The process of registering a new company locally can be time-consuming.

Much time is spent on finding out how to register a company, where to do it, collecting forms and filling it up, standing in queues to submit those forms and finally waiting for the approval.

Realising how much time is wasted doing such things in person, Rustum Ali Khan, who has been in the business of company registration services, turned to the power of the Internet to help entrepreneurs register their companies online through his  www.ReadyCompanies.com   Web site.

Online registration takes out the hassle from the time-consuming process, he says.

Rustum, who has over 20 years of experience in the financial industry, decided nine years ago to set up his own company which offers registration services to those who were looking for a one-stop avenue to get their companies registered.

However, with the proliferation of the Internet a couple of years ago and realising the benefits that he could tap on from using the Internet, Rustum single-handedly developed his company’s Web site that enables entrepreneurs to register their companies by just tapping on their personal computer (PC) keyboards.

Being a member of the US-based Webmaster Forum, Rustum takes on this role as well as the company founder and a licensed company secretary.

He claims that the services his company renders online are the first in the country.

“Being hands-on in the technical aspects of how a Web site should work, and tying that to how a company management should be, I believe we’re on the right track to achieving a balance to taking advantage of the Internet for the company’s benefit,” he says.

Regularly updating the Web site to add the latest information for the benefit of his prospective clients, Rustum says that current information on his Web site is one of the features that has helped it to be ranked number one for company registration services in the Google and Yahoo search engines.

The site, he adds, has been in the number one position since last July and will be able to maintain its ranking if they keep it updated regularly.

“Google doesn’t simply rank any company or individual as number one, and we managed to get to that position by undertaking a search optimisation study which highlights pointers on how to rank tops in their list of searches found,” Rustum says, adding that search optimisation technique is a service that they will look into offering in the future.

“It’s one thing to put up a Web site but if that site does not generate any revenues for you then that investment obviously doesn’t give you any return on investment,” he says.

He adds that the site transacts an average of 10 company registrations per month, with transactions amounting to more than RM20,000.

Rustum believes that the average he gets per month justifies the total investment of RM100,000 that was put in to purchase equipment, to set up the Web site, to pay for Web hosting services and secure payment vendor as well and having ready-made shelf companies readily available for purchase.

“Research shows that Malaysians only use their credit cards to make purchases such as flowers, chocolates and other gifts amounting in the region of RM100. However, we work in partnership with a secure payment vendor, thus we allow payment by credit card amounting to more than RM2,000 for new company registration, which many other online businesses may feel cautious to provide.

Being on the Internet, Rustum points out, also gives them the flexibility to fully take advantage of e-commerce that’s available 24 hours.

“Just over the weekend, I received two online registrations, enabling entrepreneurs to work at their own time, a flexibility that only the Internet can offer,” he says.

Rustum adds that the company has also received some enquiries from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany wishing to know the process of setting up a company here in partnership with Malaysian counterparts.

The Web site has over 90 pages which provides all the details to register a company starting from how to choose a company name to who qualifies as the directors.

“Most Web sites only feature five or six pages and to find their contact details usually calls for clicking on the back or forward button on getting a link to the Contact Us page,” Rustam says.

“However, on our Web site, we’ve included our contact numbers on almost all of the pages for easy reference,” he says, adding that this is one of the many tips that he picked up from other Webmasters and search engine optimisation studies.