On July 27 last year, Tarak Ramzan rang the bell to open the London Stock Exchange to celebrate the inclusion of his fashion business, Quiz, on the market.

With a £200 million market value it marked an important stop on a journey which began when Mr Ramzan opened a 350 square foot shop on Victoria Road in Glasgow in 1994.

Sitting down with Mr Ramzan, and his son, chief operating officer Sheraz Ramzan, it is clear their hunger for the business has not diminished with the riches which have come their way – the family retains about half the shares in the business.

Quiz headquarters lies in an industrial street between the Clydeside Expressway and the river. Here, work is underway to turn the second floor of the four-storey building into the epicentre of the group’s online and social media presence – which will play a major role in Quiz’s international expansion plans.

Tarak’s career began in manufacturing, joining the family business based on the south side of Glasgow in the 1970s.

After just a couple of months his father moved to Pakistan and left 18 year-old Tarak in charge of the business, which mainly made duffel coats.

“It was quite a steep learning curve,” he laughs. “But it built up, from the end of the 1970s to the early 1990s I built it up from 25 to about 250 employees.”

His success with the business, selling to the likes of the Co-op and Burton, led Mr Ramzan to become one of Scotland’s leading Asian entrepreneurs.

He says that there was a change in the late 1980s when manufacturing began to move offshore. That was what led him to open the retail outlet.

“I’ve always dreamed and had a big vision and at that time I had a vision to become a national retailer,” he said. “Once we built up to 10 or 12 stores we opened our first store in England to test the water, and gradually moved down south, then became international. So it was humble beginnings on Victoria Road and it’s been quite remarkable building up the great team which has helped the company get to where it is today.”

This summary of more than 20 years makes progress seem smooth and orderly, but like most businesses, that was not the case for Quiz.

The darkest days for the business came in 2009 when the business collapsed into administration. The Ramzan family bought back 44 of its then 48 stores through a “pre-packaged” deal which saved 400 jobs.

Tarak says throughout it all he had belief in himself and what he was doing.

“We decided to restructure, which we did to a much more flexibly omnichannel organisation and we took advantage of the opportunities in front of us,” he says.

Omnichannel is a word often repeated, and it neatly sums up the Quiz strategy.

“It’s been a great success story since we adopted that model,” says Tarak. “We’re still using it today and there is plenty of growth. The vision now is to become a global brand.”

Interim sales to September were £56m, with pre-tax profits of £3.7m. And the highly anticipated Christmas period saw sales increase by almost a third compared with the previous year, driven by 119 per cent growth in online sales and 47 per cent growth in its international business.

As the UK high street continues to face pressure on reduced customer spending, Quiz’s strategy of focusing on these two areas of the business make a lot of sense.

But Tarak believes the fact the fast-fashion sector in which it operates is value-orientated is positively impacted by macroeconomic factors.

“When times are good we can do well, but when they are tough we still do well, because we’re at a value end of the market,” he said. “It does shield us from it to a certain extent.”

A £750,000 investment in the group’s distribution centre has increased the number of packing benches from 24 to 78, which has given Quiz the momentum to pursue its online growth strategy.

“The bulk of the focus is going on online sales. We’re also expanding our product ranges and moving into new categories, which is excited,” says Sheraz. “We’ve ramped up marketing spend to drive traffic to online and the stores and to drive sales and acquire new customers.”

Sheraz officially joined the business in 2003 when he graduated. “At the time the business was focused on clothing and had a franchiser doing footwear and accessories,” he says, “We thought there was an opportunity to bring those in house and that was my remit at the time.”

Growth has continued apace since, with the company now operating across Asia and the Middle East. In the UK, there are 70 stores and 148 concessions, with the most recent additions being stores in Bristol and Silverburn in Glasgow.

International expansion has led, inevitably, to the company attempting to the break the US market. A website designed specifically for the region is set to launch, and a pop-up store was launched in New York’s in Lord & Taylor Fifth Avenue.

Marketing will be stepped up when that website launches, and Sheraz is optimistic because Quiz began to get orders from the US before they started marketing it at all. “There is a great appetite for our products out there,” he says.

Today, the company employs just short of 1,500 people.

“We actually lose count because we’re recruiting all the time, growing very fast,” says Tarak. “We’ve taken on 25 to 30 new head office posts in the last three months. In fact, I met two new starts this morning.”

Adapting to the scale of the enlarged business is something that management team is getting used to.

“If you bring the right people on board then it’s easier to let go,” says Tarak. “You’re not always right every time but there is a lot of great talent in Scotland and we’re an employer of choice. As a founder it’s difficult to let go, because it’s your baby, but for me it’s always about what’s next and I’ve got to be willing to change.

“We’re in the fashion trade, we’ve got to be ready to change all the time. That ethos runs through the company from top to bottom.”