As part of our Innovative Muslims series, I will be profiling a company every month that is making a real difference in the community as a result of it’s products or services. Do contact me if you know of a company that should be included.
Ummah Design is best known for it’s innovative web solutions but for a while now they have been delivering workshops up and down the country to enable muslim businesses to understand and benefit from online marketing and social media. Their workshops have been greatly welcomed by the community and demand is outweighing supply.
Asalam alaykum brother Sherzod and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Please tell us a little bit about the services that Ummah Design offers.
We at Bespoke Internet Solutions (AKA Ummah Design) help muslim businesses to promote their product, services or brand online and increase their productivity. We do this by offering web design, SEO and online marketing services. We also deliver workshops and training for businesses to help them better understand how to leverage the web for generating more leads.
How did you come up with the workshop idea?
Having worked and being engaged with so many muslim businesses we realised that the majority of muslim businesses have not been utilising the golden opportunities available on the web. The web is evolving and yet we still resort to the old ways of advertising and promoting our businesses such as leaflet distribution or putting an advert in a newspaper.
Some businesses do have a website but they don’t know how to make it work for themselves. Many of us have heard about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and many other social networking websites. Profit and non profit organisations alike have a massive opportunity to reach huge numbers of potential customers, donors, partners to promote their products and services, to promote their cause or try to raise funds using those networking websites.
However, due to the lack of knowledge, only a very small proportion of businesses are utilising them. Another problem within the muslim business community is the lack of socialising and networking. Muslim businesses do not get together that often and we can’t find any networking event happening around us especially here in Birmingham.
These two main reasons led us think about organising small workshops for Muslim businesses in order to increase their knowledge and help them socialise with each other. So far we have held workshops in Birmingham, London and Sheffield.
I love how you’ve spotted a gap and are making a real difference in the community, a real win win masha’Allah. What are your achievements to date with the business?
We have helped so many Muslim business’s with their online presence by building their websites and helping them to promote themselves online. We have clients not only from UK but also from USA, Canada, Lebanon, Russia and other countries. Here at Bespoke Internet Solutions charity is also very important to us. We’ve built many websites for charities and mosques free of charge to help them establish an online presence and accept donations online. We were delighted when we were told that through the website we have donated to Maidenhead mosque (www.maidenheadmosque.org) 2-3 people accepted shahadah. These type of success stories encourage us to do more charity and contribute to the community even more, Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah. I’m interested to know a little about you brother Sherzod, please tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Sherzod Karimov, originally from Uzbekistan. I came to the UK in 2000 to do my master’s degree at the University of Birmingham. I founded Ummah Design back in 2005 and am trying to expand my business at the moment. I love blogging (www.ummahdesignblog.com) and am eager to network with other muslim entrepreneurs, inshallah.
Thank you ever so much for taking the time to speak with us today and I hope that you benefited as much from this as we have. I pray that Allah continues to bestow success upon you and your business endeavours, ameen.
Folks please do visit Ummah Design’s website on www.ummahdesign.com oh and check out Sherzod’s blog over at www.ummahdesignblog.com where he blogs about all kinds of interesting stuff.