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SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING & DESIGN

Research Unit for Modern Architecture Studies in Southeast Asia

Foundation in Natural and Built Environments (FNBE)

INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS

[BUS30104]

ASSIGNMENT: CHARITY DRIVE EVENT REPORT

GROUP MEMBERS:

NAME STUDENT ID

ONG SENG PENG 0319016

CHONG YU XUAN 0317950

TAN SHEAU HUI 0319235

YEE ZHEN LI 0319160

LECTURER: MR CHANG JAU HO

SUBMISSION DATE: 30 JANUARY 2015

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No. Content Pages

1. Summary 3

2. Objectives 4

3. Target Market 5

4. Competition Analysis 6

5. Product and Packaging 7

6. Pricing 9

7. Promotion 11

8. Sponsors 12

9. Distribution 13

10. Green Measures 13

11. Human Resource Planning 14

12. Evaluation of Results 16

13. Appendix 18

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Summary

In this final project, we were assigned to do a business charity drive on 19th January

until 23rd January 2015. The main objective is to encourage students to think creatively and

strategically in the course of starting and operating a business as well as to understand the

business management, marketing and finance. Our group consists of 4 members namely Ong

Seng Peng, Yee Zhen Li, Chong Yu Xuan and Tan Sheau Hui. Our products sold in this

charity drive event are fruit products including fruit salads, fruit juices and fresh fruits. The

charity organization that we decided to donate to is SPCA Selangor. Due to the degree

students semester break season, there were limited customers we could approach within the

campus. Hence, we also went out of the campus to gain more sales. Our total net profit

earned is RM1674, with approximately RM650 from the donation.

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Objectives

We have chosen Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) as our

charity organization. Founded in 1958, SPCA is a well-respected and trusted Non-Profit

Organization. The aim of the SPCA is to protect defenseless animals and to alleviate their

suffering. They provide adoption programs, investigation of cruelty reports, humane

education, and assistance to community animal caregivers and run a dedicated, low-cost

neuter clinic. Over the years, the organization has gained tremendous goodwill, recognition

and support from animal lovers all over Malaysia. The reason why we chose this charity

organization is because we want to contribute to the organization’s effort in helping the

homeless animals as well as to stop animal cruelty. We could take this opportunity to raise

animal awareness to the public by providing general information about animal cruelty that

happens every day.

The quantifiable objectives that we want to accomplish during the charity drive event

are getting a target profit of RM2000, with RM 500 for donation and RM 1500 for our sales

units. We set the sales target higher than donation as we assume products sold would tend to

attract more people to support us instead of a donation box.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTGeMXc7fbo

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Target Market

Our main target customers are students and lecturers of Taylor’s University and

people who dine at Asia café food court. Students and lecturers would usually help support

charity business operating within the campus because most people who could afford would

like to help a good cause while some of them might have experienced the similar event before.

However, most of the students could not afford to spend much on charity as their allowance

were still need to be relied on parents and were limited. Whereas lecturers who have a stable

average amount of monthly income would allow them to spend more money than students.

As for people dining at the food court, we assume our products would be their choices of

desserts after meals. Their spending power varies as their ages and occupation differs from

one another.

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Competition Analysis

The two main competitors of our business were Ray’s group and Arvind’s group.

Parts of the menu and selling products of these two groups were similar to ours. Ray’s group

was selling fruit cups, fried chicken wings, breads and lemonade. Their fruit cups were

largely similar to the fruit salads we sold. As for Arvind’s group, they were selling cakes,

doughnuts and fruit kebabs with chocolate toppings. The strength of Ray’s group was that

their stall has a wide variety of choices; this will attract more customers than stalls selling

only a few kinds of products. However, their stall was vulnerable in a way that their food

products could not be kept overnight, as it would spoil or go bad easily. Passersby’s would

want to buy their products because they were good in terms of appearance and taste.

Arvind’s group strength was in their chocolate toppings, chocolate is a product liked by most

people and this attract multiple customers. Besides, customers would buy their products

because of the appealing packaging and the appearance of the food. Their group faced the

same problems as Ray’s group and an additional problem which is their chocolate could

attract flies.

Who are they Ray Arvind

Product Fried chicken wings,

lemonade, fruit cup, breads

Chocolate mug, fruit kebab,

donut and cakes with chocolate

toppings

Strength Wide variety of choice Chocolate topping products

Vulnerabilities Product cannot be kept

overnight

Chocolate attracts flies,

product cannot be kept

overnight

Why would customers buy

from them

Products looks and taste good Product looks good, good

packaging

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Product and packaging

After discussions, we decided to sell fruit salads, fruit juices, mandarin oranges and

also some fresh fruits during this charity event. There are 3 options for the fruit salads which

are yoghurt salad, mango salad and mix fruits salad.

Our fruit salads menu:

Mango salad: Mix fruits salad: Yoghurt salad:

Mangoes cut into pieces

and mixed with mango

puddings.

The mix fruits salad has

orange juice as its sauce.

Mix fruits in this salad

include Fuji apple, green

apple, pineapple, grape and

raisin.

Same as mix fruits salad,

with yogurt put on the

top of it.

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Other products:

Green apples and Fuji Apples Mandarin oranges

We sold apples by numbers while the mandarin oranges were packed with 3 in each packet.

Some of the customers might not enjoy eating the fresh fruits, juicing may be another

option for fruit product. Therefore we started to add fruit juices into our menu on the third

day of the business charity drive. The freshly made juices are packed with nutrients. As fruits

are juiced, the liquids are separated from the fiber, resulting in a concentrated blend of

flavour and colour. These nutrients are quickly assimilated since our body does not have to

separate out of the fiber. Drinking fruit juices can reduce the risk of cancer, boost our

immune system, remove toxins from our body, aid digestion and help us lose weight.

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For the packaging, our products were packed in transparent cups and plastic bags. By

using these packaging, it adds a sense of sleek minimalism while allowing consumers to

actually see your product before buying it. Being able to see the product makes consumers

trust the products more.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz010cxvxsc

Pricing

Before the week of charity drive, we started to test on selling our products, which

were mainly fruits salads. We made 3 different types of fruits salads (yoghurt, mix fruits and

mango pudding) by ourselves so that we could get the lowest possible cost price. The average

cost price was RM2.00 and we decided to sell them all at RM5 to earn at least double the cost

prices. The sale testing result was not as good as predicted hence we had made more variety

of fruit products in the following days to achieve our profit target.

Other than fruit salads, we also had fresh fruits and fruit juices sold at our booth

during the charity drive week. Fresh fruits were bought in boxes. The calculated cost prices

and selling prices are shown in the table below.

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No. Product Cost Price (RM) Selling Price (RM)

1. Yoghurt Fruit Salad 1.20 5.00

2. Mix Fruits Salad 2.50 5.00

3. Mango Pudding Salad 2.30 6.00

4. Mango Juice 2.00 5.00

5. Pineapple Juice 1.50 5.00

6. Apple Juice 1.00 3.00

7. Mandarin Orange 2.00 5.00

8. Fuji Apple 1.55 3.00

9. Green Apple 1.00 2.00

For most of our products, the selling prices were set double the cost price, which were

the normal prices sold in markets. We did not take risk by setting high prices as fruits could

not keep long. Normal market prices ensured the sales amount and we could guarantee

products freshness for the customers by refilling new stocks from time to time.

Other sales strategies include walking around campus and some other areas outside

campus to approach more customers. We shared the purpose and message of our charity

event and SPCA Selangor to obtain more sales and donations. This contributed a lot to our

final profit earned throughout the event.

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Promotion

Our main marketing message is to let people know that we are raising fund for SPCA

Selangor to help them continue fighting for the welfare of animals. Therefore, we have

included SPCA Selangor logo into our poster and donation box design. Since some of our

fruits were sold at slightly more expensive prices compared to the normal markets, we have

to adopt this strategy to put the focus on the charity so that people will be more willing to buy

products from us as they see the profits earned is to be donated to charity organization.

Our Poster:

Our 2 main approaches to promote our products are: 1st through the poster, we placed the

poster at our booth to let the passersby know what we are selling and 2nd is through one-to-

one promotion to people around and outside campus. During our charity drive week, there

were very few people within campus area because many degree students were still in holiday.

Therefore, there were less people who stopped at our booth to buy our products. Seeing this

scenario, we decided not to waste too much effort to do printing promotion such as fliers as it

is not effective and it causes resources wastage. Instead, we adopt “walk around” in SS 15

area strategy to approach people. In our opinion, this approach is way more effective than

using poster to promote our products.

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Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6BdVO88HI

Sponsors

At first, we had approached some big companies and fruit suppliers by sending

sponsorship letter and by telephone calls. The companies we chose were mainly businesses

selling fruits such as MBG Fruits Supply Sdn Bhd, which could be our product suppliers if

any of them were willing to sponsor. However, our requests were being ignored.

Seeing the situation was not at our side, we then approached some individuals closed

to us, mainly our parents and relatives. These approaches were done using phone calls and

face-to-face proposal. In the end, we managed to obtain some sponsors in the form of cash.

Table below shows the sponsors summary.

No. Individuals Sponsor Form and Amount

1 Chiew Cheu Yun Cash of RM200

2 Chong Sau Min Cash of RM200

3 Tan Kim Chooi Cash of RM200

4 Yee Hon Chuen Cash of RM200

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Distribution

The main transportation of our group is car. The car is supplied by one of our member,

Chong Yu Xuan. He is responsible in getting the products to campus. The products were

transported by his car to campus on Monday and Tuesday. We used the same means of

transportation to deliver the products to our sales location which are Asia Café food court and

Taylor’s collage Subang Jaya. Our products are packaged and prepared beforehand. In this

way, the customers can get the product instantly without waiting. We have effectively

reached approximately 340 customers using these methods of delivering.

Green measure

Our chosen products are not made in an environmentally - conscious manner. To

minimize its hazardous effect, we actually use the plastic cups to accomplish many tasks,

instead of to be used only once. For example, we use plastic cups for not only fruit juice but

also fruit cups. This reduces our budget and the need for storage. Our product packaging are

reusable.

To reduce carbon footprint during the distribution stage, we had reduce the usage of

electricity when running this charity event. We will only use electricity for the juicer when

we were selling fresh juice. In order to promote our products, we walk around the campus to

seek for customers instead of giving out the flyers which can cause the wastage of paper and

increases of budget.

The way of managing our product’s wastes after use or consumption is compost the

fruit scraps which break down quickly and turn them into rich, nutritious soil that can be used

to nourish the garden.

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During the charity event, we turned the appliances off at the plug point when they

were not in use to reduce the consumption of electricity as left on standby can still draw

about 20% or more of normal electricity used. To minimize the usage of water, we rinse fruits

in a pan of clean water.

Human Resource Planning

We distributed our job scope as the organizational chart below:

Ong Seng Peng (The Group Leader)

Job Scope:

-Responsible for multimedia such as

editing videos and taking pictures.

-Compilation of report.

Tan Sheau Hui (The Accountant)

Job Scope:

-Responsible for all financial record.

-Control and manage budget.

Yee Zhen Li (The Chief)

Job Scope:

-Make sure the quality of the product is

good.

Chong Yu Xuan (The Executive)

Job Scope:

-Make sure the group has enough stock

and get products from supplier.

-Responsible for transportation issue.

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Besides the job scope above, all group members are also responsible to help planning

on promotion strategies to raise our sales amount as much as possible. As Zhen Li needs to

prepare the food for selling, she will need to stay at the stall and Sheau Hui will assist her in

preparing the food. Seng Peng and Yu Xuan will be the main promoters who walk around the

campus to sell the products. Yu Xuan also needs to fetch group members outside to sell the

products when necessary. When the sales end on that day, Sheau Hui will update the whole

group about sales revenue.

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Evaluation of Results

At the end of this project, we managed to earn a net profit of RM1674 by adding the

sales profit and donations we had received.

Income Statement of Group A Charity Drive Event

Revenue

Sales

$1,153

Less: Cost of Goods Sold $561

Gross Profit $592

Add: Other Revenues $ 1,448

Adjusted Gross Profit $2,040

Less: Operating Expenses

Typhoid Injection $250

Stock loss $116

Total Operating Expenses $326

Net Profit $1,674

After the whole week of charity event, we had done some evaluation on our sales and

all the strategies we had implemented. There are some reasons why we did not achieve an

excellent outcome in terms of the sales profit.

The first problem that we realized was that we did not organize and delegate the jobs

well. Other than that, we did not have a plan B set in mind when the sales went down after

the first day. At first, we struggled to gain more donations to cover up the sales but ended up

having an imbalance amount between the both. On the following days, we managed to make

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a variety of new products out of the goods we had. Only after that our sales revenues slowly

increased and approached the target.

There were also some good strategies that we had done during the business charity

event. Not only selling in the campus, we went out to other campuses and some nearby food

courts and shop lots area to obtain more sales as well as donations.

All in all, what we had learnt from this project was the business management process

in a practical way, which include to plan, to organize, to lead and to control. Even starting a

small business charity event was not an easy task. Lastly, if we were given a chance to repeat

this event, we would improve on our organization of work for each member and always have

another backup plan in mind in case the sales went wrong or any circumstances occur.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zVRE9P9yDY

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Appendix

i. Payments to suppliers

No. Date Supplier Payment (RM)

1 17/1/2015 Aeon Co. Bandar Sunway 14.60

2 17/1/2015 Cold Storage Sunway Pyramid 5.00

3 17/1/2015 Perniagaan Tai Ong Jaya 23.60

4 17/1/2015 Pasar Maluri *receipt was unavailable

9.80

5 18/1/2015 KTY Trading 389.00

6 19/1/2015 KTY Trading 230.00

7 20/1/2015 Daiso Japan, Sunway Pyramid 5.00

Total 677.00

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ii. Receipt from SPCA organization

iii. Typhoid injection certificate

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