Company Strategies to Meet Future Challenges - Mydin

COMPANY STRATEGIES TO MEET FUTURE CHALLENGES

The challenges in business world nowadays sometimes can raise doubt on a company's sustainability and also its future development. Therefore MYDIN has formed and implemented several strategies to meet its future challenges. However those efforts should not just stop there but MYDIN also need to keep reviewing its strategy implementation to make sure the objectives are achieved and evaluate whether any new strategy is needed to be implemented. These are crucial steps to maintain MYDIN business sustainability and also its competitiveness among other company in the same industry. Below are several strategies that MYDIN has been currently practicing and also some other strategies which are suitable for MYDIN to implement in order to meet its future challenges.

1. Low cost business strategy

MYDIN is proudly promoting MYDIN as a business that is "Born in Malaysia and Still Malaysia". It provides low price with acceptable quality products to customer. Meanwhile, more foreign owned hypermarkets and superstores are having a strong foundation of selling in Malaysia. They start grab the entire customer through providing foreign branded product. It becomes a great challenge to Malaysian company such as MYDIN to compete with them. Even though foreign hypermarket and superstores create their own strategies to attract customer but MYDIN has its own strategy to sustain its customers. MYDIN is using low price with acceptable quality product strategy to attract lower and medium income group in Malaysia. Lower and medium income group are willing to purchase at lower price and high quality which only provided by Malaysian company such as MYDIN. Through low price strategy MYDIN can sustain it customer for long period and it will increase customer loyalty toward MYDIN. This strategy also focuses to attract small wholesaler and petty traders in getting cheap supplies. It has also contributed to the business expansion and is reflected by an increase in number of wholesalers and petty traders who have registered as their frequent buyers.

2. Technological advancement on IT system

The main challenge that face by MYDIN is to have an efficient and accurate application access system in order to manage its huge volume of transactions and goods flowing in and out of the company effectively and on timely manner. Although MYDIN has been invested in centrally-managed data centre and network architecture, but there is always something extra that can be done to stand out in this highly competitive business environment.

Therefore MYDIN can consider conducting more research and development on its IT system or directly outsourcing for a more sophisticated Transaction Processing System (TPS). TPS is a type of information system that collects, stores, modifies and retrieves the data transactions of an enterprise. Nowadays, the field of transaction processing has become a vital part of effective business management, because the success of commercial enterprises like MYDIN much depends on the reliable processing of transactions to ensure that customer orders are met on time, and that partners and suppliers are paid and can make payment.

The typical characteristics of TPS that MYDIN need to consider when making choices includes: reliability, standardization, controlled access, transactions processing qualifiers, atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability, types of transactions, batch processing and also real time processing.

3. Online marketing strategy (e- commerce)

MYDIN has less publicity among the potential customers because it only allocate a small portion of cost for advertisement which advertisement in the media only available during certain months of the year. In the Malaysian market, not only Malaysian company but foreign companies also compete to grab customer. Less advertisement will affect MYDIN customers to move to other competitors who also provide the same or similar products. As a customer, they need more consent from supplier just like sending those flyers or pamphlet. It will make them remember the company and attract them to come for MYDIN. A more aggressive marketing strategy will allowed them to overcome the issue of less publicity and market recognition among the customers, which is crucial to compete with foreign competitors in Malaysia.

Efraim Turban et al (2004) say, "Electronic commerce has revolutionized the traditional business process of buying and selling on the high street shops by deploying the Internet and technology to reach a vast customer base". The increased use of Internet by the general public and the growth of information technology products to support effective and service transaction over the Internet have apparently fuelled the growth of electronic commerce. Hence, apart from advertising through media and newspaper, MYDIN also can get involved in online marketing or electronic commerce (e-commerce). This can helps MYDIN to boost the revenues by providing easier and more accessible purchasing approach to its customers. Online sales will be convenient and handy for the customers