Big D Miri

1. Lack of Promotional Activities

Based on our observation, one of the main problems faced by Big D Miri is lack of promotional activities. Mainly, Big D Miri uses the social media such as Facebook and Instagram as well as word-of-mouth. However, in their official Facebook or Instagram, most of the posts are outdated and they rarely upload fresh contents in term of promotion. The last time they update their page is December 2020. Kotler and Armstrong (2004) believed promotional strategies include all means through which a company communicates the benefits and values of its products and persuade targeted customers to buy. Belch & Belch (2009, p.18) define promotion as “the coordination of all sellers-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion in order to sell goods and services or promote an idea.” So, promotional activities very important so that Big D Miri can deliver the benefits and values on its product to attract more customers. Not only Big D Miri rarely promote their products, their poster also is not that attractive. Thus, it cannot deliver a good first impression to the new customers.

2. Weak Strategic Plan

Next, based on our observation, Big D Miri also has a problem with the strategic planning of the business. This has been proven as the Big D Miri have not shows that much improvement even though they have already been operated since 2012. Even though Big D Miri had a plan to open another branch they are yet to do so until now. Perry (2001) and Wijewardena, Zoysa, Fonseka and Perera (2004) all formulate definitions of strategic planning which take the uniqueness of small businesses into account and allow for the fact that small businesses cannot draw on management and material resources in a manner like that of large organizations. According to Hewlett (1999) in O’regan and Ghobadian (2002), strategic planning implies an attempt to alter a company’s strength relative to that of its competitors, in the most efficient and effective way. In this case, Big D Miri are still not fully altering their strength especially in term of their products as their products is one of the best in Miri. When we are comparing Big D Miri to its competitors, their competitors in the same burger business are already have more than one branch in Miri such as the Grasso Burger and Don’s Burger. This shows that their strategic plan is still unclear and weak

Pasar Raya Ikhwan Kulim

1.Product Planning – Lack of Product Differentiation and Lack of Product Variety

Based on our observation to this Pasaraya Ikhwan Kulim, we found that there were not many variety types of products and mostly the shelves are empty. Even though the products are almost clear up, but the workers did not top up the goods. The goods at shelves are disorganized and untidy. Additionally, the Pasaraya Ikhwan Kulim is quite small as compared to others supermarket that are big and has enough space to put variety types of products at their shelves. Besides, the price of goods in Pasaraya Ikhwan Kulim is more expensive than any other stores. Implementing marketing strategies are very important to improve customer satisfaction and experience. Customer satisfaction can help a company to determine any improvement or changes to its products and services.

Differentiation is one of the strategies that firms employ in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage by increasing the perceived value of their products and services relative to the perceived value of other firm's products and services. To implement these strategies successfully, organizations need to have an accurate view about the current competitive situation to persuade costumers about the features of the sustainable products (Pondeville, Swaen & de Rongé, 2013). The findings from Atikiya et al.’s (2015) study revealed that offering of broad products, building strong brand reputation. The researcher recommends that firms adopting differentiation strategy also need to further look deeper into how to make uniqueness less costly in order to make differentiation a significant practice in the sector. The study by Atikiya et al. was fundamentally based on cost leadership, focus strategies and differentiation strategy.

2. Lack of Promotion Activities

Based on our observation to this Pasaraya Ikhwan Kulim, we noticed that there were not many customers in the shop, and it was mostly empty. Other than that, there was no sign of promotion activities. Even the price is high, but still the shop needs to do the promotion activities to attract more customers. Pasaraya Ikhwan Kulim has to compete with Giant which only 4 km away from each other and the Giant’s price are not too expensive as compared with Pasaraya Ikhwan Kulim.

Promotional activities are very important as it aims to stimulate demand for a company’s goods or services. Promotional strategy is designed to inform, persuade, or remind target audiences about those products. The goals of promotion are to create awareness, get people to try products, provide information, keep loyal customers, increase use of a product, identify potential customers, and even teach clients about potential services.

Chokolishes Hq

1. Poor Business Management

According to Ochurub, Bussin & Goosen in 2012, managing performance is essential for any organization since its primary goal in order to create a framework that offers encouragement, support and guidance and helps to establish a performance orientated culture. Performance management (PM) as a “continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing performance in organisations by linking each individual’s performance and objectives to the organisation’s overall mission and goals” (Aguinis, 2005). He points out that managers ensure that employees’ activities and outputs are congruent with their organizations’ goals as this would therefore create a direct link between employee performance and also organizational goals and make the employees’ contribution to the organization explicit. During our observation to the Chokolishes Hq, we found that there are too many agents or product distributor at one place at a time. The management for this company did not manage to limit the number for the product distributor at one place. The effect of having too many of them is the supply will be higher over the demand. When this issue arises among the product distributor, it will affect them when they experiencing surplus of the products. Hence, the policy and agreement are compulsory between the owner of the business and the product distributor. This is due to avoid the bias between one party and want to ensure that both parties’ owner and distributor have a fair deal between them.

2. Lack of Marketing Channel

According to Kotler (2007), he discovers that promotions have become a critical factor in the product marketing mix which consists of the specific blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing tools that the company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objective. The previous researches have established significant relationship between promotion and business performance (Amine and Cavusgil, 2001). Chokolishes Hq is a company that totally focus in online platform only without having their physical store. It is very good for them to start an online business instead of physical since this era is all about e-commerce. On the other hand, if they only rely on their online store, it takes a risk for them as they do not know how long they will sustain. It will be great for them if they expand their business through the physical store that will give good value for them and strategic. Having a physical store as their one of the distributors will provide them a backup plan for their business.