Resipi Rahsia dalam Secret Recipe

Mungkin ramai pembaca tidak mengenali Datuk Steven Sim, tetapi penulis yakin ramai mengetahui nama kafe Secret Recipe. Begitu besar impak jenama kafe yang lahir di negara ini dan jenama ini sedang berkembang hari demi hari.

Menaungi kira-kira 3000 pekerja dan 98% daripada mereka adalah pekerja Melayu beragama Islam. Secret Recipe bermula dengan 10 jenis kek dan lima hidangan lain. Kini kafe ini menawarkan 45 jenis kek dan 30 makanan lain.

Datuk Steven Sim ialah anak kelahiran Kota Bharu Kelantan dan beliau membesar dalam kelompok masyarakat Melayu. Akibat kehidupan dalam kekurangan, beliau kreatif dalam kehidupannya. Mengakui dilahirkan dengan bakat berniaga, namun kata beliau jiwa keusahawanan tidak boleh dibuat-buat.

Ditanya bagaimana Secret Recipe bermula, beliau menjawab, “Ketika itu saya merasakan ada sesuatu yang kurang dalam perniagaan makanan di negara kita. Kita ada “fine dining” di hotel-hotel, manakala kedai makan biasa selalunya serba ringkas dan kurang menjaga kebersihan. Tidak ada “casual dining” di mana kita boleh menikmati hidangan sambil bersantai dalam suasana yang menarik dengan harga makanan yang tidak terlalu mahal.”

Dari situlah bermulalah premis pertama Secret Recipe di SS2 Petaling Jaya.

Steven berkongsi pengalaman memperkenalkan Secret Recipe di negara Singapura. Hasrat membuka outlet di Orchard Road kecundang lantaran jenama Malaysia dipandang rendah. Tidak berputus asa dia mencuba di kawasan lain di republik itu. Ternyata sambutan yang diterima amat menggalakkan.

Tatkala berjaya, beliau ditawarkan ruang perniagaan di Orchad Road. Bukan itu sahaja, dua kali beliau didatangi pihak pelaburan Singapura agar memindahkan ibupejabat Secret Recipe ke Singapura. Namun jati diri Steven tidak mudah terpesona dengan tawaran itu.

Kini dengan pasaran menjangkau ke China, Australia, Filipina, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia dan beberapa negara lain, percaturan Steven bersama tiga anak saudaranya membuahkan hasil.

#Kisah beliau ini dipetik daripada akhbar Mingguan Malaysia 24 April 2011 tulisan Noraini Abd Razak.

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The Other Epidemic Of Obesity

It’s high time business slimmed down and stopped fooling itself with crash ‘diets’ of job cuts and outsourcing

The media are happy to keep reminding us that people in the developed world, especially the United States, are growing ever fatter; that obesity starts in childhood and continues thereafter to pump itself up on a diet of junk food, sodas, and ‘super-sized’ portions.

Yet what we almost never hear about is the exact same process going on in our businesses. Here it’s not junk food that is the problem, it’s junk activities and the ‘empty calories’ of time wasted on things that have no real bearing on business success.

Just like many overweight individuals, business also has its diet fads — few of which ever work for more than a short time. When the bloat gets big enough to squash profits, organizations rush to shed jobs and cut back on ‘soft targets’ like training and research. For a while, the panacea was outsourcing overseas — until that got too expensive.

All these fads tackle the symptoms, but never the underlying cause. It’s just the same with individuals in their working lives. They ‘fatten up’ their schedules and working days with empty calories: activit amounts of time while producing little or nothing of any real use.

Corporate ‘empty calories’

What are these productivity and time wasters? At a corporate level, they include endless meetings and PowerPoint presentations, which waste time both in preparation and delivery; providing reports no one reads and statistics nobody uses or understands; preparing budgets that conceal the truth and quarterly figures that do the same; dreaming up projects and initiatives that spawn countless working groups — until they are dropped like all those before them; engaging in petty, inter-departmental feuds and internal warfare; the endless rules and regulations dreamed up by head office types seeking to justify their existence; and — worst of all — spending money asking external consultants to provide options and answers to problems that are totally the responsibility of in-house management.

Most such corporate ‘junk food’ emanates from the executive suite. Like the real stuff, it ‘fattens’ the organization — demanding resources, time, and energy — while providing nothing to further the business. Much of it is only there to satisfy some person’s lust for power, or provide ‘information’ to justify a piece of blatant self-interest. It’s intake without any healthy nutritional value in business terms.

The outcome is sluggish, bloated, top-heavy organizations addicted to the sweet indulgences provided by eager consultants, busily fattening their pay-checks on ‘busy work,’ while distracting managers from the fact that they need to shape up, slim down, and start doing what they are paid to do — and doing it themselves.

Individuals and their bloated calendars

It’s not simply corporations that become addicted to ‘binge eating’ on useless activities, followed by crash diets of lay-offs and budget cuts. Individual managers do it as well, alternating between adding to their overwork and taking up the latest productivity fad to try to slim down again afterwards.

For such individuals, empty calories include notorious time-wasters like constant Instant Messaging; sending useless e-mails to everyone imaginable; calling pointless meetings to provide the illusion of being in control; continual micro-management (for the same reason); demanding that people check-in constantly — even when there is nothing to report; and running from meeting to meeting, convinced that a packed schedule indicates importance, when all it proves is that they rarely devote any time to their real jobs.

Corporations filled with people like this find that the number of managers constantly rises (all these activities demand more and more people to keep them going), while those who do the real work are ‘thinned out’ to pay the cost of management bloating.

Productivity means never wasting time on what doesn’t matter

At every level, the simplest way to drive up productivity is to remove waste. Don’t spend time on what isn’t relevant to the business. Don’t apply energy to what doesn’t matter. Don’t allocate people and resources to activities that contribute nothing to the objectives of the business. Don’t add to red tape, dream up new ways to enforce compliance with petty rules, demand useless statistics, or massage the egos of those at the top.

People who genuinely lose weight know there is only one way to do it: by cutting back on their intake of calories and increasing the amount they exercise. Everything else is useless.

It’s the same for business and working individuals: cut out the ‘empty calories’ that clutter up your schedule. Increase the time you spend exercising the responsibilities that matter. Stay right away from expensive, heavily advertised junk foods peddled by consultants.

If you do that, your career will be healthier, your calendar will slim down to a surprising degree, and you’ll start enjoying your work again. After all, carrying all that extra weight around every day is tiring in itself, while massaging the boss’s ego is pretty disgusting work — especially compared with spending time on your real interests.

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5 Tips for Taking Home Businesses to the Retail Worldwide

Thanks to the explosion in popularity of shopping at online marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, adflyer, Folksy and others, small retailers and home businesses are now able to sell their goods to customers around the world.

If you’ve got a home business selling anything from handmade jewelry or vintage clothes to pet accessories, chances are you’ve already dabbled with an online store at the major English language online marketplaces like eBay. But have you considered expanding beyond English?

There are nearly two billion people online worldwide, but only around 34 million are native English speakers – and the vast majority of online shoppers require information in their native language before making a purchase. That means if you’re only selling online in English, you’re reaching less than 2% of your potential online audience!

Here’s how you can get a greater slice of those international markets…

1) Look into foreign online shopping platforms

eBay is undoubtedly the world’s biggest online marketplace for small retailers, with 38 localized versions for all the main European and Asian ecommerce countries, and it makes a great starting place for international versions of your online store.

However, there are also other popular online marketplaces in different countries, which are worth looking into. Taobao is China’s largest online marketplace, generating an annual turnover of more than $80 billion USD. It operates similar to eBay, and there’s also a thriving economy of Chinese consultants helping foreign businesses to sell via Taobao.

Likewise, PriceMinister is the most popular online marketplace in many European countries, and MercadoLibre has established itself as the ‘eBay of Latin America’. It’s worth doing a little online research before entering a foreign market to find out where people are shopping.

2) Get your sales pitch properly translated

The key difference with foreign online marketplaces, of course, is language – eBay España is in Spanish, eBay Portugal is in Portuguese, etc. This means that you’ll need to get your shop and product descriptions translated into these languages by a professional.

Online machine translation programs ought to be sufficient to understand incoming orders, or to create your profile in the first place, but they’re not accurate enough to be trusted for your sales pitch – incorrect terminology or bad spelling and grammar will destroy a potential client’s view of your trustworthiness.

3) Set your prices for the local market

Before you jump in with an online store for Taobao or MercadoLibre, though, it’s worth checking what price you can charge for your goods in the local economy, and whether that will present enough of a margin to make it profitable.

One of the major barriers to shoppers around the world buying from foreign stores is the comparatively high prices, created either by high exchange rates or differing local product values. For instance, the current strength of the Australian dollar means that it’s often cheaper for Australian shoppers to purchase goods from foreign online shopping sites and pay for the shipping than it is for them to buy locally. Conversely, small Australian retailers are finding it hard to sell overseas without dramatically reducing their prices.

By looking at the exchange rates and the prices set by your competitors in foreign markets, you’ll get a good idea for potential profit margins. Even if the profit margin is small, you may find over time that the sheer quantity of goods sold makes up for the lower prices – or you may gradually whittle your international efforts down to just a few foreign stores.

4) Be aware of foreign payment systems

The second major barrier for online shoppers is payment systems – if you only accept credit or debit card payments, but your customers in China don’t use credit cards and prefer to pay by Alipay, then you’re going to see a lot of abandoned shopping carts. Before launching your online store, it’s worth doing some online research, or purchasing market reports from consultancies like Econsultancy or yStats, to figure out which payment systems you’ll need to offer for each country.

5) Research postage and shipping carefully

The last step to ensuring profitability and practicality is making sure that you can actually ship your goods to the foreign countries in question, and at a cost which won’t price your goods out of reach for the locals. How reliable is the local postal service? What postage options can you offer to make your products trustworthy and attractive for local consumers? Indeed, would it be cheaper to ship your goods en masse to the country in question and employ a local agent to post purchased items locally?

These are all questions you need to consider before going multilingual across foreign online marketplaces – but the potential for new sales vastly outweighs the hassles of making your home business international.

Source: Common Sense Advisory

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Penjual ensiklopedia jadi pemilik hotel

Artikel ini dipetik daripada Utusan Malaysia Online 6 Ogos 2011

Oleh AZMAN IBRAHIM

bisnes.utusan@gmail.com

KUALA LUMPUR 5 Ogos - ‘Kalau tidak dipecahkan ruyung, masakan dapat sagunya’, begitulah pepatah Melayu dicipta bagi menggambarkan betapa seseorang individu perlu gigih berusaha untuk mencapai kejayaan.

Pepatah itu bertepatan dengan pencapaian yang diraih oleh pemilik Apple Hotel, Jerry Ho yang melalui pelbagai liku-liku kehidupan sebelum mampu mencipta kejayaan dalam industri perhotelan di negara ini.

Ho, 55, merupakan anak Malaysia yang datang daripada keluarga miskin tetapi menjadikan kekurangan yang ada sebagai pendorong untuk lebih berjaya.

Biarpun tidak memperoleh pendidikan tinggi, itu bukan alasannya kerana Ho, beliau berpendapat, hanya orang yang rajin akan menikmati kemanisan buah kejayaan.

”Untuk berjaya, saya perlu rajin dan saya mula bekerja gigih sejak usia 18 tahun.

”Saya juga pernah hidup dengan hanya berbekalkan RM3 dalam poket sepanjang pengalaman bekerja dan ia menjadikan saya lebih kuat,” katanya yang juga Pengarah Urusan Apple Hotel Sdn. Bhd.

Ho memberitahu Utusan Malaysia ketika ditemui di sini bahawa beliau sendiri tidak menyangka pada suatu hari nanti dia akan memiliki hotel sendiri iaitu Apple Hotel yang terletak di Jalan Alor, Bukit Bintang di sini kerana dia hanya memiliki kerjaya sebagai penjual jualan langsung ensiklopedia pada usia 18 tahun.

”Menjadi jurujual ensiklopedia banyak mengajar saya tentang strategi perniagaan dan bagaimana untuk berniaga,” katanya.

Selepas menjual ensiklopedia, Ho telah menceburi pelbagai jenis kerja termasuk dengan syarikat niaga import dan eksport antarabangsa.

Ho juga pernah menyertai syarikat kontraktor landskap dan pernah menjadi syarikat utama dalam pembangunan taman tema Sunway Lagoon di Kuala Lumpur.

Ahli perniagaan ini juga pernah bekerja di Disneyland, Amerika Syarikat.

Sekarang Ho menulis buku bertajuk ‘Hitting The Property Jackpot’ setebal lebih 300 muka surat yang menceritakan tentang potensi untuk mencapai kejayaan dalam dunia hartanah.

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Tunjuk Berani Demi Kerja

CUKUP sukar sekali untuk menemubual ‘wanita waja’, Datuk Maznah Hamid yang merupakan usahawan perniagaan kawalan keselamatan bukan hanya terkenal di Malaysia tetapi juga di luar negara.

Beliau sentiasa sibuk dengan pelbagai urusan perniagaan selain turut aktif dalam dunia politik.

Oleh sebab itu, tidak menghairankan, beberapa kali temu bual terpaksa ditunda.

Setelah puas menunggu, akhir anak kelahiran Ayer Hitam, Jerlun, Kedah, itu berjaya memperuntukan masa selama dua jam untuk berkongsi kisah peribadinya baru-baru ini.

Soalan pertama yang diajukan kepada beliau ketika temubual itu adalah gelaran wanita besi. Secara berseloroh, Maznah menjawab;

“Ramai orang geram dengan saya. Semuanya gara-gara imej berani, tegas dan kebal yang jelas tertonjol pada imej penampilan saya. Tetapi, orang tidak tahu bahawa saya terpaksa mengekal imej dan watak itu demi kerja.

“Kalau saya tidak berani dan tegas, saya akan dipijak-pijak, malah, kebanyakan pekerja saya adalah lelaki, bagi menimbulkan rasa hormat, saya perlu dominan,’’ katanya.

Namun beliau juga bimbang gelaran itu akan menyebabkan masyarakat umum beranggapan beliau seorang queen control terhadap suaminya, Datuk Shaheen Mirza.

‘‘Tanggapan (queen control) itu tidak benar sama sekali, hakikatnya, kami adalah rakan kongsi dalam perniagaan yang saling melengkapi,’’ ujarnya.

Menurut Maznah yang gembira dengan kejayaan semasanya berkata, apa yang diraih kini adalah hasil kerja keras dan usaha yang bersungguh-sungguh.

Maznah berkata, beliau berasal keluarga miskin dan dibesarkan oleh nenek sejak berusia lima tahun selepas berlaku perpecahan keluarga.

Katanya, dia merupakan kanak-kanak yang kesepian, tetapi kekurangan itu menjadi satu rahmat kerana faktor itu menyebabkan beliau berusaha keras untuk menjadi insan berjaya.

Maznah menyifatkan dirinya bukanlah pelajar pintar ketika di sekolah, tetapi amat meminati bahasa Inggeris sehingga meneruskan pengajiannya ke kolej.

Selepas menamatkan pengajian, Maznah bekerja sebagai guru bahasa persendirian atau penterjemah bahasa di pejabat kedutaan asing di Kuala Lumpur selama dua tahun.

Selain pejabat kedutaan, Maznah pernah menjadi guru bahasa persendirian di syarikat-syarikat multinasional.

Pendedahan dengan kehidupan ‘orang kaya’ sewaktu bekerja mendorong Maznah untuk turut mencari petua untuk berjaya seperti mereka.

Malah, ramai orang kenamaan yang menasihatkan beliau supaya menceburi bidang perniagaan yang beliau mempunyai kekuatan atau belum diterokai oleh orang lain.

‘‘Oleh sebab, hampir setiap hari saya berkunjung ke rumah kedutaan asing dan mendapati mereka mempunyai rumah pengawal, pengawal keselamatan dan pengawal peribadi.

‘’Jadi, saya berasa mereka (orang kenamaan) adalah merupakan golongan sasaran penting untuk mendapatkan khidmat perniagaan itu. Jadi, saya pun berfikir untuk mencuba perniagaan kawalan keselamatan,’’ ujarnya.

Berbekal duit poket dan simpanan hasil mengajar di rumah duta dan orang kenamaan sebanyak RM5,000, Maznah dan suami telah mengambil alih sebuah syarikat keselamatan pada tahun 1980 dengan menamakannya Securiforce Sdn. Bhd.

Pada waktu itu, Maznah memulakan perniagaan dengan lima pengawal keselamatan dan lima pelanggan terdiri daripada orang kenamaan.

‘’Waktu itu, saya sudah kahwin, duit tidak ada dan gagal mendapat pinjaman bank untuk membesarkan perniagaan. Jadi, kami terpaksa menjual rumah dan menyewa rumah di kawasan setinggan tanpa bekalan elektrik selama dua tahun,’’ kata beliau.

Rahmat dari kesusahan itu, Maznah mendapat kekuatan diri untuk berusaha dengan lebih gigih bersama-sama suaminya.

Katanya, universiti terbaik dalam kehidupan adalah kepahitan dan kesusahan yang menjadikan diri seseorang lebih kreatif, inovatif, kebal dan bijaksana.

Menurut Maznah, beliau dan suami menderita kesusahan hampir 10 tahun untuk memastikan perniagaan kawalan keselamatan berkembang.

‘’Saya sendiri pernah menjadi pengawal keselamatan di sebuah pasar raya menggantikan pekerja yang pulang ke kampung kerana bercuti Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Manakala suami saya pula tugas rondaan keselamatan di rumah orang kenamaan.

‘‘ Tidak siapa pun tahu ketika itu, saya adalah pemilik syarikat kawalan keselamatan,’’ jelas beliau.

Katanya, pelbagai pengalaman yang ditempuh sejak awal hingga akhir menyebabkan pihaknya berjaya mengadakan sistem keselamatan yang canggih dan menyeluruh pada waktu ini.

Maznah berkata, pihaknya turut pernah melibatkan diri dalam perniagaan jualan langsung dan juga pelbagai produk, untuk mendapat modal pusingan.

Beliau yang mendapat pengiktirafan pertama iaitu Anugerah Usahawan Cemerlang pada 1990 berkata, seseorang usahawan perlu mempunyai pelbagai kemahiran dan pelbagai bakat.

Pada malam penyampaian anugerah itulah Maznah buat pertama kali mendapat gelaran ‘wanita besi’ yang diberikan oleh pengacara majlis pada waktu itu.

Kini, Securiforce mempunyai 65 cawangan di seluruh negara dengan 5,000 kakitangan, 4,000 daripadanya merupakan pengawal keselamatan.

Syarikat itu kini telah menembusi lebih 10 buah negara.

Rencana ini dipetik daripada www.utusan.com.my pada 24 September 2011

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Step to choose Your Business Idea

People looking for an idea; they usually want to start a business quickly when they get the idea. But the choice should be done after an agreed time.

At this point, it is not going to have to consider whether output. This is the idea ripen until we see ourselves is really the idea that we were seeking. It is as if the idea they choose you and not you to the idea. In this way we will do whatever it takes to implement our business because it is based on an idea where we really believe.

The truth is that it is the idea that chooses us. After thinking the idea to improve it and view it from different points of view for weeks, it is normal to want to carry it out. But we must explore the possibilities with coldness, not with the energy of the moment because we can make decisions that are not based on objectivity, but in illusion.

The preliminary study we could do ourselves. To do this we should know the answer to the following questions.

- How much competition is there?

- What competition exists?

- How long is the competition in the market?

- Is it a growing market niche?

With Google tools is easy to answer these questions, because Google makes it easy to launch your business why? Say because if you create a website, adding value to search and if you want to promote yourself, you probably use your services. In this live Google.

It is easy to know the answers and tools that Google gives you the tools to do so. This way you will be much easier to launch your business. Google offers many facilities for two things: if you create a website, adding value to search and if you want to promote yourself, you may use the services of Google to post ads.

The author belongs to a new generation of Internet developers in different Internet businesses. Help to get results who are interested in setting up your online business. You can optimize the work through websites as a directory of articles and learn about aspects of internet marketing business ideas.

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Time is Everything In Business

There is a phrase attributed to Napoleon that fascinates me: “Time is everything”

Everything happens in our lives we should try to be synchronized to occur at the appropriate time and with fewer resources since time is an element that can not be bought, or advance, or retreat. In business, time is obviously essential.

As an entrepreneur, your time is precious and if you want a profitable business idea is no way you can be everywhere at once and that is why it is very important to learn to delegate and one of the most simple that can be delegate is to answer our emails.

Instead of wasting time answering an email from us we can delegate to a third person who answers previously agreed to and maintain contact with our clients and friends without losing time in the writing of each of these emails.

Gmail accounts (which can be used with the domain of our business idea) is a system that allows one to provide access to third person so that this third person to answer the emails on our behalf. May be delegated such access to our secretary or an assistant so she, from her own email account answer emails on our behalf.

This service comes free with Gmail system is not a simple message forwarding because when our assistant or secretary to answer the email appear that anyone who responds to it is a same but with the caveat that our assistant does the response our behalf.

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What Drives Your Motivation ?

Have you been burning with a desire to be your own boss? Do you feel the constant “temptation” to quit your job right now. You may feel enough is enough. Maybe you are even sick of working for other people. To be your own boss means controlling your own destiny, having your own time and no bosses to report to. Basically, you can do whatever you want. But before you really jump into a new territory of being on your own, you have to make sure that you are ready, well equipped and have the right motivation.

So, what drives your motivation? What are the reasons why you are starting that business? If your reason for starting a business is only money, you will definitely not last long. Study has shown that the successful startup entrepreneurs are not driven by money. They are driven by passion to transform the lives of people around them. Lifestyle entrepreneurs should not just be wealth accumulators. Your focus should be more on how many problems you would be able to solve through your solution and not how much you would accumulate.

I am not saying that accumulating wealth is not good but that should not be your main focus for starting that business. There is no way you will keep solving problems and money will not flow in your direction. So, take a second look at your motive before you drop that resignation letter. Along the way, you will be faced with so many challenges. These will happen when you least expect and they will test the motivation behind your business idea and your strength.

The only things that will sustain you will be your motivations – what drives you. Why did you decide to leave the comfort of a paying-job to embrace a life that is full of uncertainties? If money accumulation is the ONLY reason you are in business, it is most likely that you will not survive the storm when it comes. It is not too late to retrace your steps now. Take out some minutes right away, review your motivations right away and ensure that you are on the right track. If you feel if have had the wrong motivation(s), re-align yourself. So, what keeps you moving? Your decision to affect our generation or to enrich your pocket?

Look within and re-assess the reasons WHY you are starting that business…

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