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Blitz Case Study - Planning
Blitz Case Study - Planning
DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-09-2016-0199 VOL. 7 NO. 4 2017, pp. 1-18, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2045-0621 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 1
Rani clutched Hema’s hand and pleaded her to save the business from ruin. By thinking
about her mom’s request, she felt the urge to devote herself to saving the family business.
To overcome the problems, Hema decided to analyze the root causes for the poor situation
of the business. With a sip of coffee from her favorite mug, she started to analyze the
situation one by one. She was determined to come up with a solution and to improve the
present situation of Blitz within 6 months.
per annum in the following years. Indeed, bread items remained the second most favorite
staple food.
Although rice was the main staple food for Malaysians, the consumption of bread was
increasing day by day. Bread became one of the essential items for breakfast in the vast
majority of families. In many places, breads, cookies and sandwiches were replacing the
consumption of rice and noodles.
The distribution of bakery items became easier because of the improved transportation
facilities around the county. The development of expressways contributed to the smooth
distribution of bakery food items from where it was produced to where it was sold; from
urban areas to sub-urban and rural areas. The improved road systems meant bakery items
were comfortably transported to accommodation stores, standard merchants, markets and
smaller than usual markets.
There were different brands of bakery items in Malaysia. One of the famous brands was
Gardenia Bakeries. Gardenia Bakeries produced an assortment of delicious bread items,
such as Gardenia Twiggies, Gardenia Muffins and Fluffy Bun. The price was affordable for
all income groups. Additionally, the items produced by Gardenia Bakeries were healthy
and known for their low glycogenic record, while being full of protein and fiber. There was
one more famous bakery named High 5 Bakery, which declared their official procurement
of license for the production and dispersion of Roman Meal breads from The Roman Meal
Company in the USA. The company was best known for their dietary healthy bread
throughout the century. Both companies (High 5 and Gardenia Bakery) spent huge
amounts of cash on promoting their brands and items through different media. Media also
contributed significantly in developing the demand for bakery items in Malaysia. The
internet made western culture popular among different parts of the world which also
affected Asian culture. As a reflection, the western style of living was adopted by many
modern Malay families. Not only globalization, but also busy lives made bread consumption
popular among urban Malaysian families.
upon was their store-plan, which permitted clients to see items being arranged in the
kitchen in a hygienic way through vast glass windows.
organization was set up by Rani Sittumalai in 2005 with a dream to be one of the biggest
Malaysian Indian treats producers in Malaysia. Rani selected the name Blitz because the
meaning suggested a sudden or intensive attack; thus, she meant a sudden attack on the
market share of the cookies. She thought that it would be suitable for the 21st century.
Blitz used only natural ingredients. The example of cookies produced by Blitz are candy,
laddu, kesari, jalebi, halwa and many more (Exhibit 1). The recipes were collected from
family and friends; the Fruit Candy recipe was from Rani’s mother, the laddu was from her
grandmother and other cookies’ recipe Rani created by herself. Starting with one employee
in the bakery, in 2012 it had six employees who were engaged in preparing more than 10
types of cookies and floral cakes, all developed by the company. Table III shows the major
product line of Blitz.
Laddu (rawa laddu, sedame laddu, coconut laddu) Murukku Floral cakes
Gulab Jamun Achu murukku Cup cakes
Halwa Paguda Vegetarian cakes
Kesari Ome podi Fruit cake
Jalebi Muffin
Candy Ice-cream cake
Chiffon cake
and vanilla flavors to give them a sweet taste, while the snacks were prepared with special
chilies and pepper to give a spicy taste. These items were all homemade and all products
were made with the ingredients available in the local market.
In addition, Blitz offered goody bags in bulk for special occasions, parties and marriages.
The amount and type of item (cookies) in the goody bags were decided by the customer,
and Blitz used to cater according to the customer’s requirements. Blitz also offered free
door-to-door delivery within 20 km where the journey was within 30 min.
To attract customers, Blitz promoted its products during special occasions such as
Deepavali, Ponggal, etc. During festivals, Rani offered quantity discounts to its customers
if they placed an order in bulk. Although Rani did not have any proper marketing training,
she tried her best to grow the business based on her own thoughts and ideas.
the problem.
Blitz’s profits used to come from bakery items as well as from the sale of goody bags.
Nevertheless, another major portion of profits used to come from five main customers in
Johor Bahru. These customers were five popular Indian restaurants. After Hema took the
responsibility to run the family business, she realized that the company lost two of the major
customers. She made investigations to find out the root cause of this problem. She realized
that the late delivery of orders was one of the major issues in the loss of customers. After
two employees quit their job, the workload increased which led Sittumalai, who used to
deliver customer orders, to work harder. Because of his poor health and the extra work
load, he could not deliver the orders on time to the restaurants. As a result, two customers
finally decided to terminate their contract with Blitz. Not only this, they also lost a good
opportunity to market their bakery items to one of the largest and most famous Indian
restaurants, as they could not commit to the agreement to supply a constant large amount
of cookies for a particular period of time. Moreover, they were not capable of selling their
products to hypermarkets, as production costs had increased.
Hema faced the challenge of getting a loan from the bank because Blitz was an enterprise
company and the banks preferred to provide loans to Sendirian Berhad companies.
Another reason was that Blitz did not make any significant profit after 2012, which made it
difficult for Blitz to apply for bank loans, as they failed to show a growth in profit. Thus, the
company struggled to have sufficient money to purchase raw materials, other supplies and
equipment. The increased price of raw materials (i.e. sugar and fuel) made it more difficult
for Blitz to offer items at a lower price. This situation compelled Blitz to increase the price
of the products to cover the high expenses of raw materials.
Moving forward
The thought of successfully establishing Blitz overwhelmed Hema’s thoughts. On one side,
she was very upset to resign from her teaching job and on the other side she wanted to
make her mom happy. Not only this, the major income for her parents’ house used come
from this business. “If I don’t help my mom in such situation, I will never forgive myself. I
need to be firm to take this new challenge. I always can join back my teaching job. It is just
for a certain time only”, she consoled herself. She looked toward her bedridden mom with
Keywords:
tearful eyes.
Marketing,
Entrepreneurship, Although Hema had no prior experience in conducting and running a business, seeing her
Consumer behavior, mom’s pale face gave her renewed determination. She looked out of the window and felt
Market segmentation/target heartened by the sunny sky. She felt determined to deal with the situation and increase the
markets sales of the family business. She wondered where to start [. . .]!
Corresponding author
Farzana Quoquab can be contacted at: fqbhabib@ibs.utm.my