Business Circle Magazine Vol.1 Issue 2 (Preview)

មានអត្ថបទឱកាសពាណិជ្ជកម្មជាភាសាខ្មែរ

March 2013 - bcmagz.com

Vol.1 Issue 2

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CONTENT

CONTENTSENTREPRENEUR PROFILE

TIPS TO TEST

CHALLENGE YOURSELF 3 A JOURNEY TO BE A TECHNOLOGY TYCOON15 HE WHO BUILT THE FAME OF APPLE

3 MANAGEMENT CLUES OF RAPID GROWTH

10 KEYS TO BE SUPERIOR IN SOFTWARE INDUSTRY, T.O. GROUP

21 TO WIN MASTER FRANCHISE LICENSE

25 VALUES: YOUR DRIVING FORCE33 BUSINESS MYTHS

35 15 BRAINTEASERS TO TEST YOUR MENTAL SHARPNESS36 SUDOKU37 IQ TEST

3 21 15 117

BUSINESS CASE STUDIES15 FOREIGN INVESTMENT CASE STUDY: TRI ASIA GROUP

17 THE SNAP LOOK AT SOFTWARE BUSINESS

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Vol.1 Issue 2

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COMPANY PROFILE

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

11 ONE VILLAGE ONE PRODUCT

23 FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY: GLORIA JEAN’S COFFEES

25 FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY: CHATIME

27 LISTING OF BUSINESS ASSETS FOR SALE

28 ASSETS OF CHARCOAL BBQ AND SOUP BUFFET FOR SALE

29 ASSETS OF BLITZ BAR FOR SALE

30 ASSETS OF PARKWAY SUPER BOWL FOR SALE

31 USD30,000 FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMES

39 ZUCCHINI SPONGE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY41 E-BIZ TUESDAY

ADVERTISE WITH US

T E A MEditor-in-ChiefMr. Phy Nidona

Head of TechnicalMr. Seang Dara

Admin & AccountantMiss. Lim Siv Eng

Head of MarketingMr. Hem Sopanha

DistributorMr. Seang Dara

Senior Marketing Executive

Miss.Yan Sophea

Designer Mr. Roniel Dionco

Photographer Mr. Roniel Dionco

Mr. Chhuon SophornEditors

Ms. Moeun SakanaMr. Heng Vicheth

Copy Editors

Ms. Kristin O’Connell

Mr. Roswell ThomasMr.Sam Thomas


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ENTERPRENEUR PROFILE

A Journey to Be a Technology TycoonWritten by: Chhuon Sophorn

Ever heard the term “ANANA”? You may then think of something related

to computers. Sok Channda, 56, is the businesswoman behind this business name. She is the President and CEO of ANANA Group, comprising ANANA Com-puter, AngkorNet and MekongNet.

Born in Kampong Cham, Ms. Channda entered business in 1983, only a few years after Cambodia’s reemergence. With $20 in start-up capital, she decided to rent a place next to a hairstyling salon and set up a business providing face massage for women. In her free time, Ms. Channda also honed her clothes knitting skills. She said that it took her from a few days to a week to finish one complete set of clothes. Those knitted clothes were sold at a local mar-ket, where she got the chance to see other types of Khmer traditional clothes, which in turn inspired her designs.

Early in her career, Ms. Channda be-gan looking for strategies to optimize her business. She realized that if she was able to use machine to embroider, she could make a more diverse range of products more quickly than before. She then went on the tutorial to sharpen her skill. As her operations grew, Ms. Chan-nda hired relatives and other employees to help.

Ms. Channda continued to look for new business opportunities. After some obser-vation in the market, she realized that no artificial flowers for Christmas decora-tion, although they were already success-ful products in Vietnam and Thailand. Ms. Channda brought some Christmas flowers from Vietnam and sold them wholesale to other retailers in the local market. However, without her own store,

her profits were limited. This factor led her to establish her own stand in the market in order to sell Christmas flowers both wholesale and retail.

Ms. Channda began manufacturing her own flowers. She still remembers the de-signs, and tells this part of the story hold-ing scissors and cutting blank pieces of paper into various designs. In time, she expanded her flower sales to the provinc-es, and even began exporting to Vietnam, the country where she learned about the product in the first place. In time, her business became profitable.

However, Ms. Channda’s profits brought a challenge that is surprising for all first-time businesspeople: accounting. Ms. Channda soon had many records of ex-penses, revenues, and customers’ debts which became less and less accessible, to the point where sometimes she could not even locate the names of her debtors. Ms. Channda’s fateful introduction to com-puters actually came from one of her cus-tomers, who mentioned that she might use the new machines to more efficiently track revenues. Ms. Channda points to this moment in 1993 as the starting point of her technology business.

In 1993, Ms. Channda bought a compu-ter in 1993 and took a weeklong course there before returning with her new ma-chine to Cambodia. She pursued her com-puter studies in a local computer school, and brought her own computer to learn. It was during her computer studies that Ms. Channda won her first computer cus-tomer. The new computer she was using caught the attention of the school princi-pal, who asked her about the price. Ms. Channda’s computer had cost $1,150, much less than the local price. The prin-


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ENTERPRENEUR PROFILE

A Journey to Be a Technology Tycoon

cipal asked her to get more for the school.

Ms. Channda’s first computer order was for four machines; she imported them from Vietnam and made a profit of about $100 on each. “Just $5 to $ 10 in profit from flower selling already made me hap-py, so with $100 profit from selling computer, I was even pleased to get,” recalls Ms. Channda, smiling. With a newly discovered profit stream and $3,500 in capital from her flower business, Ms. Channda decided to open a computer retail outlet. Her op-eration started small – in fact, her first store was in her computer teaching school. Due to financial constraints, Ms. Channda could buy only a few com-puters at a time. However, she was able to build a good relationship with her supplier and, eventually, she had a line of credit which allowed her greater flexibility.

From the start, Ms. Channda’s computer business took a bold approach to HR. Although her budget was small, she dared to employ two staff members with computer knowledge, paying each up to $800 per month. It was a very high salary back then, says Ms. Channda, but she explains that it was worth it for workers who knew the customers and could pro-vide expert computer advice and maintenance. “If they can help generate profit, I am not afraid to pay them high salaries ,” says Ms. Channda.

Up to this point, she had only imported compters that had already been fully assembled and set up at a cost to Ms. Channda of $100. As she had done with the flower business, when she moved from sell-ing flowers to designing them herself, Ms. Channda came up with the idea to expand her business to


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ENTERPRENEUR PROFILEcapture a larger part of the value chain. Ms. Channda decided to buy spare parts and in-stalled them at her place, thereby reducing costs and increasing margins.

The transition was not totally smooth and there was confusion over which computer parts to order. However, Ms. Channda learned from her mistakes and improved with each batch of computers. In 1995, Ms. Channda created the ANANA brand for this business.

Again, in 2005, Ms. Channda felt restless to capture more of the computer value chain. She saw the growth in demand for computers slowing, causing her profits to fall. Ms. Chan-nda identified Internet service as an attrac-tive complementary product for computers. Ms. Channda started the Internet and VoIP pro-vider AngkorNet, then a joint venture with a Singaporean company in which ANANA held a 60 percent share.

After one year, Ms. Channda started to look to online gaming and TV, which AngkorNet at the time would be unable to support. Ms. Chan-nda’s new goal was fiber optic technology, one that was not shared by her business partner in AngkorNet, who did not agree on the proposal. “My business partners were only interested in providing the service to the end user. They re-alized that it was costly to run the fiber optic service,” explains Ms. Channda.

Ms. Channda believed fiber optic technology would work at the large-scale in Cambodia and decided to open another company, MekongNet, this time on her own. However, this later firm had no conflict to the former one as MakongNet was aimed at building sites or Internet in fra-structures, told Ms. Channda. As the demand increased, MekongNet gained market share and returned good profit. She then turned to buy the remaining 40 percent share in Ang-korNet from her partner, making her the sole owner of three companies: ANANA Computer, AngkorNet and MekongNet.

Along with the success she is having today, Ms. Channda also reflected on some interest-ing failures. For a short time, she established two other branches of ANANA, a bookshop and

a supermarket. She disclosed that because she did not have enough staff or a proper system to control these two newly created businesses, they did not go smoothly. She raised a case of ANANA supermarket where she had caught a number of shoplifters. Increa sing problems with business operations were discouraging, and Ms. Channda decided to focus instead on her core computer business.

Ms. Channda says that, to make the right busi-ness moves, it is important to work cautiously and sufficiently at all business spectrums and activities. She continues that it is also impor-tant to stay ahead of competitors by having dif-ferentiating business, products and technology with a long-term view. This discipline is what she credits with her success in the emerging Cambodian computer industry.


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TIPS TO TEST

Management Clues of Rapid Growth

In this information age, business experience has been widely circulated and is very accessi-ble to young entrepreneurs. If an important lesson becomes common, does that mean it has lost its level of importance? Its value is still the same. How much you can make use of it will largely depend on your ability to know when and how to use it. Below are some of manage-ment tips for transforming a family business into a formal company that were shared with Business Circle Magazine by Ms. Sok Channda, CEO of ANANA Group.

2.Fair with everyone:

When c hanges happen, it is very important to understand how staff are feeling. Restruc-turing the company can stir up strong emotions – staff may be unhappy with new roles and responsibilities. Staff may feel envy if they feel they are not treating fairly, which may result in low productivity or high turnover. Nevertheless, a company should avoid that negative culture no matter what stage of growth it is in. Treating your staff fairly is a must.

1. Transform the system:

As your business grows, simple procedures will become quite complex. Constant attention will have to be paid to transforming and updating your systems for keeping track of money and tasks. With a clear system in place, each staff member will be able to understand the workflow as a whole as well as their roles and responsibilities in their daily works, for example.

3. Determination to be decisive:

In family businesses, many staff are relatives of the business owners. However, when de-veloping your business into a formal company, you may need to reconsider hiring decisions. Particular positions may need specialized skills, experience, and knowledge. Inevitably, some relatives will have to be replaced with someone else, and this is surely not an easy task, since it involves so much emotion which will impact the relationship. However, for the sake of your business, you need to be very decisive. Do the right thing for your company and find the right solutions for yourself, says ANANA’s CEO. She recommends that you move your relatives to a different position that is more suitable for their skills. Remember, though, if someone doesn’t have enough capacity, he or she can never be in management level, no matter who he or she is.

Written by: Heng Vicheth


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BUSINESS CASE STUDY

Foreign investment in Cambodia has been in-creasing over the past several years. Phnom Penh residents may have observed some of the many new high rise buildings which have been constructed, new foreign banks that have been set up one after another. Today we are going to discuss about TriAsiaGroup, a recently setup Japanese company in Cambo-dia. Below is an interview with Mr. Toshiaki Akagi, the director of TriAsiaGroup.

TriAsiaGroup is a Japanese company that first invested in Cambodia in July 2012, when it was established by Mr. Tomoyuki Yokoi. With the mission to connect Japan and other Asian countries through business in Food & Beverage, Fashion, Hospitality, Entertain-ment, and Human Resource, TriAsiaGroup has begun to enter the Southeast Asian Mar-ket starting in Cambodia. Why Cambodia? The company believes that there are a large number of opportunities for new businesses

as a result of Cambodia’s rapid economic de-velopment in recent times. TriAsiaGroup’s vision is to start up a diverse range of busi-nesses. However, it has initially focused on two main areas: food services and a football clubs.

Let’s now go deeper into the thinking of TriA-siaGroup and explore the reasons why they are making these investments, as well as their strategies for success.

TriAsiaGroup’s main strategic principle is “Expectation 120%, speed”, meaning that the company aims to develop quickly in new mar-kets.

There are three segments within the food services sector that TriAsiaGroup will focus on. These are:1.Production of both animal and plant food products,

Japanese Investment Case Study:

TriAsiaGroup

Written by: Heng Vicheth


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BUSINESS CASE STUDY

2.Preparation of food in a res-taurant setting, and3.Management of retail res-taurants.

The company has begun this journey from the end of the supply chain, working back to-wards production. They have already opened two kiriya cafe and are currently preparing to open Hanami Restaurant. The reason they chose to begin with the kiriya cafe is because, as food service businesses, they require lower investment. The company also had the ad-vantage of existing restaurant experts in their team. When comparing other investment options, TriAsiaGroup found that the cafes would be the easiest businesses to begin with, since they would deliver good results in a reasonable time frame. Although many people may think that the cafe business is tough to enter in Phnom Penh because of the large number of existing cafes, TriAsiaGroup believes that there is always potential for success.

kiriya cafe has its own strate-gies to succeed, the most impor-tant of which is the company’s concept of ‘cafe environment’. In addition to selling of high quality products and maintain-

ing a high standard of service, kiriya cafe has a comfortable arrangement of furniture and a relaxation space with a bil-liard table. Customers do not have to just sit in a chair any longer.

The other TriAsiaGroup story in Cambodia is the company’s professional football club. Al-though football is already a very popular sport in Cambo-dia, making money out of this business is still challenging. For a company with a long-term view such as TriAsiaGroup, there is a belief that creating and developing a professional football club can deliver profit over time. There are additional benefits including enhancing the company’s reputation, pro-moting their other businesses, attracting sponsors, and con-tributing to sport development in Cambodia. To achieve these goals, certain strategies have been set out.

There are three objectives for the TriAsiaGroup football club – to win matches, attract spon-sorship, and become popular with fans. Most important of all when seeking to promote a football club is to keep win-ning. With an experienced Japanese coach on a mission to recruit talented young foot-

ball players from around Cam-bodia, TriAsiaGroup believes they can reach the Cambodian Premier League within three years. Secondly, to ensure the team has sufficient financial resources, sponsorship will be sought from both local part-ners and Japanese companies. TriAsiaGroup has committed to contributing some profits from their restaurant busi-nesses to support the club with the belief that the club will be-come famous. TriAsiaGroup also cares about the popularity of the team and will undertake many promotional activities such as developing a Facebook fan page.

Although it is not possible to predict how big TriAsiaGroup is going to be, we are confident that they are an interesting model for young entrepreneurs . They dreamed big with multi-businesses targeting the large Asian market, and started small to ensure they did not overreach. The company is an example for how successful Cambodia can become if our young entrepreneurs dare to dream big and aim for the re-gional and international stage. Let’s achieve it together.

Documents

Business Circle Magazine Vol.1 Issue 2 (Preview)