fnbe eng 2 comparative analysis report

FNBE MARCH INTAKE 2015 | TAYLOR’S UNIVERSITY | ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT

MODULE : ENGLISH 2 [ ELG 30605 ]

TITLE : A Comparative Analysis of 2 Businesses of

Similar Industry in Different Geographical Locations

NAMES:

CRYSLYN TAN ZHIA LYN (0324249)

BRANDON LIAW JUN QUAN (0323467)

PUI CHUN SHIAN (0323470)

DIXON KEE TET LUN (0323944)

CH’ING PHEI WOON (0323842)

LAU HUI MING (0323827)

LOON JING WEI (0322074)


CONTENT

KEY SUMMARY………………………………………..

DESCRIPTION OF HISTORY……………………….

DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS……………………..

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS…………………………

SUMMARY TABLE…………………………………….

RECCOMMENDATION ……………………………..

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………

APPENDIX ……………………………………………….

PICTURE…………………………………………………..

QUESTION&ANSWER…………………………......

ATTACHMENTS………………………………………..

REFERENCE……………………


KEY SUMMARY

In this assignment, we are required to write a 2500-3000 words report of

2 businesses of the same industry. We chose businesses which are in the

food industry, specifically, selling chicken rice. In a group of 7 members,

we did research on the two shops both located at two different states.

One in Selangor,West Malaysia, and the other in Sarawak, East Malaysia.

They both sell not only chicken rice but have other dishes that represents

the state itself. Both restaurants have similarities and also differences in

many aspects. We went for an interview and did research through

newspapers online.


Description of the history of the trade/business and

what it involves

The recipe for the dish is adapted from early Chinese immigrants from Hainan Island, off the southern coast of China. Back in Hainan, locals call the dish "Wenchang chicken". They use a particular fowl that is bony and fibrous, and serve the chicken with oily rice. A ground green chilli dip rounds off the dish. The cooking method hails back to its Hainanese roots. The chicken is steeped in boiling water or blanched till it is fully cooked, before soaking it in cold water to ensure the meat remains tender. In a local twist, the chicken can also be roasted or braised in soya sauce for a different taste.

It is, however, the rice and chilli sauce that can make or break the dish. The rice, cooked in chicken stock with ginger and pandan leaves, with just the right amount of oiliness. And the chilli must have the right blend of spiciness and sourness.


Brief Description of the Businesses

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant, Selangor:

The founder of this business is Mr. Roger Khoo. Mr. Roger Khoo was

actually an employee in a packaging industry. Mr. Khoo’s motives for

starting this business is because he like to cook since young, but he don’t

have that much capital to open a restaurant until the year of 2012.

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant currently only have one outlet only which is

located in No.19, Jalan SS2/30, 47300, Petaling Jaya, Selangor and they

are planning to open a new one on this year. Their main selling items are

their Kampung Chicken Rice’ and their Kuey Tiow Soup’. He choose Kuey

Tiow Soup to sell because it is some kind related to chicken rice. They also

provides other dishes such as, Pork Ball Soup, Fried Beansprout and etc.

The prices of the items did not increase when GST was implemented

because Mr.Khoo said most of his customers were old customers and

would not like to lose them. Their operation hour is from 7 in the morning

until 5 in the evening. Most of the customers will come and eat on the

afternoon, that is the time where the restaurant is very packed. At first,

everyone did not support his dream of opening a restaurant, even his kids

because they said it would not be successful. Today, it is the most

successful chicken rice shop in Selangor.

Singapore Chicken Rice: The founders of the business are Mr. Jimmy Tan, Mr. Johnson Tan and

Mr. Hoo. The business was founded in the year 1987. The first branch is still located at Jalan Song. The first branch of Singapore Chicken Rice initially was a coffee shop before it was renovated to a restaurant in 2013. Singapore Chicken Rice currently has expanded throughout the

whole East Malaysia. Their motives for starting the business is because chicken rice is one of the most common and famous food. Chicken rice,

regardless of any religion in Sarawak, can be accepted. The main headquarters is located at Lot 7488-7489, G/Flr. Block 16, Taman

Timberland, 3rd Mile, 93200 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Singapore Chicken Rice currently have 52 branches and around 20 employees in


each branch. Their main products sold are the chicken rice with two different flavors which are the roasted and the steamed chickens. They also provide side dishes such as noodles and kueh tiaw. Besides that, the

company’s recent development is called “value-meal restaurant”. It means that they try to reduce the cost of their product without

jeopardizing the quality of the food. They also reduce the volume of each drink, for example from 450ml to 350ml, which save the cost price of

their product.The prices of all items were increased last year due to the implementation of GST. The company targets to release at least one

product monthly, but it is based on the approval of the Director’s Team, or they so called ‘In-House Team’. Until the quality of the food is

accepted, the release of the product will be delayed. Singapore Chicken Rice’s open hour is on 10am to 10pm. Most of the customers will come at afternoon and evening because people their seldom eat chicken rice as

their breakfast. They started off with just a small shop without air-conditioning and now have over 52 branches including franchises.


Comparative Analysis of the Businesses’ Competitive Traits

Singapore Chicken Rice: Since the market trend is changing, especially the downfall of the

economy, most of their loyal customer prefer to eat at a coffee shop to save cost. But in Kuching, the biggest competitors for this company are fast foods. Sugarbun is one of their biggest competitors because they have the same equivalent standard of their operations. Sugarbun is a

company that specialized in selling fried chicken, but also side dishes such as chicken mushroom soup, ‘nasi lemak’ and many others. Sugarbun can

be said to be one of the famous fast food restaurant in Kuching. To compete with their customers, the first thing that Singapore Chicken Rice

did was to bring down their operation cost, that is to minimize unnecessary manpower. Secondly, they train and improve their staff’s

productivity to provide service, food quality and to regain back their lost customers. Based on the interview, Singapore Chicken Rice set their gross profit 50% and above. Singapore Chicken Rice also provides more choices of dishes in Malaysia such as Thai food, Indonesian food and Vietnamese

food in one of their recent restaurant which goes by name ‘Singapore Food Street’. It is also one of their latest development and strategies to

compete with their competitors. The nature of this market is actually monopolistic competition. Although this company have many franchise,

but there are some chicken rice company that have franchise too.

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant, Selangor:

The only competitor that Mr. Roger Khoo had mentioned was Restaurant

Kar Heong, which has 3 branches located in SS14, SS4 and Setia Alam.

Restaurant Kar Heong also sells mainly chicken rice, kueh tiaw soup and

pork balls. Mr Khoo stated that he didn’t really care about competitions

because what matters to him is only the quality of his food. Since Mr.

Khoo was already interesting in the food industry, he actually managed to

invent his own chicken rice recipe by using organic chicken and stewing

his chicken soup for 2 hours every day before it is ready to be served. He


also stated that if his food quality is maintained or improved, he would

definitely obtain more loyal customers. He mentioned that he wouldn’t

use any advertising strategies unless it’s free. He says that the best

advertisement is the promotion by their loyal customer about their main

dishes chicken rice, and it’s free. In the year of 2013, The Star Newspaper

titled Prosperity Bowl Restaurant the best chicken rice in SS2. It’s also on

the website everywhere. At the end of story, he didn’t use any money on

it. He also says that the only action that he would take to compete with

his competitors is to expand his business by opening a new branch.

Regarless of 67 years old, he still has the motivation to expand his

business. In food industry nowadays many young businessman didn’t

manage to invent the recipe of making delicious food themselves but by

hiring chefs and manager to operate the restaurant. The obstacles they

faced are that their customers and revenue isn’t going to maintain like

the first 3 month they operate. People nowadays like to try new things,

but it will get worse eventually because they are lack of experience in

food industry and would’nt manage the restaurant like what Mr Roger

Khoo did. The foods that they served nowadays are way too

commercialized which makes the food taste bad. The nature of this

market is actually monopolistic competition because it has many

competitors which are the other chicken rice shop.

Based on our analysis, Singapore Chicken Rice is more successful because

it has more branches. It is also known widely in Malaysia compared to

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant. Besides that, Singapore Chicken Rice has

expanded throughout the whole Easy Malaysia while Prosperity Bowl

Restaurant has only one single branch. Singapore Chicken Rice has also 12

franchises while Prosperity Bowl Restaurant has none.


Summary Table of Similarities between Singapore

Chicken Rice and Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

Summary Table of Differences between Singapore

Chicken Rice and Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

Singapore Chicken Rice Name Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

Yes Franchise No

10 Workers 5

Expand until it becomes

internationally recognised

Future plan Opened second brand as soon as possible

52 Current branches 1

Yes Halal No

Singapore Chicken Rice Name Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

Chicken Rice Main products Chicken Rice

Emphasize a lot on the quality of the food.

Quality of Food Very particular about the quality of the food.

Yes Sell Side Dishes Yes

High Cleanliness High


Recommendation

Based on our analysis regarding two restaurants, Singapore Chicken Rice and Prosperity Bowl Restaurant, we have proposed a few

recommendations to further improve their competitiveness in the future.

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant: There are a few current areas of improvement needed to be taken such as the ambience of the shop. It is not really well ventilated which results

in a stuffy feeling. The paint on the walls are also peeling off. Our recommendation is that they should improve the ventilation by opening more windows or installing air conditioning. They should also do a small

renovation such as repainting the walls and cleaning them. This way, customers would feel more comfortable while eating. Another area they

need to improve is the number of workers hired. There are only 5 workers, 3 in the kitchen and 2 as waiters. As the shop is very busy during peak hours, 2 waiters are not enough to accommodate everyone’s need. We recommend that Mr. Khoo hire at least 2 more waiters, so that there are enough to wait on tables and also clean up after the customer leaves. Another issue is that there are very limited array of food. Besides chicken

rice, they should have more choices to satisfy the palate of more customers. We recommend that they should have more variety of food

such as different kinds of meat like beef and pork.

Singapore Chicken Rice: There are also various areas which this restaurant should improve on

such as the services of the waiters. The workers do not pay much attention to the customers. Although there are enough workers, a few customers feel dissatisfied by their service because they are quite slow.

We recommend that they should be more organised and pay more attention to customers when they need attention. More training could be provided to the workers. Other than that, they are not very consistent with the quality and quantity of their food. The amount of food on the plate is not consistent during times. We recommend that more training should be provided so that workers can have a better estimation of the

quantity of food to put on the plate so that it is more consistent.


Bibliography

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

http://my.openrice.com/klangvalley/restaurant/restoran-prosperity-bowl-petaling-jaya-north/224983

http://constance-ant.com/2013/12/klang-valley-lunchy-restoran-

prosperity-bowl-ss2/

Singapore Chicken Rice (SCR)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCR_(restaurant)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Chicken-Rice-7th-Mile-Branch/136490046404892



http://constance-ant.com/2013/12/klang-valley-lunchy-restoran-prosperity-bowl-ss2/

http://constance-ant.com/2013/12/klang-valley-lunchy-restoran-prosperity-bowl-ss2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCR_(restaurant)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Chicken-Rice-7th-Mile-Branch/136490046404892?__mref=message_bubble

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Chicken-Rice-7th-Mile-Branch/136490046404892?__mref=message_bubble


Appendices: Pictures at Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

Outer view of Prosperity Bowl Restaurant

The boss, Mr. Roger Khoo


The main dishes

Group picture with Mr. Khoo


Appendices: Pictures at Singapore Chicken Rice

Fried Wanton

Variety of Dishes


Inside of the Singapore Chicken Rice

SCR Xpress’ outer view


Interviewing Michael Sim, GM of Singapore Chicken

Rice


Appendices: Questions and Answers

Prosperity Bowl Restaurant:

Q: What is your name?

A: I’m Roger Khoo

Q: What is your position in this business?

A: I’m the owner and the founder of this business

Q: How old are you?

A: 67

Q: How long have you been working in this industry?

A: 10 years until now

Q: What prompt you to start this business

A: I was actually working in the packaging industry, and also I was already

interested in cooking. I also wanted to open the restaurant on my own,

but I have no opportunity to.

Q: When did the business started?

A: It started on 2006

Q: Is the business open daily?

A: Our business closed once every two weeks on Wednesday

Q: What time did it open?

A: 7am to 9pm without breaks

Q: What is your signature dish

A: Our chicken rice and Kuey Tiow Soup

Q: Did you create the recipe or it was pass down from generation


A: I made the recipe myself with the help of some famous chef

Q: So, throughout this business, have you met some strong competitors?

A: Of course there is, but I doesn’t really matter to me because what I

care about is the quality of my foods. Whatever food I make, I do it with

sincerity so my customers would come back for more. That’s the most

important thing as long as the customers are happy.

Q: Did the cleanliness department unit give you any difficulties?

A: No, I manage to provide the requirements for them. Its actually quite

simple

Q: Did the GST causes any effects towards your business?

A: It actually affects on us but not our customers. Because of this tax, I

actually absorbs all the GST but not increasing the price of my products.

Indirectly speaking, the cost of my products will be higher. Because most

of my customers are my loyal customers. Therefore, by implementing the

GST, I’m afraid I will lose all my customers.

Q: So, with this company, what future development do you think it would

have?

A: I’m thinking about opening another outlet. But I haven’t found a

suitable place to open because not all foods are favourable to the locals

in that area. I’m still planning for it because I’m waiting for my son to take

over my business.

Q: So, how old are your son?

A: 30 and above, he’s still helping in my packaging industries

Q: Except for this Chicken Rice business, do you have any other business?

A: Yes, I still a printing company. But I will stop this company on this

March. Because I want to teach my son how to cook and he will take over

my business. If he don’t know how to cook, it will be very difficu lt for him


to handle this business. If he employed someone to cook, the taste will be

different from now, because they did not put any efforts to cook the

chicken. So, we must know how to cook. But most of the restaurant’s

owner doesn’t know how to cook but only employed someone else to

cook for the customers. I’ve worked at a printing shop for about 40 years,

I’ve also faced some difficulties. But it is not on my business, it is because

I want to make my recipe tastier and also keeping the tastiness of it. So,

what I cooked everyday will have the same taste. If not, customers will

not be satisfied of my food. The strategies of this industry will always be

like that, once our customers felt our food is tasty, they will bring their

friends to come and eat.

Q: Did you put any advertisement on anywhere?

A: No, but Star Paper helped me to promote my chicken rice last year. It is

for an event called Food Award. It contain 12 kinds of foods and we took

the best chicken rice in Klang Valley, because we are not using ordinary

chicken, we are using organic chicken. But organic chicken is more

expensive then the ordinary chicken. In my business, the most important

thing is my customers, although my expenses are slightly expensive, but it

is okay if my customers are satisfied. I try to maintain my price and not

like other restaurant that will increase their price during Chinese New

Year, because other restaurants are based on their profit to make their

business. Because the most important thing is to maintain my customers

instead of my profit.

Q: Is this your quotes? “Don’t Be The Biggest, But To Be The Best”

A: No, it is from the old owners that leave it here.

Q: Is this shop a restaurant before?

A: Yes, it is

Q: When is the time that the most customers come to eat?


A: It usually more busy on the breakfast time on the weekends instead of

weekdays, because this is not a lively area. You might know that there is a

resident area in front of my shop, and it is a remote area. Then my

children opposite me for opening my shop in this area. I like this place

because there’s a parking lot nearby, so if customers will be more easy to

reach my shop to eat. I will also ask my customers for the opinion of my

food to improve the taste of it. If we didn’t know how our customers feels

like after eating my foods, there will be no improvements and it will be

staying with the same taste of it.

Q: Do you have any new products?

A: I still have more things that didn’t sell, such as BBQ pork and roasted

pork. But I’m just focusing on my chicken rice, if not the cost will become

higher and It also will become like a normal stall.

Q: How much is the estimated amount of the annual cost of the business?

A: The cost is different for every year. But for my business, the annual

profit for my business is increasing. Actually I can earn more but because

of the implementation of the 6%GST, my profits are then reduced

because I increase the cost price of my product to keep hold of my loyal

customer. Thus, I don’t really earned a lot.

Q: Are your workers foreigners?

A: I only have 2 foreign workers.

Q: What advice do you have from your experience?

A: The food must be fresh before it is served. If you served it fresh, the

food will come out nicer. Cleaning the food will definitely produce a nicer

taste of the food. If you cook and you don’t dare to eat your own dishes,

then how can you sell it to your customers. Unlike other chicken rice shop,

I don’t add ‘ajinamoto’ to improve the taste. Instead, I started to stew the

soup for about 2 hours before it is served so that the chicken’s taste is

very strong.


Q: What is the biggest problem faced in this industry?

A: I don’t think that there are problems. As long as you are sincere in

cooking your dishes, then your food will be nice. You wouldn’t faced

problems as long as you have that passion. Customer would definitely like

your food.

Q: Why did you choose chicken rice instead of others?

A: I specialized in chicken rice. When, I first started my job as a chef, it

also requires me to cook chicken soup. So it is related. That’s why I chose

chicken rice.

fnbe eng 2 comparative analysis report

Data & Analytics