Week 3, August 2007

Division of tasks this week:
Interview Session: Noor Idayu, Mardhiah and Sharifah Shafiah.
Filtering Information: The whole group.
Updating Blog: Helwa Nudrah.


Interview session:
All were present and punctual.
Date: Tuesday, 14th of August 2007. Place: Orange Bookshop, Section 3, Bangi.

As discussed last week, we proceeded to the interview with En. Ayob on Tuesday, the day we made an appointment. We conducted the interview in an informal way, as it was the preference of En. Ayob. We made some recordings of the interview and were able to snap a few pictures to update in the blog. The pictures will be updated later on. The interview was conducted in a comfortable atmosphere and we thank En. Ayob for going out of his way not be too intimidating. Questions were categorized according to types of business processes. Some of the questions are:

Could you describe your business background.
-who are the founders?
-educational background?
-the capital used for this business?
-why did you choose this location to start your business?
-what made you thought if opening this type of business?
-is this business profitable from your point of view?

Please describe your business processes.
-Marketing Plans?
-Supply Management?
-management to customer?

Please elaborate on your marketing plans?
-are your marketing plans working?
-why?
-what makes the shop different from others?
-what are the difficulties that you faced so far?
-what type of approaches do you use to connect to the customers?

Please describe how you obtain stock from your supplier.
-How do you decide which supplier to choose from?
-How do you contact your supplier?
-How do you know what to order from them? i.e. :survey, interviews, etc.
-What types of problems do you face in this area?

What do you think about your competition?
-who are they?
-what do they have at an advantage?
-are there business strategies that you wish to adopt from your competitors?
-what are they?

Please describe about your stock management process.
-Who is in charge?
-what method do you use? i.e. : manual labour, of computerized system?
-how often do you update your stock?
-do you have any problems in this area?
-any plans to improve the situation? i.e.: implement new system.

General questions:
-Do you have any preference on what business processes we should concentrate on
reengineering?
-if yes, why that process?
- if we come up with an alternate way of conducting the business process, would you consider
using it for your business?

All of the questions were answered in full with clear explanations. We consider the interview was a complete success. However, if there are any doubts, En. Ayob said we could either make a call or even send an e-mail to him, and he would be happy to answer. We thank En. Ayob for being so accommodating and courteous.

Group Discussion:
Attendance: All were present except for Mardhiah, who was absent on account that she was
sick.
Later that week, we got together and discussed the outcome of the interview and filtered information gathered. We also discussed what to update on the blogs and also furthers the discussions concerning each members’ role now that the interview is completed.
In class, we applied the outcome of the interview of the business that we have chosen to the where, when, how and why template. The discussion took up the 2 hours of class. Mardhiah and Noor Idayu were absent because both were sick with the flu.