Research report

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
PRESENTATION TITLE: A Comparative Analysis of 2 Businesses of Similar Industry in Different
Geographical Locations
GROUP MEMBERS:
Names Presentation Roles
William Goh Ming Hann (0317949) Description of the history of the trade/business
Tan Ken Ric (0318631) Brief description of the business
Ong Chia Hong (0318459) Number of competitor and strategy used
Lim Jie Qi (0318313) Obstacle, nature of market and comparative table
Jeffrey Liew Jun Yi (0317951) Conclusion and recommendation
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA
SUBMISSION & PRESENTATION DATE: 2 DECEMBER 2014
1| P a g e F N B E A U G U S T 2 0 1 4 - E N G L I S H 2 ( E L G 3 0 6 0 5 )
W i l l i a m G o h M i n g H a n n ( 0 3 1 7 9 4 9 )
Tan Ken Ric (0318631) Ong Chia Hong (0318459) Lim Jie Qi (0318313) Jeffrey Liea Jun Yi (0317951)

TABLE OF CONTENT
NO TITTLE PAGES
1 Artistic cover -
2 Cover page 1
3 Table of content 2
4 Key summary 3
5 Description of the history of the trade/business 4
6 Brief description of the business 5-6
7 Comparative Analysis of the Businesses’ Competitive Traits 7-10
8 Recommendation 11
9 Bibliography 12
10 Appendices 13-26
11 References 27

KEY SUMMARY
So, we were given an assignment which is to compare 2 businesses of similar industry in
different geographical locations. After our group discussion, we chose bakery as our target. We
decided to compare 2 bakery shops which are located at Seremban and Klang Valley. After
doing some research, we decided to interview ‘Wonderbread Bakery and Café’ and ‘The
Carpenter’s Daughter’, which are located at Seremban and Subang. Before that, we did contact
the owners or the shops to ask for permissions for the meeting appointments. After
completing the analysis report, we found that ‘The Carpenters Daughter’ is more commercially
successful than ‘Wonderbread Bakery and Café’. At last, we would like to express our gratitude
to Ms Jin from ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’ and Dato ‘ Azizah from ‘Wonderbread Bakery and
Café’ for their cooperation.

DESCRIPTION OF THE HISTORY OF THE TRADE/BUSINESS
TRADE: BAKERY
Bakery is the trade chosen for this research report. The bakery industry usually refers to grain-based
food industry. For example, grain-based foods include breads, cakes, pies, pastries, baked
pet treats, and other similar foods. Besides that, bakery also produces food to pets not only
human. (Coleman, 2003). Starting your own bakery is not that easy. There are many aspects
that we should consider. Before someone decide to operate a bakery. First, they will need to
perform some market research, locate a source of financing, and obtain the proper license.
Without a lincence, they won’t be able to open their own bakery shop. Meanwhile, if they do
not possess any knowledge of baking, you may want to retain the services of a experienced
baker or pastry chef. Besides that, they need to decide whether they want to offer a wide range
of products or focus on bread, pastries, cupcakes, or other specialties. (Jeremy Laukkonen,
2003). After that, they need to think about the advertising channel that they may use to get
their names out. For example, through the opinions, promotes and suggests from customers or
mass media like creating their own website. (Admin, 2011). Other than that, ingredients like
flour, eggs, and other baked items to produce baked food and equipment like oven, scale,
mixers and others are also an important factor to open a bakery shop. Their quality and price
should be taken into consideration. (Coleman, 2003) . In this research report, we are
comparing Wonderbread bakery and café and the carpenter’s Daughter in terms of business
style, strategies and also challenges they faced. However, business is evolving evryday. For
example, the bakery shop that we are comparing consist concepts of both bakery and café.
Also, they are the only bakery shop which has both concepts in their area which make them
very unique.

BRIEF BIO OF THE BUSINESSES
(A) WONDERBREAD BAKERY AND CAFÉ
The bakery shop that we interviewed in Seremban is ‘Wonderbread Bakery and Café’. This
‘Wonderbread Bakery and Café’ shop is located at No.84, Jalan S2 D33, City Centre, Seremban
2, 70300 Seremban. For ‘Wonderbread Bakery and Café’, they have no branches and they
currently have 4 workers. All of them are Malaysian and also housewives. The products that the
bakery is currently selling breads, cakes like birthday and wedding cakes. Besides that, they also
provide services like buffet area, meeting room and seminar room with audio visual facilities for
party, function and business meeting. The estimated number of customers that the bakery shop
has is around 24 people. The business was founded in July 2011 by Dato’ Hjh Azizah Idris.
Actually Dato’ Hjh Azizah Idris was retired in December 2010, so far before she retired she have
to plan for what to do next. So with some retirement benefit, she bought a shop and started
thinking what to do in the shop. So when she went around the world, she saw lots of beautiful
bakeries around the world, especially in Japan, Europe. She also loves beautiful cakes, breads
she wanted to be part of the society. Besides that, Baking is also her interest. Dato Azizah
started this business with capital around 600,000. Of course, business is slow. She believes that
the customer will see for itself that they have better environment, food and services. Recently,
She bought a small TV showing what is THEIR products our cakes. Because normally when
customers come, they wanted to see the cakes they have. So instead of showing them the
album, She put it in the USB and show them on the TV.

(B) THE CARPENTER’S DAUGHTER
The bakery shop that we interviewed in Klang Valley is ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’. This ‘The
Cappenter’s Daughter’ shop is located at No.46G, Jalan USJ 10/1E, Taipan, Subang. Selangor,
Malaysia. For ‘The Cappenter’s Daughter’, they have no branches and they currently have 10
full time and 12-15 working part time. The products that the bakery is currently selling are
cakes and breads like sourdough, speciality bread, pastry, pie, tart, scone, soft bun and others.
Besides that, they also provide services like takes bookings, good for groups or parties, catering
and table service. The estimated number of customers that the bakery has is around 26 people.
The business was founded in 2011 August 01 by Ms Jin Ling. Before that, Ms Jin owns an
organic shop in Ampand. Due to some licencing problem, she had no choice but to change
locations. She managed to found this place in Subang and saw that there is a potential for this
kind of business to do so she did it. Ms JIn started the business with around 300,000 capitals.
After developing her baking skills and creative on making differences on her products, she
managed to renew the menu in her bakery shop from only 1 page to 9 pages nowadays. So, as
you can see, her business is growing and slowly making money.

Comparative Analysis of the Businesses’ Competitive Traits
(A)Number of competitor and market share of the businesses
In Seremban, even though there a few bakery shops in the area, Dato Azizah never see them as
a competitor. She just do business as usual, if people prefer to go to her place then they will go
toher place. Because her bakery shop have 4 in 1 in 1 building. Her bakery shop have meeting
room, café, bakery and buffet area. Nobody in the area has all this besides her. The market
share of ‘Wonderbread Bakery and Café’ is small as it is still a small and slow business as Dato
Azizah claimed. Meanwhile, in Subang, there are 8 bakeries within the area. Most of them are
still running the typical kind of bakery which only sells bread while Ms Jin’s bakery shop is the
only one that have both bakery and café. Their product has the wide range of European bread
and soft bread while most of the other bakery are still selling Taiwanese and Japanese bread. So
in that sense, they are quite unique. So, she doesn’t really see them as competitor as she is the
only one that have both bakery and café. The market share of ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’ is
small as it is still considered in early stages as they only starts for three and a half year. The
business is still growing slowly.
(B) STRATEGIES USED TO COMPETE WITH THE COMPETITOR
For ‘Wonderbread bakery and café’, the shop is small. Dato Azizah believes in words of mouth
for good food and good services. She can only cater for around 24 people. She also believes
that her strategy works on the customers. She is confident that her products and services will
convince customers to feel the foods are tasty and the services and environment makes them
comfortable. Because her business is small, her business runs and makes money in a very low
rate, however she is not ready to receive large group of people so she feels satisfies with the
result of her bakery shop right now. Once in a while, she would advertise through the Metro
Magazine. She also has her own website on Facebook. Besides that, Dato Azizah set her product
price base on her costings. She never sees others as competitor as they sell their own
differentiated products. Meanwhile, for ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’, when Ms Jin started off

prior to all this, she was actually doing bread as a homebased supply to organic shops, selling
their organic breads. So organic baked items are always been her strong area. She didn’t come
out with this idea to compete with the rest. It’s just something that they have been carrying out
all this while. When they started at this location, She saw that there is a market for this kind of
organic bread, because of the capacity of this whole Subang area, it have a very large
percentage of population are very health conscious and willing to spend more something is
healthier. Besides that, Ms Jin does not really do much of advertising. A lot of it is actually
promoted and suggested by customers to their friends and people around them. She has a
website and a Facebook page to get her names out. Other than that, ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter
has their specific TCD membership privilege card. The card gives customers certain discount
when they come back and also allow them to collects point. Also their products are quite
different from the others. By using organic flour to make their products, the products will taste
different as the others, and this is why Ms Jin feels confident to persuade her customers to
come back to them or promotes for her.
(C) OBSTACLE FACED WHILE ENTERING THE MARKET
For ‘Wonderbread bakery and café’, the obstacle they face is the marketing stuff. Besides that,
the business for wonderbread bakery shop is slow. Their scale is also small. Meanwhile, for ‘The
Carpenter’s Daughter’, there is less customer when she first started as nobody knows her shop.
Ms Jin finds that it will easily take 8 months, a year or more to attract customer. But what she
finds is really challenging even up to now is the resources issue. Also, Ms Jin have no F&B
experience at all, it is very challenging because she is starting everything from scratch zero.
Even going down to very small detail like packaging, you don’t which source to take. It is very
challenging, but she struggle through. Even till now, as the business is growing, the challenges
she face would be different.

(D) NATURE OF THEIR MARKET
The bakery market for ‘Wonderbread bakery and café’ and ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’ is that
they are both monopoly. In a monopoly market, it is hard to enter, people sell somewhat
differentiated or standardized product, so it causes them to have strong pricing power. For
‘Wonderbread bakery and café’, even though there are a few bakery shop in the area, but
‘Wonderbread bakery’ is the only one that has the concept of both bakery and café. They even
provide services like buffet, food catering and also cooking class. For ‘The Carpenter’s
Daughter’, it is the only bakery shop that has both bakery and café as well. Besides that, they
are the only bakery shop who sells European bread and they use organic flour to produce the
breads. Other than that, they also sell deserts.
(E) COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS SUMMARY TABLE
Wonderbread Bakery and
Cafe (Seremban-Based)
The Carpenter’s Daughter (Klang
Valley-Based)
Similarities
0 Number of competitor 0
1 Number of founder 1
0 Number of branches/outlet 0
Bakery with cafe Type of business Bakery with cafe
Differences
July 2011 When was it founded August 2011
4 Number of workers 10 full time , 12-15 part time
Children with parents Customers Adults aged around 30-40
Once a month New products for sale 4-5 products every 2 months

600,000, owns the
building
Capital required 300,000, does not own the
building (rent)
(F) CONCLUSION
Based on my analysis, I think that ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’ bakery is more commercially
successful than ‘Wonderbread bakery and café’, even though they are similar as they are the
only bakery shop with both bakery and café in the different areas. ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’
bakery provides more variety of products such as breads, cakes, desserts, drinks and cakes as
Ms Jin mentioned that they always updates their menu to allow their customers have more
choices in their shop. Besides that, the Carpenter’s Daughter comes out with 4-5 new product
every 2 months while Wonderbread bakery and café only once a month. Besides that, they also
sell different type of breads such as sourdough, specialty, scone, pastry & pie and others. Other
than that, ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’ has more customers than ‘Wonderbread bakery and
café’. The Carpenter’s Daughter also has more workers than Wonderbread bakery and café.
RECOMMENDATION

For ‘Wonderbread bakery and café’ I think that they should do more promotion as well as
advertisement to get their names out not only rely to their customers to promote for them.
This will definitely increase the pace of their business since there is more people know about
their shop. Besides that, they should produce new products regularly so that the customers
won’t get bored. New products mean more choices to their customers so they can satisfy more
different customers with different taste, it will helps their business a lot. If the customers like it,
they will advertise for the shop, recommend it to their friends and family. For Wonderbread
bakery and café, they should hire more workers or chef. There are only 4 workers in their shop,
the efficiency is not there. They should cooperate and divide the number of workers to be
responsible on their own specific works. It will make the business to run more efficiency. For
example, some workers responsible on creating new products, the others can responsible on
serving customers, cleaning job, cashier and baking works. Since the works are divided
averagely, they can work more efficiently, more products can be created, quality and quantity
of the products will be raised so It will keep the customers fresh as they can try new things
constantly. Other than that, they could do a membership card for people to sign up as they can
get discount and collect point, this will attract them to return to their shop and become their
constant customers. Meanwhile, for ‘The Carpenter’s Daughter’, they should expand the bakery
shop so that more customers can dine in. Besides that, they should do more advertisement to
increase the familiarity of the bakery shop.
BIBLOGRAPHY

Admin. (2011 January 3). What you need to open a bakery. Retrieved from Start a Baking Business:
http:www. baking-business.com/what-you-need-to-open-a-bakery/
Coleman,P. (2003). What is the bakery industry. Retrieved from WiseGEEK: www.wisegeek.com/what-is-
the-bakery-industry.htm
Jeremy Laukkonen. (2003). How do I start a bakery business.. Retrived from WiseGEEK:
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-start-a-bakery-business.htm
APPENDICES

Interview notes
Wonderbread bakery and café

Contact details
Owner: Dato Hjh Azizah Idris
Address: No.84, Jalan S2 D33, City Centre, Seremban 2, 70300 Seremban
Contact no: 06 6017141
010 226 6420
Email: datoazizah.idris@gmail.com
Website: www.wonderbread.com.my
Facebook page: facebook.com/WonderBreadBakeryCafe
Website
Facebook page
WONDERBREAD BAKERY & CAFÉ

1) When did you start your business?
July 2011
2) Can you briefly tell us what triggered the idea for running the business?
Actually I was retired in December 2010 , so far before I retired I have to plan for what to do next. So
with some retirement benefit, I bought a shop and I start thinking what to do in the shop. So when I
went around the world, I saw beautiful bakeries around the world, especially in Japan, Europe. I love
beautiful cakes, breads. I was thinking to be part of the society. Also take this as an interest.
3) What are your main products and services?
I aim more on cakes, bread. I have a buffet area upstairs with audio visual facilities. So, when anybody
wants to celebrate or have a meeting and function, we have a beautiful place for them.
4) Who are your main competitors?
Even though there a few bakery shops in the area, I never see them as a competitor. I just do business as
usual, if people like to come to my place then they come to my place. Because I have 4 in 1 in 1 building.
I have meeting room, café, bakery and buffet area. Nobody in this area has all this.
5) What is the most effective way to advertise your products?
Once in a while, I advertise through the Metro Magazine. I have my own website on my Facebook.
6) What strategy are you using to compete with your competitors?
My place is small. I believe in words of mouth for good food and good services. I can only cater for
around 24 people. I believe my strategy works on the customers. It’s only thing my business takes more
time to process and I’m not quite ready to receive large group of people.
7) Who are your customers?
Normally are children with their parent. Because 2 doors away is a Yamaha music center, their parents
will dine here for tea, pack some bread or cakes for their children. Less adults unless some businessman
want to have business talk.
8) Is your pricing decision strongly affected by your competitors? Why or why not?
No, I set my price base on my costings. I never see them as competitor. We sell our own products.
9) How many branches and employee do you have?
0. Currently I have 4 employee. All of them are Malaysians. They are housewives.
10) How much capital is required to start this business?

Around 600,000
11) What obstacle do you face when you started the business?
Marketting stuff and of course the business is slow.
12) How often do you release new products?
Once a month.
13) What is your business’s most recent development?
We have a small TV showing what is our products our cakes. Because normally when customers come,
they wanted to see the cakes that I have done. So instead of showing them the album, I put it in the USB
and show them on the TV.
14) Generally, do you think it is easy or hard to enter this market? Why?
I think in Seremban especially our shop is quite out of the stream. The business is very slow.
Business premises
The outlook of the shop

The environment inside the shop
Products shown in the shop
Chocolate pancakes

Homemade wholebread

Cakes and desserts

The Carpenter’s Daughter
Contact details
Owner: Ms Jin Ling
Address: No.46G, Jalan USJ 10/1E, Taipan, Subang
Contact no: +6(03)8081 1218
016 2762811
Email: jin@ovenrun
Website: www.tcdartisanbakerycafe.com;
tcdbakerycafe.blogspot.com
Facebook page: facebook.com/thecarpentersdaughter.artisanbakerycafe
Website

Facebook page

THE CARPENTERS DAUGHTER
1) When did you start your business?
2011, before that I have an organic bakery in Ampang.
2) Can you briefly tell us what triggered the idea for running the business?
Baking is my passion. I always like to bake. My background is computer science. I was working as IT
consultant prior to this. I was in many public agencies in my last job. It is an 180 degree change in my
career.
3) What are your main products and services?
We have both bakery as well as café. When we first started in 2011, there is not many this kind of
concept having both bakery and café together. After that, in the last two years this kind of similar
concepts of business and services seem to be much over Klang valley. Before this is like the the
traditional classic like BERRY’S either just bakery or café.
4) Who are your main competitors?
Within this area, there are 8 of us. Most of them are still running the typical kind of bakery, ours is the
only one that have both bakery and café. Our product has the wide range of European bread and soft
bread while most of the other bakery are still selling Taiwanese and Japanese bread. So in that sense, we
are quite unique.
5) What is the most effective way to advertise your products?
I don’t really do much of advertising. A lot of it is actually word of mouth. I do have a website and a
Facebook page to get my names out.
6) What strategy are you using to compete with your competitors?
I started off prior to all this, I was actually doing bread as a homebased supply to organic shops, selling
our organic breads. So organic baked items have always been my strong area. We didn’t coming out this
idea to compete with the rest. It’s just something that we have been carrying out all this while. When
we started at this location, there is a market for this kind of organic bread, because of the capacity of
this whole Subang area, we have a very large percentage of population are very health conscious and
willing to spend more something is healthier.
7) How do motivate your customers to repurchase your products?
We have our TCD membership privilege card. The card gives customers certain discount when they
come back and also for them to collects point. That is one way. Other than that, because our products
are quite different from the others. We use organic flour and nobody else uses it. We let the product
speak for itself.

8) Who are your customers?
Normally are people who aged 30-40.
9) How many branches and employee do you have?
0. I have 10 full time and 12-15 part time.
10) How much capital is required to start this business?
Around 300,000.
11) What obstacle do you face when you started the business?
It is normal there is less customer when we first started as nobody knows you. You will take easily 8
months, a year or more to attract customer. What I find is really challenging even up to now is the
resources issue.
12) How often do you release new products?
We are quite slow in our R&D. One thing is of course of our resources we are quite of small group and
we do have a lots of thing that we are doing right now. R&D right now is myself and one other chef. We
have not been as aggressive as many other bakery. Around 4-5 products every 2 months.
13) What is your business’s most recent development?
I only run this business for 3 and a half year. It is natural that we start to do for the possibility of
expanding the business. There is a lot potential for this business and for us to expand. But for us to do
that, we need a bigger place.
14) Generally, do you think it is easy or hard to enter this market? Why?
Being a person who have no F&B experience at all, it is very challenging because we are starting
everything from scratch zero. Even going down to very small detail like packaging, you don’t which
source to take. It is very challenging, but I struggle through. As your business is progressing, is a total
new challenges now. For initial, I only have one page but now I have three pages. So when your business
is growing, your challenges is also different.

Business premises
The outlook of the shop
Customers and environment of the
shop

Products
Cakes and desserts
European breads ( made by
organic floor)

MINUTES OF THE MEETING
DATE: 10-11-2014 (Monday)
TIME: 12pm-3pm
VENUE: Library (level 5)
NAMES OF GROUP MEMBERS TUTORIAL GROUP ROLE
William Goh Ming Hann Friday (10-12) am Leader
Tan Ken Ric Friday (10-12) am Secretary
Ong Chia Hong Friday (10-12) am Person to contact
Lim Jie Qi Friday (10-12) am Transporter
Jeffrey Liew Wednesday (10-
12)am
Time keeper
NO. ACTIVITY
1. Discussion -Role of each group member and decide what business to do.
-Search internet for potential interviewees (shop and location).
-Questions for interview.
2. Conclusion -Chose bakery in Seremban and Subang as target.
-Manage to find potential interviewees in Seremban and Subang.
-Contacted Wonderbread bakery and café in Seremban and The
Carpenter’s Daughter in Subang.
-Manage to get permission and made appointment to interview Ms
Jin from The Carpenter’s Daughter and Dato Azizah from
Wonderbread bakery and café.

REFERENCES
https://www.facebook.com/WonderBreadBakeryCafe/timeline
http://wonderbread.com.my/index.html
https://www.facebook.com/thecarpentersdaughter.artisanbakerycafe/timeline
http://tcdbakerycafe.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_3.html

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