elg assign 2 final 211

SCHOOL OFARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT

REPORT TITLE: A Comparative Analysis of 2 Businesses of Similar Industry in Different Geographical Locations

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

LECTURER: MR. GOPIGHANTAN MYLVAGANAM

SUMMISION & PRESENTATION DATE: 15 JANUARY 2016

Name Presentation/Research report role

LOH MUN TONG (0323680)

Artistic cover, cover page, table of content, key summary, comparative analysis(Haraju Cube), appendix 1-3 and compilation of report.

TAN JIA SAN (0322406) Brief Description (Haraju Cube), Appendix 4 and References

LEONG LI JING (0323628) Brief description (Sweet Hug House)

CALVIN WONG PING KET (0322481)

Video editing (Sweet Hug House), Recommendation, Bibliography & Obstacles face by new business enter the market

KIEW CHEE YUAN (0323297) Competitors, strategy, Comparison of Both Business (Sweet Hug House)

THAM KAI LOON (0323593) Presentation slides

LOW WING CHUN (0323315) Video editing (Haraju Cube)

LOH MUN TONG (0323680) l TAN JIA SAN (0322406) l LEONG LI JING (0323628) l CALVIN WONG PING KET (0322481) l KIEW CHEE YUAN (0323297) l THAM KAI LOON

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TABLE OF CONTENT

TOPIC PAGE

KEY SUMMARY 3

DESCRIPTION OF HISTORY OF 4

DESSERT BUSINESS

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESSES 5 - 6

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE 7 - 18

BUSINESSES’ COMPETITIVE TRAITS

RECOMMENDATION 19

BIBLIOGRAPHY 20

APPENDICES 21 – 42

REFERENCE 43


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KEY SUMMARYWe were assigned to conduct a comparative research.

Throughout our research, eating dessert is a blooming trade. The first dessert shop is situated in Kampar, a town that has turned into a bustling education hub as University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) was set up, and the second interview we did is in the posh area of Kuala Lumpur, Empire Damansara. Empire Damansara is a new mixed development that aims to satisfy business and lifestyle needs. Therefore, it has become a new attraction in Kuala Lumpur. Gradually the name of the dessert shops are Sweet Hug House and Haraju Cube. The aim of this research is to compare between these dessert shop businesses in terms of business strategies, number of competitors, geographical location, number of branches, main product, revenue and daily number of customers.


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Description of history of desserts businessDessert is a course that is included in a main meal, and the word

‘dessert’ is originated from French word ‘desservir’ which mean of “to clean the table”. Usually desserts include mostly sweet food, but may include coffee, cheese, nuts of other savours. Fruit is commonly found in dessert because of it’s naturally sweetness.

Sweets were founded to feed for the god in Mesopotamia and India. Dry fruit and honey were the first sweeteners which were used in most of the world. After that, human started to use sugarcane to make sugar and make it easier to use and carry along.

Baked goods have been around the world for thousands of years and the art of bakery was developed early during the Roman Empire. And the baked goods became more famous and started selling in Rome, Germany and other country. Most goods that were baked by bakeries were pies, bread, cakes and others. As time goes, bakery nowadays not only sell baked goods but also coffee and other products. For example, RT bakery started selling coffee and food to increase their profit and also the amount of customer of niche market. In this generation, bakery and pastry are separated into dessert and non-dessert shops as more customers are willing to pay a visit to the dessert shop because of their sweet tooth and also due to the trend.


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Brief Description of Haraju CubeHaraju Cube, listed as the best dessert shop in Klang Valley,

gained their popularity from their unique taste of Japanese honey toast. After Shibuya-style Japanese honey toast has generated long queues in Tokyo, Taiwan and Thailand, Haraju Cube founders Daichi Fukuzato and Kent Ong decided that it is high time to introduce this Japanese treat to Malaysian. Nowadays, any Food and Beverage will think of a cool or unique name to attract customers. Since the founders are Japanese, they have decided to use a Japanese name. “Haraju” came from “Harajuku” which is a location in Japan where the young and teenagers dress in their own fashions they invent themselves, or cosplay outfit. While honey toasts come in cube size, hence the name “Haraju Cube”. It is located at 103 Level 1, Empire Damansara, Damansara Perdana, Jalan PJU 8/8, 47820 Petaling Jaya, Selangor , Malaysia. The brightly-lit café has cheerful yellow and white walls, huge windows and minimalist furnishings. Haraju Cube has run their business for almost a year, it is still fresh, therefore they do not have any branches. They currently have 12 employees to help run their business. The main product of Haraju Cube is the Caramel Honey toast because teenagers love sweet things. Caramel Honey toast is a huge and thick toast, laced with whipped cream, crowned with generous scoop of ice cream. Cutting through the edge of the toast to reveal 8 pieces cubed toast which is actually the “filling” of the hollowed square toast. As we know that Haraju Cube is a famous dessert shop which attracts many teenagers and families. Their estimated customers in a day exceeds 150 customers. During weekends, customers have to queue up to visit the shop because the seats are quite limited. The business started back in December, 2014. The founders, Kent and Daichi were involved in the pastry field in Japan before they start the business. They started this business because they have the culinary background and they want to try their best to deliver their passion on desserts to people. Furthermore, they also know that teenagers nowadays have an obsession with desserts. Before expanding their brand to other branches, Kent and Daichi would rather focus on the current shop first. LOH MUN TONG (0323680) l TAN JIA SAN (0322406) l LEONG LI JING (0323628) l CALVIN WONG PING KET (0322481) l KIEW CHEE YUAN (0323297) l THAM KAI LOON

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Brief Description of Sweet Hug HouseThe business that we interviewed is a dessert café located in

Kampar named Sweet Hug House. The Sweet Hug House is currently situated at 2236, Jalan Batu Sinar, Taman Bandar Baru 31900 Kampar, Perak. It started at 18th November 2012. This business was founded by a pair of couple, Mr. Ng Kam Wai and his wife, Mrs. Ng. Before that, Mr. Ng was working in the field of hotel management in overseas and locally. In Malaysia, he worked at Genting Highland Hotel for three years. In oversea, he worked at a six-star hotel, Star World Hotel at Macau for roughly ten years . Mr. and Mrs. Ng decided to move back to Kampar and operate a dessert shop because of their kids’ education and to earn for a living.

Their shop’s signature desserts are the cheesecakes, chocolate lava, and fondue. In order to increase their income, they also provide main courses and beverages. Their signature dish includes honey chicken chop and black pepper lamb chop while the signature beverages are coffee.

Mr. Ng stated that 50% of the customers are local families, 30% of them are students who came to Kampar for further studies at UTAR, and 20% of them are mostly Malays and Indians. The number of customers changes throughout the year. Mr. Ng estimated that they will have an average of 100 customer per month if is not during festive season. For peak seasons, the estimated number of customers are on an average of 200 per month. Other than that, Mr. Ng hired a total of five full-timer which one is supervisor and the rest are waitress.

To start the business, Mr. Ng used a total of RM 100,000 as business’s capital. The business has an annual revenue of roughly RM100, 000 per year. The business currently has no other branches.

The business will change their homemade recipes every two to three months in order to adapt to customers’ needs and also to attract more customers. The business future goals are to improve their business and open one more branch at a different area.


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Comparative Analysis of the Businesses’ Competitive Traits

Haraju Cube

!

Haraju Cube is located in Empire Damansara which is the heart of Damansara Perdana in Petaling Jaya. It is situated in a prime location in Petaling Jaya and can be accessed easily from different directions through many major highways. It is just minutes away from the prestigious and affluent districts such as Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Bandar Utama and Mutiara Damansara. Empire Damansara’s Heritage Lane houses a variety of F&B outlets catered for both the young and the old alike. Therefore, it encounters severe competition with many other dessert shops.

The top 3 competitors of Haraju Cube are Cat in the Box, Metal Box and Seven Cups. They are all located in the same building as Haraju Cube which is Empire Damansara.


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Competitor 1: Cat in the Box

Everything found in this place is made from scratch, from their Callebaut Chocolate sauce all the way to hearty pies. Dig into their Chicken & Potato Pie for a comfort, hearty meal. With crust not too thick, its savory pie has generous fillings, which is a good replacement for one’s lunch. Their signature is Callebaut Mocha Brownie with Fat

Competitor 2: Metal Box

Metal Box is a place where patrons flock faithfully to for their meals be in breakfast, brunch or tea. Metal-box’s baked eggs is usually the crowd’s favorite, 2 free range eggs with slices of chicken breast, chicken sausages and potatoes baked beautifully and served with 2 pieces of sourdough bread. The whole combination is palatable and a suitable comfort food. One can also dig into their Specialty French Toast, French toast pan seared till golden brown and served berries and a shot of gula Melaka. This dish will definitely end one’s meal on a SWEET note.


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Competitor 3: Seven Cups

A crowd favourite for a cuppa of Joe when one is in the vicinity. Dig into their best seller, the French Butter & Maple Syrup Waffles. Classic waffles out of the hot iron, with a slab of French butter on the side, drizzled with maple syrup. The waffles were nicely done, fragrant batter and not too soggy nor crispy. The Lescure French butter that came with the waffles was just so creamy and buttery. Order a chocolatey cup of Iced Chocolate or Iced Latte to go with that waffles.

Location: Jalan PJU 8/8, Damansara Perdana

Strategies Employed by Haraju Cube to compete with Competitors

Haraju-Cube dishes out their famous Shibuya honey toasts. Each toast is baked separately, with an outer layer of thick toast and 8 mini toast cubes hidden inside. Since the mini toasts are added with honey and butter, do expect a sugar rush moment. The outer layer toast is thick, whereas the mini toasts on the inside are warm, fluffy and soft. It claims to use special ingredients and its uniqueness in taste and texture make it stands out compared to others.


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Haraju Cube is also known of its flavoursome speciality of milk mixed with the cafe's own-made butterscotch & caramel which only serve at RM8.90 each.

! ! Although the entire café is not spacious but it exudes a cosy and relaxing ambience for casual

gathering. The interior of the café is decorated with lots of wooden elements in light tone, coupled well white walls and highlights of yellow for colour contrast. The decorations are minimal, with potted

plants on shelves hanging from wall. Ample of natural lights flow through the French window during daytime. Therefore, it serves as a good place to take good shots of photography and also their worthy

desserts. This strategy has attracted many blogger to visit the store.

Sweet Hug House


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��Sweet Hug House is located in Taman Bandar Baru, Kampar,

Perak. Kampar has been listed as one of the vast development towns for these few year. These developed infrastructure provides convenience to the local residents in Kampar. However the main reason of the increasing number of shop lots is to provide entertainment and convenience to the college student who stays around. Kampar has become a bustling education hub after University Tunku Abdul Rahman has set up. Therefore, college students became one of their target customers.

The top 3 competitors of Sweet Hug House are Super Soya Beancurd, Bread Espresso Dessert and JJ café. These stores are all located at a walking distance within Taman Bandar Baru.


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Competitor 1: Super Soya Beancurd

The Super Soya Beancurd’s beancurd is rather smooth, full of soya smell. The menu has a variety of toppings for the taufufa. There are so many choices and the variety of toppings that work well with beancurd. The almond with raisin topping is one of the popular menu of Super Soya Beancurd. The almond was crispy and blended nicely with the beancurd.

Location: Super soya beancurd located

Competitor 2: Bread Espresso Dessert

The BED café, short for Bread, Espresso, Dessert, is quite a cute and unusual name for a cafe. Bread Espresso Dessert (B.E.D.) specializes in freshly-brewed coffee; decorated with coffee art by a self-taught barista to lift that aesthetic element beyond the usual cup of coffee served in conventional cafes. For desserts, Creme Brulee and Banana Frangipane. The Frangipane is derivative from custard tart, usually flavoured with almonds/pistachio. Filling may vary as the coconut version, whereas besides the banana, the cherry and blueberry version are also available. Slightly above average, the banana complemented well with the crumbly pastry which is not too sweet. As creme brulee literally means Burnt Cream, the coarse brown sugar at the top surface is usually caramelized with a torch.

Location: No 3, Medan Istana 6, Bandar Ipoh

http://www.facebook.com/breadespressodessert

http://www.beanhunter.com/malaysia/perak/ipoh/ipoh/bread-espresso-dessert/map

http://www.facebook.com/breadespressodessert

http://www.beanhunter.com/malaysia/perak/ipoh/ipoh/bread-espresso-dessert/map

��


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Competitor 3：JJ café

The café may have different concepts within, rest assured that JJ café brims with life and rainbows of colours where corners are filled with the owner’s personal touches like teddy bears, funky yellow piano, travel books and souvenirs from overseas. JJ café probably has the most unique chairs in town where the chairs come in velvet fabric, Dalmatian dots and leopard prints. The signature dessert of JJ café is durian mille crepe, the smooth crepes were thin and layered delicately over one another with rich of durian.

Location: 116F, Jalan Raja Permaisuri Bainun, 30250 Ipoh,

Strategies Employed by Sweet Hug House to compete with Competitors


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The prices of the desserts are set as reasonable and affordable to the customers.

During festival season, Sweet Hut House changes their decoration to cope with the trend of public. The beautiful decoration attracted a lot of customers to come celebrate the festival.

Besides that, the unique homemade recipe enables Sweet Hug House to be outstanding at the area. All of the ingredients and dessert are developed by the owner, Mr Ng. The ingredients and dessert are limited and they produce them daily in order to ensure the freshness and unique taste of the food. Also to adapt the needs of customers, Sweet Hut House will change their menu every 2 to 3 months to ensure that customers will come back again.

Sweet Hug House provides good quality of services to their customers. Although the shop has enough worker to serve customers, the owners are still uphold with their workers to serve customers together. The workers there are polite and they treat the customers just like their family. The food are served fast and accurately according to the customer’s needs.


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Obstacles faced by new business who wish to enter the marketA new business which wish to enter the market will normally face

intense competition. As there are many famous dessert shops in the market, it would be a great challenge for them to survive in this

market. If they do not stand a chance to compete with others, their business probably would not sustain for a year or even six months. In

addition, it will be difficult for the new business to earn the customers’ loyalty because they just started to enter the market. Many customer prefer to remain at the old shop rather than trying out new

things. Moreover, the lack of capital is another obstacle that is normally faced by new business that enter this industry. Most of the

new business does not have enough capital to maintain their shop for the first few month because they lack of experience in running the

business.

Nature of marketBoth of the dessert shops are in a monopolistic competitive

market. There are a lot of dessert shops in the same area, which


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creates lots of competitors to against with them. The dessert shops have weak barriers to entry. This means once entrepreneurs acquired the technique of making dessert then the new firms are able to enter

and exit the market freely. Besides, the dessert shops have weak pricing power, because they have no ability to charge a higher price

than the market price unreasonably. This will cause their customer to turn to other competitors. Therefore, having a good quality food with

reasonable prices will bring back trustworthy customers.

Summary Table of the Similarities between Both Businesses

Summary Table of the Differences between Both Businesses

Sweet Hug House Similarities Haraju-Cube

Lead by owner Leader Lead by owner

Ng Kam Wai Main Founder Daichi Fukuzato

1 Number of Founder 1

0 Number of Branch 0

1 Number of Shop 1

Expand size of shop Future Business Plan Expand size of shop


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Based on our analysis, Haraju Cube is more commercially successful. There are a few aspects to support this statement. First, it is the location of Haraju Cube. Haraju Cube is located in Empire Damansara. Empire Damansara is a new mixed development which aims to satisfy both business and lifestyle needs. Therefore, it houses with both residential area and commercial area in one place. Besides, the location of Empire Damansara is better than other location as it is closer to Mutiara Damansara where one can access plenty of amenities easily and also has a close proximity to the entry and exit point. In addition,

Sweet Hug House Differences Haraju-cube

2236 Jalan Batu Sinar (Taman Bandar Baru), 31900 Kampar, Perak

Location 103 Level 1, Empire Damansara, Damansara Perdana, Jalan PJU 8/8, 47820 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

RM 100,000 Amount of Starting Capital

RM 200,000

Around RM 100,000 Annual Revenue Around RM 216,000

5 Number of Employee 12

4 Number of Competitors 3

50% families, 30% students, 20% Malay & Indian

Targeted Customers Young generation

Lack of publicity Obstacles Faced ▪ Production preparation, number of customers exceeded their expectations

▪ Difficult to keep the ingredients as they have to be fresh

Chocolate lava fondue, Homemade Cheesecake

Special Dishes Honey Toast


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the location itself can be assessable from different other directions through many highways. Nonetheless, this has become one of the biggest attractions of Haraju Cube. Next is the aspect of income, in the table above, we can see that Sweet Hug House required RM100K for their starting capital while Haraju Cube required approximately RM200k, however, Haraju Cube gain approximately RM216k for their annual revenue while Sweet Hug House only has RM100K. From this we can conclude that Sweet Hug House did not experience any profit or loss but Haraju Cube is gaining profit in the business. To wrap up our analysis, Haraju Cube is more successful than Sweet Hug House.

Recommendation

Based on the analysis that we have done the research regarding the two dessert shop, Haraju Cube and Sweet Hug House, we have proposed a few recommendation to further improve and expand their competiveness in the future.

One of the biggest obstacles faced by Haraju Cube is that their product takes a long period of preparations. Therefore, they can hire more number of workers to reduce workload and increase their productivity. This way they can earn more profit and be able to expand


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their business in the future. Besides that, the number of customers have exceed their expectation. The possible way for them to solve this problem is to open another branch to separate the amount of customers. With this, they can solve the problem of not having enough tables for the customer and also earn more income. In the interview, the owner of Haraju Cube also mentioned that is it very difficult for them to keep the ingredients fresh. They focus on quality over quantity. One of the way that could be the possible solution to solve this problem is to expand their business. As they expand their business, they would be able to have more customer. This way the ingredient will be used more often and finished faster. They would be able to use up their ingredients when they were still fresh.

For Sweet Hug House, the obstacle that they faces is the lack of publicity. They can have more advertisement to attract more customers from the area around them. The other obstacle that is the number of customers they have is not stable as more of the students will have their semester break which cause less customer that period of time. To overcome that they should do more promotion, such as, using online promotion code and promotion set for their dessert.


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BibliographyBread Espresso Dessert Café (BED) @ Ipoh (2014, February 2) Retrieved from http://alwaystravelicious.com/2014/02/02/bread-espresso-dessert-cafe-bed-ipoh/

JJ Lifestyle Cafe @ Jalan Kampar, Ipoh (2013, August 3) Retrieved from http://www.j2kfm.com/jj-lifestyle-cafe-jalan-kampar-ipoh/

That Heavenly Slumber @ b.e.d. (Bread Espresso Dessert) (2012, October 6) Retrieved from http://www.j2kfm.com/bread-espresso-dessert-b-e-d-medan-istana-ipoh/

Dessert (2016, January 6) Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dessert


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http://alwaystravelicious.com/2014/02/02/bread-espresso-dessert-cafe-bed-ipoh/

http://www.j2kfm.com/jj-lifestyle-cafe-jalan-kampar-ipoh/

http://www.j2kfm.com/bread-espresso-dessert-b-e-d-medan-istana-ipoh/

elg assign 2 final 211

Education