking is often seen as essential when pursuing entrepreneurship and this has been
evident in Dr. Malik's behaviour. He stated "We take a risk every day as I operate a global
network in a highly regulated industry. Due to the nature of the channel, we do not
intentionally breach anything, there is also a risk when we mention something about
particularpolitical parties, but we still have to take a risk".
By receiving continuous success in his all of his business ventures, Dr. Malik is confident in
taking risks and continues to utilise his skills and expertise, which he gained from the legal
field in his leadership and management practices. Dr Malik's determination and confidence
gained from his professional career in the legal sector demonstrates his credibility and
dominance as an entrepreneur. This has been inspirational to the ethnic community in Britain
as many consider him as a positive role model. He stated "I am very confident in whatever I
do. My training as a lawyer helps me out to analyse the problems and use my legal skills. 1
analyse the problemspromptly and able to digest it, and then respond to the problem...
whatever the problem is!".
Dr. Malik's role in the business is critical to the success of the businesses. The success of his
portfolio of entrepreneurial businesses thrives through his continuous dedication and ongoing
commitment for providing excellence through social entrepreneurship for the ethnic
community in Britain. This is evident through the vast amount of responsibility, on-going
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4. commitment and the nature of the work, which continues to drive him to work at least twelve
to fourteen hours per day.
Migration
British Pakistani immigrant entrepreneur, Dr. Liaqat Malik migrated with his parents from
Pakistan in 1965, hailing from a city in the Punjab province, Faisalabad, formerly known as
Lyallpur. On arrival to Britain, Dr. Malik resided in Rochdale, Lancashire with his parents.
Dr. Malik had the stereotypical Asian dilemma when choosing a career, he was torn in
between three wide ranging career trajectories, first, his father's ambition to become a doctor,
his mother's aspiration of becoming a lawyer, and his own aspiration of becoming a pilot. Dr.
Malik was determined to become a lawyer thus fulfilling his mother's dream, he also
graduated with a PhD in Public Law from the University of Manchester and was conferred
with the title of'doctor', somewhat mischievously fulfilling his father's dream, however,
unknowingly, Dr. Malik's exceptional skills, charisma and enthusiasm led him to a fourth
career trajectory, that of a social entrepreneur.
The Malik's
Dr. Malik's father, Mr. Ghulam Mohammed established a successful business in the UK by
successfully capitalising on the market opportunities in the textile industry leading to the
ownership of warehouses and factories in the North of England. Dr Malik's brother, Mr.
Maqbool Malik, similarly pursued an entrepreneurial route, and successfully innovated the
clothing retail market before becoming a principle of Dr. Malik's legal firm. However, Dr.
Malik's commitment and dedication to professionalism initiated a trend of creating
enterprising and highly dynamic legal professionals, the more common being lawyers and
solicitors who established a wide range of legal practices. This led to creating a rather well
regarded brand name of a chain of entrepreneurially orientated legal practices which became
well known all over the world, particularly in the North of England. The family also gained
recognition from the locals as "The Malik Law's Family". Dr. Malik's initial steps inspired
many youngsters in the community to turn towards education and the legal profession,
including his own family.
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5. 'Initial steps on the ladder of success'
Dr. Malik pursued undergraduate at Staffordshire University, Wolverhampton University and
postgraduate education College of Law/BBP Law School (Solicitors Qualifying Exam) in
Britain which also included PhD (Doctorate qualification) in Law from University of
Manchester and international recognition member of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a
advocate of the High Court Punjab (Pakistan). He then worked as a trainee for a range of
ethnic and mainstream-owned legal practices in the UK. At a young age of 23, he stepped up
from being a trainee and established his first business in the legal sector, which has become a
popular and well known legal practice known as Malik Law's Solicitors.
Dr. Malik used his skills and expertise in the legal field, and defended cases around world
which included his native country, Pakistan, among other nations such as Tanzania, Uganda,
Kenya and many Middle Eastern countries. During his career as a lawyer, he worked
extensively with the British Pakistani community as well as the mainstream and other ethnic
communities. Dr. Malik created waves among the South Asian Television channels when he
stated to provide live legal advice on television, regarding matters concerning immigration,
public law and criminal law among other specialist legal matters. This was particularly
important to Dr. Malik, as he started to provide free support to the community and felt the
need to 'give more' to the ethnic community in Britain.
Dr. Malik effectively bridged his legal background in developing the Television business,
particularly his defensive skills. "Ifound that it wasn't very differentfromarguing things in
court and arguing them on aprogramme such as on issues of Public law, Criminal law and
community affairs programmes." As Dr. Malik was providing expert insights on legal issues
to the ethnic community in Britain, he became interested in getting involved with good
causes by doing more charity work. He later managed to promote this on a larger scale
through social entrepreneurship.
Following a rather successful 15 years of specialisation in the legal sector, Dr. Malik became
well known in the region. However, he had decided to 'break out' of the legal field as he
stated "I was receiving too many cases and was unable to deal with them all. There were too
manypeople queuing outside of my office all day long and I couldn't see them all, so I was
having to turn clients away. This led to many of my clients complaining that I did not have
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6. the time to deal with their cases". Dr. Malik had by this time, achieved a high level of
respect, prestige and experience in the community but felt the need to become involved with
charitable work. He felt that he could offer more to the ethnic community in Britain and
decided to capitalise on the opportunities he had identified in the community.
Establishing the enterprise
Dr. Malik started the DM Digital Network by exploiting an opportunity in the market.
However, this was not initially motivated by profit but rather by social reasons. The objective
of the DM Broadcasting Network Ltd was to bring together the Asian and English cultures by
integrating its people, cultural diversity, communities and economy. Dr. Malik invested a
large amount of financial capital - over £5 million - borrowing from the banks, and was not
hesitant to invest his personal savings in establishing the business in a disadvantaged area
where there was a large Asian presence in Manchester. At present, the DM Digital Group of
companies is the most successful channel in its market niche.
There were multiple social reasons for establishing the DM group of companies. Dr. Malik
started his channel in the holy Islamic month of Ramadan as he felt there was a potential need
in the Muslim community for religious programmes. Dr Malik also exemplified, "This
network was createdfor the working class South Asian community in Britain. This includes
taxi drivers, mill workers, shop workers, etc. I wanted to provide them with a voice and also
give something back to the communityfor them to be able to represent themselves on a
suitable platform". This new concept had a particular emphasis on receiving live calls from
the viewing public which allowed them to discuss, consult specialists and share their personal
views and opinions on a range of topics.
Dr Malik emphasised the need for equal opportunities among organisations and created a role
model organisation by hiring employees through the job centre and promoting inclusion from
a diversity of ethnic backgrounds, including the mainstream population.
The channel became an instant success as it started to attract approximately 20,000 calls per
month from viewers in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and Pakistan. The
success of this innovative concept led Dr. Malik to expand this network further which led to
launching two more channels on the Sky network known as DM Digital Arabia, and DM
Digital global which were also well received by the viewers of his existing channels. Dr.
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7. Malik succeeded in bringing in not only the different regional and religious group but also the
ethnic ones. He states "We have viewersfromdifferent ethnicities and religionsparticipating
in our shows. This includes Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and the Arab community. In
the month of Ramadan, the DM Digitalfulfils a social and religious obligation of raising
charity."
Dr. Malik, in incremental steps, strove to create cohesion among the Pakistani community. Dr
Malik stated "The whole idea was to integrate this culturally andpolitically divided
community which included the Shiites, Wahabis, Sunnis, and also the regional groups such as
the Kashmiris, Punjabis, and Sindhis, They were all going in different directions, so I wanted
to provide aplatformfor them".
Values, Culture and the Enterprise
The DM culture's core values are: innovation, imagination, passion and responsibility. The
values of the company highlight the need to be open-minded, innovative, resourceful and in
possession of the courage to explore new opportunities. A high level of passion is evident in
its values of "never giving up". As the company values are based on "actions speak louder
than words and ourprograms and broadcasting reflects that. We embrace change with
enthusiasm and confidence. Collaborating with ourpartners, advertisers and viewers across
the globe, working around the clock, our multi-culturalpresenters and production teams
create the bestprogrammes that keep our viewers informed and engaged." The company also
emphasises its cultural values on its responsibility. "We have built our reputation on respect,
trust and integrity - and we understand that our decisions and actions can have a major
impact on others."
Dr. Malik emphasised the need to realise the importance of the deep-rooted culture inherent
particularly among the South Asian community. Dr. Malik stated that when catering for the
Asian community it was important to hold traditional culture and portray that in the channel.
The programmes have an emphasis on showing historical documentaries, regional movies,
comedy shows, live shows, and also, religious programmes. Dr. Malik believes that the
introduction of a channel is a critical factor in eliminating conflict in between regional and
religious groups. "The channel has created solidarity and unity among a segregated
community which was the entire goal of starting the channel."
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8. Reactive strategy
Deregulation in the education industry created controversy in the news in Britain, on the issue
of scam colleges and bogus academic institutions which started to give a bad name to the
Asian community. Dr. Malik decided to challenge this stereotype. He invested millions of
pounds in establishing a modern and high-tech campus and is currently educating over 3000
students. In his college of higher education, Malik decided to focus on providing education to
international students and introducing innovative teaching and learning strategies to
effectively develop the students' skill sets and abilities to foster in-depth learning.
The idea of the college was envisaged with an aim of bringing high quality education to
Pakistan and to also cater for the community's social needs. Dr. Malik stated that "It was
often the case that newsfromPakistan was mostly doom and gloom, but I wanted to also
show that there is talent andpotential in Pakistan, and Pakistani students, so wefocussed our
efforts in recruiting studentsfromthere and are providing them with the resources and
knowledge which will help them returnfor brighterprospects."
Creative Awareness
Dr. Malik envisaged the idea of integrating communities but needed a suitable marketing and
promotional strategy to adequately penetrate the ethnic market. He started with launching the
channel on the Sky Television platform and then decided to promote the business through
road shows and live telecasts of major ethnic events such as the South Asian Meals in the
UK. Dr. Malik took a step further and employed ordinary people from the ethnic community
across Britain, and provided those with the platform to become talk show hosts, often these
people were active members in the community and this grabbed the attention of smaller
regional communities across Britain.
Dr. Liaquat Malik took a step further to enhance the marketing of his channel and decided to
make his channel viewer-led. This meant that the customer needs were taken into high
priority consideration. This was effectively conducted by allowing viewers to 'call in' to the
show and inform and provide their opinions on what they would like to be broadcasted on the
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9. Exhibits
Key Facts of DM Digital
• DM Digital was established in 2005
• United Kingdom's Most Watched Asian Channel
• DM Digital broadcasts in 6 languages including English, Urdu, Punjabi
• Viewership in excess of 1.2 million in the UK
• Broadcasting on SKY 802 and in over 100 countries via other satellite networks
• Studios in Manchester, Glasgow, London and OB Vans for UK wide coverage
"These results are taken from the DM Digital Monthly 2009 viewer's survey
By
Naveed Yasin PhDc, MSc, B B A (Hons.) F H E A
Lecturer in Entrepreneurship & Innovation
The International Study Centre and Business School
University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom
n.yasin@hud.ac.uk
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