Reflect about a successful entrepreneur in the 21st centurySen

Reflect about a successful entrepreneur in the 21st century.

Sen Heng Electric (KL) Pte Ltd Bhd is one of Malaysia’s popular chain of home appliance retailers. SenHeng Electric was founded by Lim brothers Lim Kim Heng, Lim Kim Chieng and Lim Kim Yew. In Malaysia, Senheng has 125 outlet stores in 2015 and 5 outlets in Vietnam. Sen Heng Electric (KL) Pte Ltd Bhd sells many different products, such as smartphones, TV sets, washing machines, etc., from different brands such as Panasonic, Pensonic, Sharp and so on.

With SenHeng, when they want to buy an appliance, it is convenient for both the individual and the family.

The idea to start SenHeng was that founder Lim Kim Heng and his wife, Tai Nyet Lian, opened a store to support their expanding ballet cake business for their three-phase power supply, and found that leaving half of the store was a waste of full use. The founder had started the tutu cake business with RM14000 and their first stall in Yaohan.

However, the founder found that the electrical business had brought in more revenue than the cake business, therefore the founder had decided to sell the cake shop lock, stock, and barrel to a friend.

SenHeng Electric (KL) Sdn. Bhd was established in 1989 by Lim brothers and it is a small consumer electronics shop in Pandan Jaya. In that year, the founder and managing director Lim Kim Heng, his wife and two technicians work in SenHeng with only RM90000 capital. According to Lim Kim Heng, he said SenHeng was not popular and no brand in the public and market, everyone doesn’t know SenHeng in that time.

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Not only that, but they were also difficult to get good support and inventory. Because suppliers also didn’t know SenHeng. The founder also said they didn’t have the delivery team to deliver the product to the customer after they placed the order to them. Therefore, they need to deliver the good to the customers’ houses at 6 pm every day after finishing work with his brothers.

In 1993, Lim went to Taiwan to observe and learn firsthand how a chain store operates. The exposure in Taiwan taught him how to standardize his business processes and procedures easier to run his stores. The founder said that, when the things cant find in local, the only ways is we should go out of the country to learn. The reason that the founder said that is because different country have a different style to operate a business, we should think out of the box. After he comes back from Taiwan, he adopted the business model employes at renowned chain stores like Poh Kong, 7 Eleven, and 99Speedmart. This is because he gets the idea from Taiwan and he applies the model that he learns from Taiwan to his own business which is SenHeng.

In 1995, SenHeng Electric (KL) Sdn. Bhd launched the franchise program, however, that was later discontinued. This is because lack of management system and the brand was not popular at that time, therefore the franchise program to be put on hold. By they stop the franchise program in 1995, they relaunched again the program on December 1996. Senheng started its nationwide expansion initiative by opening its first outlet in Negeri Sembilan and then Malacca. After that, Senheng start setting up more and more outlet in Malaysia and also opened the first outlet in Vietnam and until now SenHeng have over 100 outlets in Malaysia and also have some outlet in Vietnam.

In 2014 to 2016, the founder found that the business was declining the sales by about 6-7 percent annually. In that time, the trend in the market, peoples started to buy the product on the internet. The founder discovered that customer traffic had migrated from offline to online also. Therefore, SenHeng also started their online business and in-store business. This business is operated separately, each in its own warehouse and with different activities. Therefore, SenHeng launched a seamless business model called “SEAMLESS 2.0” in September 2017. This changes their 121 retail stores nationwide with an effective online channel to offer more value-added O2O shopping experience.

SenHeng’s SEAMLESS 2.0 platform uses Big data to deliver a cycle of continuous, relevant connections to shoppers before during and after purchases. In SenHeng Seamless business model, they enchanted the nine elements which are the product, pricing, inventory, logistic, payment mode, repairs and services, loyalty programs, promotions, and sales partner benefits. For examples, payment mode in SenHeng. SenHeng provides various payment mode to the customer such as credit card payment options, redemption facility, and installment financing plan to make sure that the online buyers enjoy the same varied mode of payment as an in-stores buyer. Not only that, but SenHeng also provides after-sales service. Customers can use the app to track the progress of their service requests. They can also make any queries anywhere with the quick chat that comes with the SenHeng app, and the nearest store manager will respond within 15 minutes.

According to Lim Kim Heng, they are seeing an online to the offline revolution that changes the way people shop. Ultimately, the consumers expect a seamless shopping experience across various channels that can be accessed whenever and however they choose. The idea is to enhance customer shopping experience and retailer that do not meet these expectations will lose traffic. They want to simplify and personalize the shopping experience for our customer. They want the customer to continue coming into our stores to view our products and make a purchase anywhere, anytime by playing online via their smartphones or tablets. Ultimately, they want to scale up deliveries, with each store being able to fulfill thousands of orders a day. Therefore, the company went on to become the leading consumer electronics chain stores with 125 outlets in Malaysia.

Before the founder success in the business, he also faces some problem during the SenHeng implemented an enterprise-wide ERP system which is enterprise resources planning to manage its business operation. In SenHeng, they need to handle a number of information from sales, consumer, inventory and supply chain operation that added up to a multi-terabytes database. The IT department needs to generate more than 100 reports for some 150 core business users that included senior management, divisional and departmental heads and HR managers on any given week. However, the ERP system couldn’t cope with the volume of reporting required, this is because the system took too long to generate reports and consumed too many resources while doing it. Not only that, the lack of access to timely information was a source of frustration for users. Therefore, SenHeng needs an effective way to share its metric reports with its top suppliers. According to Mah, it was impossible to make it, since the supplier could not access to SenHeng database to monitor the performance of their respective products.

SenHeng have researched into the technology that available in SenHeng to identify the solution that meets the criteria which is the system that is scalable, robust and come with full comprehensive analytics and mobile architecture and an easy to use, web-based analytics platform that empowers users to access huge database and execute reports tailored to their individual user profile. After the SenHeng researched, they decided on MicroStrategy. The retailer implemented MicroStrategy’s core Business Intelligence(BI) solution in 2005 and further added mobile functionalities in 2011. According to Mah, the MicroStrategy’s Analytics platform offered intuitive analytical tools and could handle large volumes of data from many sources without slowing down the whole network. The implementation process was very easy and the transition to MicroStrategy’s technology was seamless. This is because the MicroStrategy team was knowledgeable and offered great support to the users when they moved to the new platform.

MicroStrategy enables SenHeng user immediately and securely access the extensive database for reporting and analysis. The data discovery technology allows the executives to analyze information without complicated scripts, data models or help from IT. Before implementing the MicroStrategy, the legacy system cannot handle a large volume of reports being generated, users dependent on the IT department to generate reports and no real-time access to information to make accurate decisions. After SenHeng implemented the MicroStrategy, the system is the robust and scalable platform that grows in tandem with expanding database, better decision making with more accurate reports and powerful visualization and improved overall business profitability and organizational productivity. According to Mah, after SenHeng implemented the MicroStrategy platform, the system is very stable and is able to handle large volume of analytical processing, despite the fact that the data has more than doubled since the 2005 implementation.

Since the transition to MicroStrategy, the profitability of Senheng® has improved its business. Sales increased by more than 10% year-on-year, further strengthening Senheng®’s position as the top consumer electronics retailer in Malaysia. Through districts, stores and markets, management can be seen more clearly, and quick decisions can be made based on facts, and even actions can be taken to reduce SKU levels.

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Identify and demonstrate how this person acquired the skills and opportunities to be a successful entrepreneur in the 21st century.

The founder do develops his own personal quality to his business. First, integrity. SenHeng did provide the warrantly for the product and the program is PlusOne Service contract and Senheng one to one replacement warranty service. By the founder provided the warranty service to the customer, this is shows that the founder is integrity to his customer. When the customer baught a broken product or the product broke in the time that within warranty period, the company will change a new product or repair for the customers. The requirement for the SenHeng one to one replacement warranty service is when the customer detect the eletrical defects within the warranty period, the customers can can have service with SenHeng which is SenHeng will change or repair the product that bought from customers.

The founder also have self-awareness in his business. In 1993, the founder have went to Taiwan and learn how the chain store operates, and after came back from Taiwan, he standardize his business processes and procedures to run his outlets in an easier way. He adopted the knowledge that learn from Taiwan to his own business and become an electronics chain stores in Malaysia. The founder have the self awareness that his business cannot operate in the ways that before he went to Taiwan, if the owner didn’t went to Taiwan and learn, he will not success opened the chain outlets in Malaysia.

Next, the founder also concern for his employees and customers. In SenHeng, they have provided the training to their employees and train them to be polite and listen and understand to the customer. The employees trained to be understand the requirement of customers when they want to purchase the product and suggest a suitable product to the customers. Not only that, they also concern about the customers, they do provided the home delivery system to the customers. The customers can select the time that want SenHeng deliver the product to their home and they can just pick up the product at that time. This is convenience to the customer that busy and no time to pick up. SenHeng also give a free rice cooker to customer when their delivery team is an hour late deliver their product, this is the way of apology in SenHeng to their customers.

SenHeng also conduct a papaerless program in their business. SenHeng tried go papaerless because human cutting down a lot of tree by just want using the paper, SenHeng also realize that, they also using a lot of paper in their paperwork such as focument, invoices, payslips and tendecy agreements. The founder conducted this paperless program in his business is an action to save the world and protecting generation to sustain in the future. Therefore, SenHeng have engaged the service with Korean, Japanese and Malaysian companies to help them in the paperless operation in his business.