KOOLKES SENDIRIAN BERHAD: How Cool Can The Fridge

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Koolkes Sdn Bhd: How Cool Can the Fridge Be?In KoolKes, the service team underwent external training to increase skilland knowledge of products and also attended seminars on public relations. Onthe-jobtraining was provided by Mr. S. P. Han. Mr. P. K. Gong who had made itclear to his employees over and over again that good customer service was vitalto KoolKes and must be provided at all times. This was because maintenanceservices generated substantial income for the company upon the expiration ofthe warranty period. Mr. P. K. Gong often stressed that it was important to signup maintenance contract with customers as each contract would ensure incomefor company for a minimum period of twelve months. With the large base ofmaintenance contract, the income generated would thus make the servicesdepartment’s operation profitable. Mr. P. K. Gong believed that KoolKes, withits good customer’s services and high technical skills, could be placed in a betterposition amongst its competitors.CUSTOMERSThe hypermarkets in Malaysia are operated by a mix of both foreign and localcompanies. European hypermarket operators like Carrefour from France andMakro from Holland have already been operating for some time here. Carrefourhas four hypermarkets which are located in Subang Jaya, Johor Bahru, WangsaMaju and Sri Petaling. The company’s latest outlet in Penang will be ready forbusiness by December 2004. Macro presently has six outlets which are locatedin Shah Alam, Selayang, Seremban, Johor Baru, Ipoh and Seberang Prai. Its nextoutlet in Cheras will begin operation by December 2004. On the other hand,Extra, Giant and Fajar are Malaysia’s local hypermarket operators. Extra has atotal of six hypermarkets located at Mines Shopping Fair (Seri Kembangan), UEP,Ipoh, Klang, Johor Bahru and Melaka; Giant’s hypermarkets are located in USJ,Permata and Johor Bahru while Fajar’s only outlet is in Cheras.Supermarkets are mainly owned by Malaysians. Some of them have jointventures with foreign companies: Isetan, Jaya Jusco, Yaohan and Sogo were suchexamples of Japanese joint ventures with Malaysian partners. Cold Storage wasoperated together with Dairy Farm of Hong Kong under the Welcome Stores.The Dutch’s Royal Hold and Kuok Group were operating their stores underTops. Tops took over the supermarkets division of Parkson on July 7, 2000 andthis division would be fully operating under the format of Tops in October 2000(Source: the Sun, 7 July 2000). By this acquisition, Tops had become the leadingsupermarkets chain in Malaysia with a total of 47 outlets. The Store had a totalof 26 supermarkets. Other local operators were Fajar, Ocean and small-familyoperated stores as TC Permata, Bintang , Warta and Hong Kong.Mini markets were mainly operated by locals and were located at housingestates, small towns and suburbs. They only used self contained chiller cases withheated glass doors for the dairy and fruit juice products. The larger mini marketsnormally would have an island chiller or freezer and a freezer cold room.149
Asian Journal of Case Research (AJCR)The convenience stores are mainly located at petrol stations were ownedby multinational companies such as Shell (Select), BP (Kedai), Mobil (MobilMart) and Esso (Tiger Mart), with the exception of Petronas (Mesra) which wasMalaysian-owned. The 7-Eleven convenient stores were not related to the oilcompanies but were locally owned by Antah Holdings. They were located inhousing estates and near big hotels in the cities. These convenience stores useda fair number of self contained chiller cases with heated glass doors and islandfreezers for their ice cream products.SUPPLIERS“This company has two different suppliers of refrigerateddisplay showcase equipments for fulfilling customers’requirements. Our market is of a considerable size and we havebeen a regular supplier for Japanese-owned stores. Koolkes’customers include Isetan, Yaohan, Sogo and Jaya Jusco. Thisparticular group of customers will only purchase Japanesemadeequipments and because of this, KoolKes has acquiredthe agency rights for importing, distributing and installingSanyo’s refrigerated display showcase equipments in Malaysia.Sanyo is the biggest manufacturer of showcases in the worldand it supplies almost 40% of the refrigerated showcases soldin the Asian region with 18, 000 cases per year. It has been inMalaysian market since 1983 and its product has proven to bereliable,” said Mr. P. K. Gong to a potential customer.As the next target group of customers comprised the Europeans andMalaysians, KoolKes secured the agency rights to Costan (Appendix 1) from Italyto meet the requirements of this group of customers. Costan also supplied selfcontaineddisplay cases targeted for convenience stores.“Costan had its Asian office in Manila since 1993 and wasamong the top five manufacturers of showcases in Europe.It had sold quite substantially in the Philippines, China andSingapore and was working closely with KoolKes to broadenits market shares in Malaysia which was now dominated byBonnet Neve and Linde as far as European-made showcaseswere concerned. Costan had showed interest to manufacturesome showcase components and eventually whole showcasesin Malaysia. It has been on the lookout for a partner in thisventure of manufacturing showcases. Beginning with theself-contained cases and later on to the high–tech multi-deck150
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