In 1965, at the age of 30, Bashir Choudhary opened a small grocery shop in his native town Lahore, Pakistan. He was passionate about offering quality food at a good price. Because his parents and grandparents owned a farm, he had been able to build good relationships with a network of farmers who could provide fresh fruit and vegetables at competitive rates.Moreover, Bashir paid particular attention to offering good service to his clients, making people always feel welcome and cared for in the shop, and occasionally making the extra effort to deliver the goods to his clients himself. Demand was high, he soon had the opportunity to open a second and then a third shop in other parts of Lahore, a business was born.Bashir traveled to Australia and USA to learn how supermarkets work there and decided to launch his own supermarket: a large shop (he got inspiration from Australian supermarkets, Woolworths and Coles) where customers could help themselves and pay at self-service cashier desks. After a few months of trial and error, he found a successful formula based on his past success with offering good quality and service at affordable prices, and the business took a new turn. Supermarkets are known to be good businesses in terms of working capital requirements, with customers paying by cash or debit card and suppliers being paid well after the delivery and sale of goods. However, buying land and building the supermarkets required funds: Bashir turned to his family and friends to seek capital and his local bank for loans. His parents gave him part of an inheritance in the form of land and some cash, and a friend, Dawood, contributed capital in return for an eventual 10% share of the business. As part of the expansion, Bashir also started to develop franchises with independent store owners who could use the brand in return for a fee. The franchises, in time, bought most of the merchandise through a newly-created central buying structure. During the early years of his business, Bashir recruited talented managers from other companies and set aside 10% of the capital to reward them. Family business Bashir's wife, Kausar, always supported him in his ventures. In the beginning, she helped with the accounting, and when the business grew, she occasionally traveled with him to visit stores and attended social events with key managers, franchisees, or suppliers. Their friend Dawood was often invited to their home with his wife and only son Kashif. Through these occasions, Bashir and Kausar's daughter Zoha and Kashif met and discovered that they enjoyed each other's company. They announced their wedding in 1987.Bashir could not think of a more exciting job for his children than working with him in the business. As soon as they finished University, he invited his children Asif, Zoha, and Baber to join him. He also gave each of them 5% of the shares in full ownership. The rest of the shares were split between the managers (10%), Dawood (10%), Kausar (10%), and himself (55%). All three children started as trainees in stores and worked their way up the ladder. Bashir did not show any favoritism towards them and encouraged a competitive spirit between the three. Fortunately, Zoha and Baber got along very well, but Asif, the eldest son, was unhappy with his situation. After a few years, Asif left the family business with some bitterness and joined a consulting company specializing in consumer goods and retail. Zoha was put in charge of the consumer credit division, and Baber managed a growing number of stores, gradually taking over the firm's operations.

Bashir celebrated his 80th birthday in 2015, a celebration of the extraordinary accomplishments of a visionary. He was in great health, surrounded by his wife Kausar, their three children (Asif, Baber, and Zoha), their spouses, and their grandchildren (Ali, Sofia, and Affan). Additionally, his eldest son Usman from a short-lived first marriage also attended Bashir's birthday celebrations. Usman had been raised by his mother and stepfather but had become close to Bashir in recent years. Bashir was still very involved in the key decisions of the business, and most employees welcomed -and on occasion feared - his regular visits to the offices and stores. However, he was becoming less comfortable with encouraging risk-taking. He had started to have disagreements with his children, who wanted to try new ideas: reorganizing the franchise system, trying new distribution channels, using the Internet, and managing the real estate as an independent entity. There were some heated discussions on those topics, and, as a result, they were rarely raised twice. The company was becoming slow to adapt to new market conditions and was starting to lose some drive.From the beginning, the business had a legal board of directors consisting of Bashir, Kausar, and Dawood. They formally met around lunch once a year, signed the legal documents of the board, the general assembly of shareholders, and enjoyed the friendship and business success. When his children joined the company, Bashir invited them to join the board. When Asif left the business, he also left the board despite his father's desire to see him stay.Planning the future Bashir and Kausar's grandchildren were growing up, and some of them had completed their university education. Zoha and Kashif, in consultation with Baber (who had recently proposed he take a stronger role in the Choudhary Group), invited their older children, Ali and Sofia, to join the business and board. Sofia started working in the supermarket as a shelf manager, while Ali was asked to investigate international expansion into neighboring countries. During that time, Zoha's younger son, Affan, started a software house with his friends and approached Baber (who hopes soon to become the CEO of the Choudhary Group when his father Bashir finally retires) to talk about possible synergies with the Choudhary Group.At this point, Baber felt that action was needed to head off some major issues potentially facing the business and the family. Baber advocated some urgent reflection on strategy and felt the board of directors was not fulfilling its role.

Board of Directors: Bashir (Chief Executive Officer, CEO) Kausar (Chief Financial Officer, CFO & Public Relations (PR) manager) Dawood Senior (Friend, Financier) Baber (Operation manager in new stores and supermarkets) Zoha (Consumer credit division manager) Ali (International expansion manager) Sofia (Supermarkets' shelf manager)

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What is SWOT analysis? What are the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats in the above slide? Method of international expansion of the store? Pros and cons