Table of Content 1. Overview of Company1.1 Background1.2 Major Product and Services1.3 Current Financial Status 2. Situation/Environment Analysis2.1 Internal Environment2.2 External Environment

3. Review of Company’s Resources3.1 Tangible & Intangible Resources3.2 Organizational Capabilities3.3 Limitations3.4 VRIO Framework Summary 4. Opportunities of Entrepreneurial Growth 4.1 Blue Ocean Strategy 4.2 Feasibility of Business4.3 Competitive Strategy4.4 Operational Plan of Business 5. Growth Strategies for Expansion 5.1 Market Development Strategy5.2 Product Development Strategy5.3 Strategic Alliances5.4 Foreign Market Selection5.5 Local & International Franchising Strategy 6. Managing Organization Growth 6.1 Leadership6.2 Organization Culture 6.3 Operations Excellence/ Functional Strategies 7. Conclusion

8. Appendices Section

9. References Section

1. Overview of Company

1.1 Background

The turnover of POPULAR Holdings had a drop of S$43.1m (7.6%) from the turnover of S$567.3m in

FY2012 to S$524.2m in FY2013. Even though the turnover of FY 2013 was less than that of FY2012,

POPULAR Holdings managed to attain a healthy gross profit margin of 18.4% as compared to 18.0% in

FY2012. The drop in turnover was mostly due to the lower revenue in the property division of POPULAR

Holdings as there were no new property launch in FY2013.

1.2 Major Product and Services

POPULAR’s main stream of revenue lies in their Retail and Distribution sector. It accounts for 83% of

their total revenue, earning a profit before tax of $354.1 million in Jan 2014. Being the largest bookstore

chain in Southeast Asia, POPULAR has an extensive retail network of nearly 156 outlets throughout

Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. However, due to the raising retail rental fees, POPULAR has

ventured into the Singapore’s Property market in hopes to shore up the capital for retail and distribution,

which eventually has earned some revenue to sustain the Retail and Distribution sector. Other streams of

revenue come from Publishing & E-learning which accounts for 13.1% of the total revenue. This is

predicted to be their next area of focus given their bundle of resources.

1.3 Current Financial Status

Based on the operating and financial review there has been a drop in POPULAR’s income, financial

position, liquidity ratio and investments ratio from the year 2012 to 2013. There was a loss in earnings per

share from 3.70 to 2.79 which is a drop of 24.6%. Due to unforeseen factors, there were increase in

advertising and promotion expenditure, rental expenditure incurred by additional book fairs, acquisition of

computers and information systems and higher depreciation on renovation of retail stores resulted in lower

profit before tax.

Sectors such as property development can be further increased in value as POPULAR can also invest in

property overseas and search for potential that will give them the most profits, especially those near

convenient areas such as shopping districts and food places. Publishing and E-learning can also be

increased in value as they can go hand in hand. With a great demand in using technology to learn, read and

getting information, an online version of a published book should also be available for the customers to

choose. Not only that, POPULAR can look into new sectors via the Blue Ocean Strategy where a ‘Learning

through Playing’ concept can be implemented for further growth instead of following the conventional way

of teaching and learning.

2. Situation/Environment Analysis

2.1 Internal Environment

Some of the key attributes have been highlighted in Appendix 1. Although POPULAR is doing well and

financially stable for now, they might face a fall in revenue due to the fact that some of their divisions are

malfunctioning. The products offered in these divisions are not meeting customers’ demands, and are in the

Maturity stage, entering the Declining stage of the Product Life Cycle (PLC) soon. To salvage this

situation, POPULAR should further expand itself in the education industry to maintain and sustain growth.

2.2 External Environment

Education is heavily emphasized by the Singaporean Government, and the Ministry of Education is looking

for innovative ways for children to learn better besides formal and rigid learning. Research shows that

playing is one of the most important ways of learning, especially so for children. Therefore, POPULAR

should adopt a Blue Ocean Strategy to enter the Learning Through Playing industry.

As seen in Appendix 2, 3 & 4, the Learning Through Playing Industry is highly favourable and profitable

for POPULAR to enter. The current competition in this industry, and the bargaining power of buyers and

suppliers are low as POPULAR can rely solely on their own resources. However, POPULAR might face a

high threat of substitutes and new entrants in the long run, but this can be easily tackled. As POPULAR

will enjoy the benefits of a first mover and together with appropriate strategies in place, their lead time will

be extended and they will be able to achieve maximum exploitation of this market.

3. Review of Company’s Resources

3.1 Tangible & Intangible Resources

As seen in Appendix 3, POPULAR has sufficient tangible resources to help develop a new business sector.

In addition, POPULAR has resources that can aid the business in the education industry, which include

POPULAR’s physical locations, Teacher Training Institutions and research facilities. This would increase

credibility, reliability and convenience level of POPULAR to parents as all of its employees have to

undergo proper training before serving customers. Thus, parents would be more encouraged to enroll their

child in the Learning Through Playing programmes. The intangible resources in Appendix 4 shows that

POPULAR has a good reputation, especially in the service line. This reputation is able to help POPULAR

convey to consumers that they are service-oriented and provide tip-top services. In addition, the key

resources that are needed in POPULAR’s new division such as the reputation, financial and human

resources are already well-developed and they do not need many new resources to enter this industry given

their current resources.

3.2 Organizational Capabilities

As seen from their consecutive years of winning service awards and their wide distribution network,

POPULAR has implemented an outstanding management practice in managing their employees and

relationship with customers/suppliers and in the area of logistics. POPULAR has good insights as it is able

to quickly grasp the changing markets and by eliminating and introducing products and services to cater to

customer demand. They have the excess ability and capacity of entering a new market as their current

specialisation are also in the education industry.

3.3 Limitations

One of POPULAR’s major limitation would be their intellectual resources for Learning Through Playing

industry as competitors are able to duplicate their services easily. However, with POPULAR’s pool of

talents and excellent hiring and talent retainment practices, they can easily tackle this through their constant

innovation of introducing and updating their services. Tied in with their first-class services and educational

resources, customers would be more loyal to POPULAR instead of new competitors as they would be

known to be the pioneer and first mover in this industry.

3.4 VRIO Framework Summary

The 6 key resources have been identified and compared in the VRIO context in Appendix 5. The key

resources from POPULAR needed to enter the ‘Playing Through Learning’ industry are Reputation,

Teacher Training & Research Facilities, Innovation Capacities, Favorable Retail Locations and Experience

& Capabilities of Service Employees. Based on the comparison, majority of the resources have sustained

competitive advantage. However, the temporary competitive advantage for Technical & Industrial

Expertise and Favorable Retail Locations can be sustained through retaining employee loyalty and securing

a longer period leasing contract.

4. Opportunities of Entrepreneurial Growth

4.1 Blue Ocean Strategy

POPULAR should focus on interactive learning where learning through playing is implemented for

children and targeted at parents. Parents can choose from a wide range of all-rounder based activities such

as child character building, memory training, creativity thinking and motor skills and join their child in the

sessions as well. It will give the child a jump start, compared to children of the same age as our students

will be more sociable, creative, and expressive. This program differentiates itself from other centres as we

encourage the involvement of parents in the growing phrase of their children.

Business Name & Tagline

Introducing “POPcircle”, the meaning of “POP” comes from POPULAR and “circle” represents the never

ending cycle of education to indicate that learning is an ongoing process with the tagline of “The Learning

Cycle Never Ends.”

Curriculum of POPcircle

The curriculum in Appendix 6 is based on the skills needed for children. Each course is designed to

develop the 7 intelligences. In addition, it is also to have the skills and objectives developed to ensure

effectiveness of the programs. A ‘Learning Journey’ photo book of each child engaging in the activities

will be made for parents to keep track of their child’s progress. Curriculums will have a weekly theme and

will be changed monthly to ensure the development and newness to our students. As seen in Appendix 7,

familiar themes are set to attract the child’s attention and interest so that children are able to relate and

enjoy the learning process. In addition, there will also be simulation games for children to participate. The

child will get to rest and relax while playing interactive simulation game with their parents to experience

other kind lifestyle to broaden the child’s knowledge. The game will let the child experience different job

occupations like doctors and lawyers to enhance their knowledge and to find out their area interest so as to

further develop it. Each child will be provided with an iPad to play the games. All the games are specially

designed by the professional team to cater to the needs of the child and are exclusively for POPcircle

member only. Besides curriculum, POPcircle will also come up with initiative building activities to teach

the child to step out of their comfort zone and differentiate themselves from the rigid standard set. The

courses will be designed to lead the child to make their own decision and there is no right or wrong answer

so as to encourage the child to participate actively.

A basic package of 4 classes per month will be offered as seen in Appendix 8 and parents are strongly

encouraged to participate in their child’s learning. This will allow them to bond and understand the learning

behavior and capacity intake of their child. Lesser time is needed for the child to adapt better to the

environment with their parents around. Parents gets to facilitate their child’s learning and realise their

child’s strength and weaknesses from this program.

There will be 5 students for every lesson, each child will be accompanied by their parent, if the parent is

not able to attend, we will assign a same gender facilitator to the child to look after him/her. This is to

ensure every child gets the same attention and the small class will help to maximise the child’s learning

capacity. Each curriculum will last around 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the activities. Feedback from

children and parents regarding their choices for themes and program preferences will be reviewed weekly

to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum. From there, our team of expert will look into the feedback

and create new activities and themes weekly.

4.2 Feasibility of Business

In 2010, for the Government Parliamentary rejected the idea of pre-school to adapting play-based

approach, as schools should focus more academic-wise so as to prepare the child for primary school

education. As a result, many skills such as motor skills which many have considered important are

neglected in schools.

Research suggest that ‘pretend’ games are an important aspect for forms of self-regulation including

reduced aggression and delay of gratification. When children use toys to assign a role to an scenario,

multiple perspective will be formed and allows the child to learn social skills. The child is able to develop

communication and problem solving skill at a young age. As POPcircle is the only centre that conducts

pretence play for children and parents, this will certainly gives an niche position in this industry. Just in

2012 alone, S$820 million is spent on extra lesson for children. This shows that Singaporean parents want

their child to be an all-rounder and develop various skill, POPcircle can promote itself as providing

children education in a fun way that will aid them to be a fast learner and stay relevant to the education

standard.

4.3 Competitive Strategy

POPcircle do not have competitors but substitutes that offers similar services. One of the competitor

identified is Act3 International which also offer drama workshop for children. However, their focus are on

art appreciation for kids, where there are museum and library study trips and storytelling sessions.

POPcircle can easily differentiate from competitors as its focus is on holistic education and parent

involvement in their child's learning journey. Other differentiated services such as developing

mathematical literacy, social skills and linguistics capabilities are also offered to nurture all-rounders.

MindChamps Reading & Writing Programmes is another substitute with focus on developing children’s

understanding and love for reading which the teacher will be actively engaged in a storytelling way.

Children will also learn to write, make correct sentence structures and expand their vocabulary. However, it

neither allows creativity to flow nor differ much from a kindergarten. It also can be conceived as an ‘extra

lesson’ for children. Their services are limited and do not develop the child in a holistic manner unlike

POPcicrle. In addition, POPcircle will introduce customer loyalty program such as membership, a logbook

to keep track of their child’s milestone and plan lessons based to their interest and customizable theme and

curriculum classes.

4.4 Operational Plan of Business

Locational Strategy

As convenience are highly valued, especially for parents working in the CBD area, it will be ideal to locate

POPcircle at the central of Singapore. With the ease of transportation, parents will find it easily accessible

to attend classes with their children in the central district. As classes are held on a daily basis, parents who

are working in CBD areas will find it convenient to head over to POPcircle after their work or during lunch

hours to check on their child.

Pricing & Promotional Strategy

Together with POPULAR’s strong reputation in the education industry and using penetration pricing,

POPcircle will start off with a low initial price to appeal to the mass market and build a large customer

base.

It will introduce bundle packages and premium prices for classes that require more resources. Promotions

will be executed, mainly during the school holidays, the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) and special occasional

periods when purchases of 4 packages will be entitled to a discounted price of 15% to encourage new

customers to enroll their children into POPcircle.

Operating System

POPcircle will have classes on a daily basis to cater to the busy schedules of many parents, and there will

also be different curriculum activities planned for each day. During weekdays, POPcircle will be opened

from lunch hours onwards at around 2pm, as most students would have been released from their respective

schools. In addition, they would require some time to travel to the central area of Singapore, or are using

POPcircle’s transport service. Parents can visit their child during their office lunch break hours, and will be

able to join their children after work ends or fetch them home. However, during weekends and public

holidays, POPcircle will be opened from 11am onwards, as students and parents would have more time

available for them to commit to classes at POPcircle. By commencing daily operations at such timings, it

would ensure that the parents would be able to participate with their children in hopes of bonding and

helping them to grow in the process. Not only that, parents can also expect their children to gain knowledge

they cannot obtain elsewhere.

Human Resource

POPcircle should have a proper and strict policy in regards to how they select their employees and allocate

their facilitators to ensure maximum learning process. There will be two qualified facilitators in their own

field of specialisation in charge of each class, depending on the curriculum that POPcircle has in plan for

the specific day. This ensures that students will be attended to at all times as one facilitator can be

explaining the instructions for the activity while the other will be able to look out and help the students if

needed. Student’s participation will be ensured as two facilitators will not miss out and neglect the attention

of the children.

Facilitators must undergo a series of strict selection and training process whereas only the top 10% of

applicants with extensive educational qualifications and expertise are qualified to be a facilitator of

POPcircle. The selection process includes undergoing a series of workshop to review the applicant’s

interpersonal skills, mindset, clarity of English expression, and the dynamism and knowledge pedagogy.

Potential candidates amongst the applicants will be shortlisted to attend another workshop to learn about

the culture of POPcircle, to ensure and guarantee the standard of all POPcircle’s facilitators. Only after the

completion of these workshops would an applicant be selected and to function as a facilitator of POPcircle.

Facilitators would also be constantly assessed and given ongoing training to help improve our concept of

“Learning through Playing” to keep up with the standards.

5. Growth Strategies for Expansion

5.1 Market Development Strategy

New Geographical Market

After years of implementation and with the learning centres located in prominent commercial heartland of

Singapore, the awareness has increased. However, people are always looking for convenience. Based on

our understanding of consumer behavior, neighbourhood learning centres would be beneficial to residents

all over Singapore. Therefore, by opening centres in residential areas such as Ang Mo Kio, Tampines,

Woodlands, etc, we provide close proximity to homes. By doing this, other than convenience, it will also

foster the bonding among parents who live within the same area. Furthermore, as compared to central

areas, the relatively cheaper rental fees would mean lesser monthly operating costs. With that, the

consumers of POPcircle will be able to purchase the services at a cheaper rate.

New Demographical Market

It is known that Singapore is a multicultural society and there are proportions of the races in the areas they

live in. With neighbourhood learning centres, there will a good mix of pupils and parents, thus exposing

them to peers from different cultures, backgrounds and religions. With interactions, they will learn to

understand, tolerate and accept the differences in people from different demographic group.

5.2 Product Development Strategy

During the weekdays, most parents would be working from morning till evening and therefore are unable

to accompany their children to and throughout the class. We see the opportunity to cater bus services to

these customers. With a daily bus fare of $2 or a monthly fare of $40, the bus will stop right outside the

place of residence. As mentioned above, most parents would miss the day classes. Therefore, we see the

opportunity to extend the opening hours till night at 10pm.

5.3 Strategic Alliances

POPcircle can provide theatres and Mediacorp with outstanding students to participate in their

programmes. At the same time, Mediacorp and other theatres will provide their trainees to work and gain

experience in POPcircles by teaching the students there.

Secondly, because Sentosa is a well-known recreational location, it would be ideal for POPcircle to locate

an outlet in Sentosa. Resources such as beaches, Megazip and indoor playgrounds are useful for POPcircle

to carry out its activities indoor and outdoor. By doing this, POPcircle will bring more visitors to Sentosa in

return for the facilities provided to POPcircle.

5.4 Foreign Market Selection

Based on various factors and the overall score of countries in Early Education (Appendix 9), the Decision

Matrix (Appendix 10) reflected that United Kingdom should be the first country for POPcircle to enter,

followed by Norway, Australia and Malaysia. As United Kingdom, Norway and Australia were well-

ranked for Early Education, a joint venture would be recommended as POPcircle can tap on local’s partner

well-developed resources and knowledge. Meanwhile for Malaysia, a wholly-owned subsidiaries would be

encouraged as the country do not have any proper or comprehensive educational resources to leverage on.

Therefore, POPcircle should take full control to operate to ensure a successful operation.

5.5 Local & International Franchising Strategy

POPcircle can extend the limited lead time by issuing franchising licenses to local and international

partners, it will expand and grow more rapidly within the shortest period of time as low development and

risk are incurred. Priority will be given to franchises opened in top-ranked countries for Early Education

and franchisee with education industry background. In order to ensure that quality is reinforced, franchisee

selection, regular quality checks, franchisee management trainings and performance reviews would be

conducted.

6. Managing Organization Growth

6.1 Leadership

As POPcircle is a Blue Ocean industry, it is important to promote the interests and social equality among

the staffs so as to create higher productivity to keep up with the rapidly changing environment. Hence, the

Democratic leadership style is used. Although the final decision-making lies on the democratic leader, the

staffs of POPcircle will be invited to contribute and be a part of the decision-making process. This allows

the staffs of POPcircle to feel that they are valued by the organisation, increasing the morale of POPcircle

as a whole. This leads to better innovative and creative ideas to be contributed and hence allowing

POPcircle to have its competitive advantages over others.

Some of the characteristics that a democratic leader should possess would be courage, be forward-looking

and broad-minded. However, the leader of POPcircle must also possess passion in running the business.

Passion produces positive energy, which drives the leader to push himself forward to achieve the goal.

Seeing how hard the leader work, it can also influence and set a good role model for the staff. It is tiring to

operate a business dealing with the children where the education standards keep changing. This requires

constant planning, improvising the program to keep up with the trend. With a good leader and the ability to

be part of the decision making process, the staffs will be able to come up with a better curriculum. Every

week, there are many things to consider for the layout of courses, props and cash flow etc.

A leader also has his own shortcomings, therefore it is important to choose a leader of good character and

ethics. The newly employed leader will be assigned to a mentor to learn to make good decision and build

character as well as to gain experience before being appointed. It is best to have 2 weeks set aside for the

newly employed leader to learn the company culture and working style of the subordinates through

attending meeting and when asked for opinion to resolve an issue, the quality of the answer will be

accessed.

6.2 Organization Culture

As POPcircle is closer in adopting a differentiation strategy and developing itself to provide innovative

services, CREATE culture would be the most suitable organization culture to be adopt so as to be used in

conjunction with a democratic leadership. As POPcircle is a Blue Ocean industry, the employees of

POPcircle must be innovative to come up with services that will capture the attention of the public. In this

rapidly changing and fast paced environment, the ability to adapt and react to it is of utmost importance.

Competitors will enter this industry to earn part of the profits when the industry is established. Hence, by

adopting an open culture, it would allow an integration of views and ideas by all staffs. Such a culture

would mean that there is low level of centralised power or authority relationship among the staffs. Staffs of

POPcircle will have their own form of authority within their areas of specialisation. They will work

individually and coordinate with others in a team to make actions that would help to improve and grow

POPcircle. A CREATE culture embraces innovation, risk-taking and being on the leading edge. Employees

will always be encourage to experiment and come up with new ideas to be ahead of their competitors. This

will ensure that POPcircle will always have a competitive advantage ahead of their competitors.

6.3 Operations Excellence/Functional Strategies

Operations management

In order to have continuous improvements, there are some key performance indices that will be

implemented.

1.Total Quality Management

In order for POPcircle to maintain Operational Excellence, the business must take into consideration eight

elements of Total Quality Management and implement them. (Refer to Appendix 11).

It is important for POPcircle to employ the correct people with characters that possess honesty, morals,

values, fairness, and adherence to the facts and sincerity, as these traits are what customers (internal or

external) expect and deserve to receive from the business. The character of an employee has to encompass

the various elements in TQM, such as integrity, trust, teamwork, ethics and so on. Employees have to be

trustworthy, as without trust, the framework of TQM cannot be built. Trust fosters full participation of all

members and allows empowerment that encourages decision-making. As such, trust is essential in

POPULAR’s employees to keep them motivated and driven, which will therefore lead to customer

satisfaction, as employees are able to serve customers better when they have a positive work attitude.

In order to attain employees with the right character, training is essential to awaken the dormant

characteristics that lie inside of the employees, especially so when the business is a new concept.

Employees have to be trained so that they can become effective employees for the business and be up to

customers’ standards, especially so in this age where parents tend to be more demanding when it comes to

services. With the use of teamwork, POPcircle will receive faster and better solutions to existing problems

when employees work in teams. In addition, when grouped in teams, employees tend to feel more

comfortable bringing up problems that may occur, and can get help from other employees to find a solution

and put it into place to tackle the existing issue.

Throughout any organization, it is essential to have a leader that can guide the employees on the right path.

Commitment and personal involvement is required from top management in POPULAR, in order to create

and deploy clear quality values and goals consistent with the objectives of the company. This can be done

by creating and deploying well defined systems, methods and performance measures for achieving those

goals. Furthermore, the success of TQM demands communication with and among all the employees in

POPcircle, suppliers and customers. Supervisors must keep open airways where employees can send and

receive information about the TQM process. For communication to be credible, the message must be clear

and receiver must interpret in the way the sender intended, so as to prevent miscommunication. This will

thereby allow POPcircle to produce and provide quality services to its customers.

2. Six Sigma

There are five phases in the Lean Six Sigma methodology that POPULAR can apply to its new sector in

order to reduce wastage and defects in its operations. (Refer to Appendix 12).

The first step that POPcircle can take is to define the problem and determine if it is best solved through a

thorough Lean Six Sigma or using other tools. This can be done by getting the managers in POPULAR to

create a ‘Project Charter’ consisting of a problem statement, a goal statement, maps of the process as well

as a definition of POPcircle’s customers and their requirements. Next, teams have to be formed, and will

look at the operations system of POPcircle by getting all employees involved. This can be done by

establishing a baseline to see how operations perform currently, look out for what is causing the problem,

and then create a plan to collect the necessary data to look at every angle and every step from all the

departments involved in the process.

Next, the team must interpret the data from the previous phases to see how the processes interact to verify

the root of the problem with additional analysis. This can be done by running through a plan called "Design

of Experiments", to determine if the teams are on target, and if their plans to this point have merit and

could result in greater productivity and lower costs for POPcircle. When the team sees that their hard work

could result in real improvements to the business, they will be anxious to put the improvements into play.

To do so, the teams will have to lay out the improvement plan, make adjustments they think might be

necessary to the flow charts, and then start implementing the changes and start measuring improvements.

Finally, the management has to control the improvement phase by getting teams in POPcircle to continue

making adjustments if needed, as they monitor the improvements. During this phase, all team members

need to bring their employees up to speed, so everyone in the organization will be privy to the plan and

therefore will be able to attain desired results, which is to increase sales and generate more revenue to

support POPULAR as a whole.

3. Lean Manufacturing & Services

In order to maintain a competitive industry, POPcircle must always take note of non-value added actitives

because it only waste time and increase cost for the business. There are some wastes of Lean

manufacturing that POPcircle can implement to reduce wastage such as:

i) Over-Processing - POPcircle must always use the simpler and easiest method in solving their problems

especially, day to day problem. As more time and effort would be required and wasted if they were not

efficient in doing so. For example, the same data is required in number of places in an application form

which could simply be cut down by the use of a computer to store all this repetitive information. This does

not only saves money, it also saves time and resources.

ii) Transportation - A daily routine for POPcircle would be transportation in terms of resources, datas and

information. If the movements of items is more than required, it results in wasted efforts and energy which

would then add to the cost. For example, the movement of files and documents from one location to

another is troublesome for a company. Hence, an effective way would be through the Internet or shared

company systems or cloud computing.

iii) Motion - POPcircle should be efficient and reduce the movement of people that does not add value. For

example, if the employee needs a certain data, they do not have to waste time just to find the data as

information should always be readily available for their use.

iv) Un-utilized Staff - It is important for a company to recognize an employee's potential and let them do

their task to the best of their ability. There are always staffs who are lower in rank but is much better than

the person who has a higher rank than them. Hence, realizing one's ability and potential is the key factor for

POPcircle to ensure that they remain competitive and open to changes and ideas.

7. Conclusion

Given POPULAR’s resources and renowned reputation in the education industry, POPcircle can easily be

targeted at the Singapore Market. POPcircle is predicted to last for decades and become the most popular

educational centre for children, due to the increase in demand for high quality education. POPcircle has a

fresh and interesting concept that aims to target parents and children to participate in their child’s learning

and growing phrase, and this will help keep children happy and stress-free. It will therefore grasp and

swipe the target market due to the increasing demand for education and the convenience of POPcircle

centres. The plan is to open POPcircle at CBD and neighbourhood areas, to bring convenience to people.

With strategies implemented during lead time and together with POPcircle’s strategic partners, POPcircle

aims to develop rapidly and become the market leader of the Playing Through Learning industry in

Singapore and expand internationally through franchising. To ensure the facilitators’ and franchise

standards remains at tip-top condition, POPcircle will implement operations excellences measures and

procedures stated in the report.

Tied in with the availability of current resources, lack of competition for being the first mover, as well as

POPULAR’s renowned brand image to launch POPcircle, it is guaranteed to be a success and the next main

revenue stream for POPULAR Holdings.

8. Appendices Section

Appendix 1: SWOT Analysis of POPULAR Holdings

Appendix 2: PEST Analysis on Playing Through Learning Industry

Appendix 2: Porter’s 5 Forces applied in Playing Through Learning Industry

Appendix 3: Tangible Resources of POPULAR Holdings

Appendix 4: Intangible Resources of POPULAR Holdings

Appendix 5: VRIO Framework Summary

Appendix 6: Curriculum (Types)

Types of Play

Descriptions Characteristics of Play

Descriptions Activities 7 Types of Intelligences

Creative Children are involve in exploring the environment and uses whatever material is available to them do things to express their thinking, feelings and creativity

Active Children uses their mind and body to interact with their surrounding

·Drawing·Dancing·Playing with dough or clay to mold things of their choice·Crossword puzzle·Activities that can evoke their imaginations

Linguistic

Games with Rules

Rules are flexible to children, they could also develop their own rules keeping those establish rules at the same time. Children will tends to question, negotiate and add rules as to what can be done and what can’t be. Rules and languages are important as the way you communicate the game will affects the result.

Communicative, social and interactive

Children share information and knowledge to one another, build up on social skills and play along with friends.

·Picture card games·SoccerNote: Any game will do as long as they children understand and play along with it

·Bodily-Kinesthetic

Languages Playing with sounds and words. It could be repetitive sound and pattern or even nonsense words.

Communicative and enjoyable

It could be involving sense of humor

·Reading to children·Hold a supporting role while listening the child tells story·Singing

Musical

Physical Physical play- Improve the coordination of hand, body and leg. Aims to improve gross motor skills before refining the fine motor skill.Constructive play- Aims to refine the fine motor skills by

Adventurous and risky, involved and interact

Explore the unknown and interact with the environment. Uses their imagination to create meaningful things.

·Allow them to use material in their surrounding to create things·Uses Legos and natural material (E.g. leafs) to build thing·Circus art workshop

·Bodily-Kinesthetic

·Spatial (Thinks in image and picture)

improving the hand eye coordinationExploratory play- Using their sense to explore the environment to find out what they can do and experience with it.Manipulative play- involve building things using material like Legos

Pretend Early literacy and numeracy- Involve children to make a list of menu and charge according to the price listed to show their counting skills.Small world play –involve in playing with children only and using of real life play propsSocio-dramatic play –adults or children can be involved together to interact and communicate. Children are also encourage to build up their language skills by writing its own scriptMake believe and fantasy role play- Children acting as the super hero or favorite character. They could also acts in a real life situation too.

Symbolic, voluntary, involved

The children choose what to play, involve both reading and writing skills.

·Role playing according to different scenario

·Logical-Mathematical

·Interpersonal

·Intrapersonal

Appendix 7: Curriculum (Themes)

Week/Day One (Super Hero & Fairies Theme)

Simulation Game: Occupations in Hospital

Two(Our Home, Our Earth)

Simulation Game: Occupations in School

Three(Get Sporty!)

Simulation Game:Occupations of protecting the civilians

Four(Disney Time!)

Simulation Game: Occupations in a court house

Monday Water gun painting &Presentation of Art Pieces

Chinese Calligraphy Throw ball painting Sand Drawing &Presentation of Art Pieces

Tuesday Make a Hero/Fairies Kit- using things from their surrounding

Playing with Water Instrument

Adventure Time- Coming sport equipment obstacles course

Dough Playing- Do you want to build a snowman?

Wednesday Stories Telling-With costume

Chemistry Playing – Learn more about Colours

Lego Building Time! Circus Art Workshop

Thursday Action Time- Games with rules

Gardening Sports Day! Disney Classic Stories Telling

Friday Singing Time! Singing Time! Singing Time! Singing Time!

Saturday Role Playing -Super Hero Vs the Super Villain

Role Playing-Acts of Conserving the earth; water and environment.

Walk a Pet- Children will learn to take care of animals like dogs and cats.

Role Playing-Sports equipment will be provided.

Role Playing-Welcome to the enchanting journey!

Finding Nemo- Breed a guppy

Sunday Dancing - Yoga Dancing –Ballroom Dance

Dancing-Hip Hop

Dancing –Street Jazz

Appendix 8: Bundle Package Deals

MONTHLY PACKAGEPackage A – 4 Classes is $100

Package B -6 Classes $130Package C- 8 Classes $170Individual Class- $30Membership and registration fee- $ 30Member are able to enjoy 5% discount on classes and 10% on birthday month

Ideally, each parent are encourage to come at least 2 lesson in a month to enhance the child’s learning process to bond with them.

Appendix 9: Overall Scores for Early Education

The Economist. (2012). “Starting Well: Benchmarking Early Education Across The World.” Retrieved from http://www.lienfoundation.org/pdf/publications/sw_report.pdf. Web. (2014, July 7).

Appendix 10: Decision Matrix for Foreign Market Selection

United Kingdom - 1.8% Growth Rate, 12.22 births per 1,000, 10.1 Million of Age 0 to 14.Sweden - 0.79% Growth Rate, 11.92 births per 1,000, 1.1 Million of Age 0 to 14.Finland - 0.05% Growth Rate, 10.35 births per 1,000, 0.8 Million of Age 0 to 14.Norway - 1.19% Growth Rate, 12.09 births per 1,000, 0.9 Million of Age 0 to 14.Australia - 1.09% Growth Rate, 12.19 births per 1,000, 3.9 Million of Age 0 to 14.Malaysia - 1.47% Growth Rate, 20.06 births per 1,000, 8.6 Million of Age 0 to 14.Hong Kong - 0.41% Growth Rate, 9.38 births per 1,000, 0.8 Million of Age 0 to 14China - 0.44% Growth Rate, 12.17 births per 1,000, 122 Million of Age 0 to 14 Overall Score for Early Education:United Kingdom - 87.9%Sweden - 91.7%Finland - 91.8%Norway – 88.9%Australia – 70.9%Malaysia – 39.4%Hong Kong – 66.2%China – 30.7%

Appendix 11: The Eight Elements of Total Quality Management

1. Ethics Firstly, POPcircle has to establish a business code of ethics that outlines

guidelines that all employees must strictly follow and adhere to in the

performance of their work in order for the business to be successful, which

includes Individual ethics such as personal rights or wrongs.

2. Integrity Characteristics such as honesty, morals, values, fairness, and adherence to the

facts and sincerity are what customers (internal or external) expect and deserve

to receive from the business. Integrity is an important element, as people see the

opposite of integrity as duplicity, where TQM will not work in an atmosphere of

duplicity.

3. Trust Without trust, the framework of TQM cannot be built. Trust fosters full

participation of all members and allows empowerment that encourages decision-

making at appropriate levels in the organization. It also helps to foster individual

risk-taking for continuous improvement and help to ensure that measurements

focus on improvement of process and are not used to contend people. As such,

trust is essential in POPULAR’s employees in order to ensure customer

satisfaction.

4. Training Training is yet another important element for employees in POPcircle in order to

be highly productive, especially when the business is a new concept. The most

essential training that employees require are interpersonal skills, the ability to

function within teams, problem solving, decision making, job management

performance analysis and improvement, business economics and technical skills.

Employees have to be trained so that they can become effective employees for

the business and be up to customers’ standards, especially so in this age where

parents tend to be more demanding when it comes to services.

5. Teamwork To become a successful business, teamwork is also a key element of TQM. With

the use of teams, POPULAR will therefore receive faster and better solutions to

existing problems. These teams will also be able to provide more permanent

improvements in processes and operations. In addition, when grouped in teams,

employees tend to feel more comfortable bringing up problems that may occur,

and can get help from other employees to find a solution and put it into place to

tackle the existing issue.

6. Leadership Leadership is one of the most important elements in TQM. Throughout any

organizations, it is essential to have a leader that can guide the employees on the

right path. Commitment and personal involvement is required from top

management in POPULAR, in order to create and deploy clear quality values

and goals consistent with the objectives of the company. This can be done by

creating and deploying well defined systems, methods and performance

measures for achieving those goals.

7. Communication

Communication is essential in every organization, and it acts as a vital link

between all elements of TQM. The success of TQM demands communication

with and among all the employees in POPULAR, suppliers and customers.

Supervisors must keep open airways where employees can send and receive

information about the TQM process. Communication coupled with the sharing

of correct information is vital. For communication to be credible, the message

must be clear and receiver must interpret in the way the sender intended, so as to

prevent miscommunication.

8. Recognition Recognition is the last and final element in the entire system. It should be

provided for both suggestions and achievements for teams as well as individual

employees, as individuals strive to receive recognition for themselves and their

teams. Detecting and recognizing contributors is the most important job of a

supervisor. As people are recognized, there can be huge changes in self-esteem,

productivity, quality and the amount of effort exhorted to the task at hand.

Recognition comes in its best form when it is immediately following an action

that an employee has performed, as it boosts confidence and allow an employee

to have a more positive work attitude.

Appendix 12: Lean Six Sigma

Define The first step in Lean Six Sigma is to define the problem and determine if it is

best solved through a thorough Lean Six Sigma or using other tools. This can be

done by getting the managers in POPULAR to create a ‘Project Charter’

consisting of a problem statement, a goal statement, maps of the process as well

as a definition of POPULAR’s customers and their requirements.

Measure Measurement of a process through Lean Six Sigma tools allows the team to look

at the system as it currently exists and drill it down from the top to bottom by

getting input from those involved on every level. This can be done by getting the

team to establish a baseline to see how processes perform currently, look out for

what is causing the problem, and then create a plan to collect the necessary data,

using a "value stream map", or a series of flow chart-type diagrams to look at

every angle and every step from all the departments involved in the process.

Analyse Next, the team must interpret the data from the previous two phases by using a

systematic tool for turning inputs on and off and gathering data on the outputs to

see how the processes interact to verify the root of the problem with additional

analysis. This can be done by running through a plan called "Design of

Experiments", to determine if the teams are on target, and if their plans to this

point have merit and could result in greater productivity and lower costs for the

business.

Improve When the team sees that their hard work could result in real improvements to the

sector, they'll be anxious to put the improvements into play. To do so, the Six

Sigma team will have to lay out the improvement plan, make adjustments they

think might be necessary to the flow charts, and then start implementing the

changes and start measuring improvements.

Control The final phase of the Lean Six Sigma project is to control the improvement

phase, getting teams in POPULAR to continue making adjustments if needed, as

they monitor the improvements. During this phase, all team members need to

bring their employees up to speed, so everyone in the organization will be privy

to the plan and therefore will be able to attain desired results, which is to

increase sales and generate more revenue to support POPULAR as a whole.

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