About Me

I am Alvin, a year 2 NTU student majoring in accountancy. I'm the sales in charge in this project, managing the sales figure and thinking of ways to increase them. I deal with students at the front end, ensuring that customer is satisfied with out service.

I am always ready for challenges and constantly look out for opportunities to learn everyday.

You may reach me should you have any issue regarding the start up. Cheers

Email: atan095@ntuentrepreneur.org

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-tan-5a076214a/

Even though this may be the last blog post for the module, our entrepreneurial journey doesn't end here. As we have already registered ourselves as an LLP and have took up projects from NIE that is up to 2 years long, we will be continuing to look at how to build chop chop to become more sustainable.

The journey wasn't easy and there were many times that we really wanted to give up already. However, we fought hard and thought of ways to maneuver through the hurdles that were ahead of us.

I have learnt a lot of entrepreneurial skills from MIE. In fact, we have tried out the theoretical knowledge that we have learnt in the first four course and learnt many new things the hard way. What was initially our plan was in the end not what we have achieved, but I truly believed that we have achieved and learnt more than what we have thought we could.

Through managing CHOP CHOP, we will continue to hone our entrepreneurial skills in the future.

The end doesn't matter, the journey does.

JIAYOUS CHOP CHOP !

Today, I went to school to settle most of the things for the vending machine contract. We went around with the supplier to show her where are the locations of the machines to be placed and the route that we will be taking to move the machines in on the 1st April.

After that, I went on to meet NIE for the signing of the contracts. Unfortunately the contract needs to be signed by a witness as well. Hence we could only delay the terms till the next day which is on thursday.

We will still be liaising with the supplier regarding some terms and conditions in the contract before signing it, we concurrently plan for the dates of installation and the other things at the same time.

It was great news when NIE sent me an email saying that we have been awarded with the project to place the vending machines in school. We have been in contact with the school as well as our supplier. We will need to arrange for all the items be be put in placed and be operational on the 1 April.

I have also been to NIE to recce the area again to confirm the locations of the vending machines. The supplier will be coming to the site at NIE for a site visit of all the locations and to confirm the placement of the machines.

Till then we will continue to work with the supplier on the food and the paper works that needs to be completed.

Update: The contract was signed on the 20 March 2019.

It was an eventful night where all of us once meet again to share our experiences. Some groups made profits while others like us did not. But it was definitely a important experience for us as we shared our strategies and how we can improve on each other's business model.

We rushed over after our meeting with our NIE vending machine partner for our dinner. As we are the first group to present at 7. We would need to make sure that we got everything ready and our booth to be set up by 7. With everyone's effort, we have manage to start our presentation on time at 7. Everything went smooth and everyone completed their presentations by 9.

We have also accepted an interview from NTC as a part of their promotion efforts for entrepreneurial marketing. We will also be posting the achievements on the business blog so that our customers will know about us.

Shu Rong and I went to NIE to meet the in charge for the vending machine contract via ariba. During the short meeting he raised a few concerns regarding the servicing. He have also raised concerns regarding the pricing of our products as a product too high of a price may be too high for the consumers to accept. Other concerns highlighted are the origination of the vending machine and the payment options for the students and staff using the machine.

We will be forwarding these concerns vending machine suppiler and get them to revert to us as soon as possible. The results will of the ITQ will be released on 20 March which I will then update the blog again.

Update: 15/3/19 We have also updated the suppliers with the products that we are going to place in the machine as well as the locations of the vending machines. The suppliers have also provided us with the planogram of the vending for the placement of the products. We will be showing NIE about the planogram as well. so that there will be information symmetry between our 2 parties.

Xindots

Xindots and Chop Chop are almost doppels. An app that allows the public to pre-order their lunch and skip the queue in CBD. We saw their facebook advertisement and were interested to do a collaboration with them to bring this convinience to our NTU population. Kai Xiang will be giving a more detailed update on xindot's liaising as he is the main liaison with Xindots.

https://xindots.com/

Makan Rescue Meeting

We met the founds of makan rescue this evening and it was an eventful one. We shared our vision and our current plans to further push our business out into the market to have a better outreach. The main minutes will be updated on the main blog. In the short term, we will be helping each other in the short term to raise awareness to our suppliers and customer. This will allow our brand to carry itself as a green brand that is able to help conserve the environment too. Makan rescue will also be helping us in terms of promotion of our brand to suppliers/ caterers that they will be meeting if any.

Catering ITQ

Our team have decided not to move on with the catering ITQ due to the massive amount of resources needed. We concluded that the ITQ was ultra vires of CHOP CHOP for the following reasons

1. We need to maintain a cash flow of at least $10,000 due to the 30 days credit term in the contract.
2. April to June will be our busiest period in university and the volume of catering is too overwhelming for the five of us to take on. We would have to settle the catering and the school for the total of 329 caterings.
3. Should we take on the contract, we would need to employ human resources and also maintain a proper accounting records.

Vending Machine ITQ

The vending machine ITQ was submitted this morning after liaising with our supplier smartretail. They are willing to provide us with a full service contract and the conditions are in line with the request of NIE. We will be able to earn a commission of 15% of the total sales gross of the licensing fees.

We have submitted the company's proposal through Ariba and we will be waiting for their response.

Submission to NIE

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z5M65xF472B6sJlWjiP-umdxr4R6ivRI/view?usp=sharing

Supplier's Proposal

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c8NbykdpLWYYnyFIEAmov85u7f8fU0xO/view?usp=sharing

As part of the paper work, an official company stamp is required for the acknowledgement of official documents. I purchased the DIY chop from popular and completed both chops to allow us provide our customers and suppliers with a better quality record.

A Sample Invoice and Receipt was also created to facilitate the process. The templates used to make our first invoice which was billed accordingly. Check out Kai Xiang and Eunice's blogs to find out who was our first customer and how we manage to get our first deal successfully.

Makan rescue is an app to help students find leftover food from caterings. Our vision was to give students convenient food options in school.

We will be working with makan rescue to mange the food waste generated in any event. Even though there are already telegram groups such as NTU free food, we feel that it would be more appropriate and professional to have a proper platform to show our event organizers.

I have emailed the founders of makan rescue and they have gotten back to us, we will be holding a meeting next week to discuss on how we can collaborate.

(05/03/2019)

We will be meeting the founders on the 8th March 8pm at Causeway Point.

Opportunity to provide catering to NIE work site

https://service.ariba.com/Discovery.aw/ad/viewRFX?id=6458159

Opportunity to set up vending machines in NIE

https://service.ariba.com/Discovery.aw/ad/viewRFX?id=6458210

I have been constantly looking up on Ariba for potential customers and opportunities for chop chop. I was fortunate enough to find 2 today that could potentially bring passive income for the company. I have already emailed both of the in charge to find out more about the contract before I proceed to research about the quote.

(27/02/2019)

Update 27/02/2019: No reply from both listings as of today.

(28/02/2019)

NIE have gotten back to us regarding the details and I will be crafting our proposals for the contracts to conclude the financial feasibility of both contracts.

The first contract is a $60,000 contract that consist on 329 catering sessions, the school will require a 30 days credit line which bumps our working capital up to about $20,000 in order to accept this project. We will first analyse the contract to see if the profitability sufficient for the Company.

(Submission Deadline is on 6 March 2019)

The second contract is to bid for the licensing fee to place 3 vending machines in NIE. The required working capital of this project is much lower and I have already messaged a few vending machine provider to find out the cost and to access to financial feasibility of this project.

(Submission Deadline is on 8 March 2019)

Last Updated 28/02/2019

The chop chop website is now created and launched to help facilitate our customers and suppliers understand our business concept.

chop-chop.sg

ur website will hold our google form to facilitate the ordering process, as well as our contact for customers to contact us.

We can also showcase our services and menu available for selection for our customers, this will allow them to have a better idea of what we can offer.

Update 27/02/2019: Added some new features which includes, how it works, and a new promotion (onigiri promotion)

Kai Xiang and I were discussing about the NTU open house which will be upcoming this weekend. It is a 1 day event that is organised by NTU. On this day, there will be alot of pre-Uni students visited NTU and we thought that it will be a good idea to sell our onigiri, be it to students or booths there.

Pros

Creating awareness in school, allowing our potential customers (future students) to know about chop chop!

An opportunity to gain more sales. In light of the large crowd that will be present on Saturday, it poses a good chance for us to sell our products

Cons

However, we did take into consideration that the Open House has competitive goody bags sponsors who are already providing the student who attended the open house with food. Of which is Win Win Singapore, who is their platinum sponsor.

There will also be many higher ups at the event which will mean that it will be difficult for us to execute sales informally without informing the school. As the organizing committee is tendered out to an external and independent event company, we will need to seek their permission before we can hold any booths there to sell onigiris officially.

After discussion with the group, we have decided not to continue with the plans to set up a booth on saturday anymore.

The description and key takeaways are already mentioned in my reflection report. I will be sharing a few points that I have took note that could help improve the situation of our current business.

I will also be emailing UNICON 2020 Organising Team NUS(NES) regarding the possiblity of helping them find a more suitable caterer for their event in the coming UNICON event next year.

To be continued...

I have started on the preparation of the slides which is due for submission on the 1 March. I will be preparing the followings for the presentation.

• Consolidated Profit/Loss Statement ended 28 February 2019
• Gathering photos and consolidating
• Skeleton for the presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10C0Uqf1nktc0h1uuOHczj0jUjL0jcCDxt1lSIo8Gl3Y/edit?usp=sharing

Updates on 25 Feb

We met up on 25 Feb in light that the slides for presentation is due on the coming friday, 1 Mar. We had to review each of our presentation parts to ensure that the presentation is coherent and there are no overlaps or gaps in terms of content. We have also decided on the presentation sequence to ensure that each of us presented the parts that we were confident in.

Ariba

Event thought there are projects listed on Ariba everyday. There is very limited opportunities for the catering of food for events. As of today I have not manage to secure a potential deal for the company. I will continue to look at the opportunities listed on Ariba everyday to see if there are any upcoming events suitable for us.

(Updated on 25/02/19: No suitable projects to be accepted as so today)

Myadfriend

I met Jing Yue at the talk and we also had a good discussion on our engagement on mydfriend to help us promote our services to the halls. Amber will be designing some of the marketing tools for us, they will also be helping us to approach halls to allow them to post on their facebook page. We will be discussing the following weeks on the designs and to agree on the charges and financials for the deal.

Soon after the talk, we were greeted by the line of food that were waiting for us since the start of the talk.

I got to speak with many people including the speakers themselves, NTUes president and vice president, who also happened to be a MIE senior, and also other students from exchange and other batches. Kai Xiang, Shurong and I attended the talk together and we had been asking for feedback about our business as it is an very good opportunity to get feedbacks on our growth and future directions.

NTUes

We realised that NTUes conducts weekly events such as this and they will have to constantly order catering for their attendees and speakers. We approached NTUes members and the president to ask if we could be their liaising company for the catering instead. NTUes was agreeable initially as they get funding from the school to provide catering for the events. However their events planning has just ended and we will need to wait for the next semester plans to be out before we can continue to liaise with them again. We will keep in touch with NTUes again for further business opportunities.

MIE Batch 46 Senior (PhotoBoxSG)

We spoke to our MIE senior about the current situation of our business as well. He feed backed that there is actually no issue with the core of the current business model. However, what we are lacking in is the variety of the products that we are offering. He brought up an example of an MIE senior who has this similar business model as us but he bundled a variety of products for the halls during the camp and was able to offer them better prices. As such he was very successful in his business.

He also shared with us on how to market our products and try out as many strategies as possible during this period as you will not know which one works. We also went on to further talk about the potential business outlook in the further economy.

Overall it was a very fruitful networking session as we were able to get a lot of feed backs and advise on our current business.

Successfully registered ourselves as a Ariba Supplier today. This has opened us to many more business opportunities that we could imagine. However this meant that we are really or to compete with the real world, with all the caterers in the industry.

I saw many opportunities that we can grab opportunities to allow us to venture into the real world to make real business deals. I will be sharing these findings to my group and we will decide which ones to work one respectively.

Our team had the idea to liaise with NTC to have them allow us to be their official caterer for the upcoming presentation event on 13 March. Unfortunately, we were informed by Vivian that NTU has implemented the Ariba system, where there are a list of suppliers, approved by the NTU procurement team.

Therefore, all the NTU staff will have to order catering through the Ariba system, for all of their official events. In light of this hurdle, we will be venturing into Ariba, to become one of their official supplier to allow us to liaise with official NTU events more easily.

I will be bringing Chop Chop onto Ariba, to become an official food supplier of NTU. However, there are strict regulations to fufill before the school will approve us. Hence I will be working on it to fufill these criteria as well.

Updates on Onigiri sub group

After accessing and analysing the current situation, we have decided to completely stop the operations due to financial and demand limitations.

However, a survey is designed by Kaixiang to substantiate our findings and support our stand that there is a lack of pre order demand despite our previous survey by students stating that they will pre order.

Updates on Catering sub group

• Eunice updated that Hall 6 deal is off as they have found a better option.
• Yue feng is liaising with a new customer that seems interested to cater Onigiri from us.
• To be updated once there are any more new updates

Engaging myadfriend

As mentioned previously, we will be engaging myadfriend to help us promote our services on the ntu hall sites in order to gain more awareness.

Eunice will be liaising with Amber from myadfriend to decide on the design of the advert we will be using on those pages.

Amber will also be discussing with her group on the marketing expenses payable to the facebook pages as well. I will be liaising with Jing Yue to work out on the arrangement of payment on marketing using myadfriend.

Updates

Splitting into 2 teams to settle Daily Ops and Events Simultaneously, breaking up to ensure that we can move on faster and more efficiently.

Events Side

Hall 6, Banyan Hall pending answer since now its CNY, things are moving abit more smoothly

Hall 6 100pax - lunch w/drink - budget ~$500

Banyan 170pax - 3 breakfast 3 lunch 2 dinner ~ budget $2 for breakfast, $3 for lunch & dinner (credit line for all)

Working with polar currently for breakfast

Robert's catering for lunch and dinner

NTC - 50 pax - dinner 13 march ~ budget unknown - pending send them email

(Update 12/2/19 - NTC needs Ariba)

Daily Ops Side

Onigiri - need to reconsider if need to change because we already marketed Onigiri.

May consider scraping and go towards event based booth sales, ie. order when there is a 1 day event then the whole group can be there to sell.

Can consider consigning also to relevant stores, giving them commission for helping us to sell.

If need to order onigiri need to order by 8 feb

Others stuff

Jing Yue - Discussed with group to provide us with marketing.

Preparing slides for Batch 50 presentation on 13 Mar is in progress.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10C0Uqf1nktc0h1uuOHczj0jUjL0jcCDxt1lSIo8Gl3Y/edit?usp=sharing

Today, CHOP CHOP EVENTS LLP was registered officially under ACRA. Primarily focusing on planning, sourcing and executing events and projects of various scales, we have re-focused our business models onto targeting group based customers that require assistance in events planning. The main reason for us to register formally as a legitimate business entity was because we saw the opportunity cost of having to let go customers that wants to work with a legitimate entity rather than a MIE project group.

Our business model, directions and goals

Short term

Our vision shall remain unchanged, which is to provide students with a convenient food option. We will be tuning our mission however, to be more business to business focused as we had previously over estimated our business to consumer demand.

Our first step will be approaching more food suppliers, working together with them to provide food at a lower cost to the general student bodies who wish to carry out event based activities that will require food. After establishing a reasonable group of suppliers base, we will be approaching student bodies in NTU to provide the cheaper food options that we have to offer for the same quality.

Long Term

In the long term, we hope to expand to provide these bodies with more events options such as T shirt printing services or bridging bus services that are more affordable. In essence, we want to be the one stop solution for event needs in NTU. Beyond NTU, we want to move out and establish a bigger customer base outside of school, but that will require more marketing research and data before doing so.

Hence, we will be exploiting our competitive advantage of our social relationships in school to start building our first regular customer base first.

Today marks the end of the first week of sales. Our sales for this week is summarized as follows:

• Sales Volume
• Monday: 50
• Tuesday: 18
• Wednesday: 74 (Buy 1 get 1 free promotion)
• Thursday: 42 (Buy 1 get 1 free promotion)
• Total sales revenue: $302.20
• Total cost of goods sold (inclusive of labour etc.): $797.85
• Net Loss: $459.65

In just a span of a week, we have suffered a loss of close to $500. Our group had to act. We had to decide if we will continue operations by reducing our minimum ordering quantity and operating days or completely cease selling Onigiri at the Hive. We need to consider pivoting and changing our business model to cater to a different target group. This however will change our mission and vision of providing convenient lunch options for NTU students.

We had been discussing all the possible scenarios that could turn out for next week if we decide to continue. Meanwhile, Eunice have managed to liaise with the suppliers to reduce our MOQ to 100 onigiris per week and extend the shelf life of the food to 3 days. Inclusive of delivery, we would require a sales of 100 onigiris for the span of the 3 days to break even. Which is about 30 Onigiris /Day.

We had to consider the effects of closing down as this will mean no loss but at the same time, no profits for the following week. Kai Xiang and I tried to get sales by selling them to different group such as our own class as well as the CCA's in school. However the responds were not as great as we thought after all. NTU students still prefer to queue for piping hot meals at the southspine and will resist to accept new food concepts that are introduced as an alternative.

We had a skype meeting on Thursday Night (refer to team blog) and we have decided to close and completely stop Onigiri sales for next week. Our plans now is to do catering to events such as halls or even other outside public events. Details can be found under the group blog.

I will continue to moniter the finance situation of Chop Chop ! and help with financial projections to advise any decision the group makes.

Day 2

Although Yue Feng and I had been going around to paste posters on the first day. The response were still not good enough. I have printed flyers from my own printer over the night and distributed on the the second day.

I was then I felt how bad it feels to be rejected by others, when I give out flyers to them, some of the professors just ignored me like I am some salesman (although I am wearing an NBS shirt). Everyone around me started to become conscious and was afraid that I approach them to sell them something.

Days 2 Sales was worst than Day 1 Sales. Foreseeing that sales will dip further without further action. We have decided to do a urgent skype meeting. After discussion, we have decided to launch a 1 for 1 promotion for our customers to entice customer. This serves both as a promotion and a way for us to clear our stocks.

Day 3

A new order is in and the fresh Onigiris were brought onto Hive. I came to school slightly earlier to settle the payment and the delivery. This time however, I kept more onigiris in the fridge in light that we might not be able to clear out stock.

Eunice has posted the promotion onto our social media and there is significant reponse from the crowd. Doing a 1 for 1 promotion has brought in much more sales than expected. We were glad that sales have picked up as a result of this action. However we have only mange to clear about 80 onigiris through sales.

Let hope that sales will continue to boom and we will be able to clear as much Onigiris as possible on our last day of sales.

We have successfully launched our website 2 days ago, it was a ordering website for the purpose of pre-ordering. chop-chop.sg However, despite the early release of the site, there was only a few orders that came in by Sunday night. After all, pre-ordering may not be well received by NTU students. We had to act fast, we know that we will have to do cash sales on monday in order to clear our stock and make revenue. I went to prepare the small change which might be required if we will be doing cash sales on Monday.

Today is the first day of launch, I reached school at 10am in order to bring our stuff to the hive and also to ensure we get a table reserved for business. Yue Feng and I went around S3 S4 the Hive and HSS to paste all our launch poster.

Our first order of 240 Onigiris came in early at about 1130 which is much earlier than we had expected. It made a double stop, first at hall 1 then a second stop at the Hive. However business was very bad on the first day and till 1 we had almost 0 sales. We decided to take action before we end up with 0 sales.

I decided to go to every seminar room to promote our Onigiri, using this method, we have managed to make our first cold sale and gain awareness. We then realised that many people did not know that the stall is in Hive or even the brand it self. This showed that we have alot more to work on to bring awareness about our presence.

With the support of our friends, we manage to make a sale of 50 Onigiris on the first day. I have decided to go to school earlier tmr to give our flyers at the southspine already to raise awareness on our brand. We will also be going into classes that ends at 12 to make Onigiri sales. Hopefully we will be able to sell and minimize our food waste tomorrow.

Knowing that Onigiri alone cannot be the sole support for Chop chop as students, our customers, will still prefer a full meal over a snack such as Onigiri, we had been liaising with RE&S to provide alternative food options for students during lunch.

Today, Kai Xiang, Shurong and I visited RE&S to try out their Bento to test the quality, quantity and the actual presentation of the food itself.

All in all, we feel that the food were not of the quality that we had expected it to be. Hence, we have decided to hold this product while we search for better alternatives. Meanwhile, we will also focus on the setting up of the ordering website to ensure that we are prepared for monday.

Together, the team have split up the logistics and each of us were tasked to purchase some of the logistics needed for operations. For me I was in charge of collecting the cooler box which will be used to transport the Onigiris itself and the plastic bags as well as the table runner which we will use for our table set up.

I have also prepared some of the other logistics such as the menu which will be placed there and will need to be laminated. I will also be preparing the payment for the supplier and which will need to be made by the end of next week.

Flyer might also be needed to be pasted around the school as a part of the marketing effort. Once the design is confirm, we will proceed with printing and finally pasting them around school.

After much discussion, we have decided to have a open and fair ordering system that will allow all our customers to see the stock available before ordering and confirmation.

Inspired by how a movie ticket is purchased online, a similar concept was adopted and integrated to allow the student to preorder their Onigiris by filling the cells up with their contact numbers.

They will then make payments and we will be able to verify their payments with paylah and confirm their order. During collection, they will be required to send a SMS to our number to confirm their contact number for verification and to ensure that they will not dispute that they have not collected their onigiri after collection.

We will be giving permission to our founders to edit and lock the respective orders that are confirmed. As we draw nearer to launch date, we will also be rolling out our marketing strategies and soon the ordering platform to accept the preorders !

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kYH8ffztKAW-e5lKywPzm0zls9H6yyMCgLxh_ynCgt8/edit?usp=sharing

After discussion with my team on 30 Dec regarding the different types of strategies that we will be deploying, we have decided to scrap the meal plan sale for various reasons.

1. Execution will be challenging as we will have to keep track the balance of each and every customer that has a meal plan with us. This meant that additional resources and manpower will be required to manage it.

2. Projection of popularity among students. As there is a huge variety of food options available, students may not be tempted to purchase meal plans as it will restrict their meal options.

3. This promotion is also not as financially sound compared to other promotions.

We have also came up with other promotions to back up the cancellation of the meal plans. These will be elaborated in the main blog itself.

Today, I have managed to set up the company's paylah account and whatsapp. I used one of the spare phone numbers that I currently have to create the accounts. After discussion, we have decided to scrap google forms and use whatsapp as the only form of communication. This reduces error as we do not need to port data from the google form results anymore.

Customer can whatsapp us directly at our number and receive confirmation about their order. They can then make payment via paylah which now supports paynow. Their contact number will be their identity confirmation method and we will be using these to identify our members and customers as well.

Whatsapp will also be able to keep track of all the past records with our customers. Now we will have to create template messages that we will be using to reply our customers to ensure that we reply our customers promptly and professionally.

As we draw closer to our launch date on 14 Jan 2019, there are still many things that are not completed. The most daunting task was to confirm our current potential supplier Re&S's. We are currently facing multiple problems that has already been updated on the main blog during our group meeting today. We had no choice but to source for an alternative supplier and will be open to other food options. Eunice has emailed other Bento suppliers who has yet to get back to us. With everything left hanging in mid air, we had to act.

Kai Xiang and I went around Pioneer today, looking for potential food vendors that could possibly be our supplier, at Jurong West Hawker Center, we approached the Japanese, Mini Wok and Thai food stalls who did not express their interest in working with us. Our hardwork finally paid of when the owner of a Lei Cha stall agreed that they could supply us with the food that we want and allow us to resell it.

Lei Cha is a unique Hakka dish that is nowhere found in NTU and also rare in Singapore. We anticipated that not many people might be able to accept the unique taste that is has. Hence we will be setting it as a back up plan should talks with Re&S is unsucessful.

We do have a few plans (combination of food) that we want to bring to the students through chop chop after discussion in school with Yue Feng and Kai Xiang. We also decided to ask our friends to hear their views about selling lei cha in school. However, even with plans in mind, we can only start our marketing plans when the food menu items are confirmed. Counting down to our launch we decided that in the worst case, we might be changing our food item. Nevertheless, we will be constantly sourcing for food items that has potential.

After the meeting with Prof Roderick, it was clear we have much to work on which includes the setting up of several systems and working the profit margins and feasibility on the price of our products. At the same time we will need to have plans on sustainability on of the business to allow our suppliers to work with us in the long term.

We have confirmed the menu items, pricing and the food plan pricing. The next task now is to figure out the payment system for chop chop and also design an ordering system for the students. We have also confirmed our duty duty roster as it has to be planned out before Starwars which will commence next week.

An ordering system has to be put into placed regardless of the food that we will be selling. As such, it is possible to simultaneously execute the planning and creation of this ordering system.

I have designed and proposed to my team an ordering system facilitated by 3 different platforms for ordering, confirmation and payment. The basic layout and plans of the ordering system is shown. After my finals I will proceed with setting up of the necessary whatsapp accounts and google forms required.

Ordering System Proposal

Proposal

A: Google Forms to order

B: Whatsapp to reply

A: Payment to be made through paylah/ paynow

B: Recevied payment and confirm via whatsapp

A: Collect at Chop Chop! (Show confirmed order)

B: Checked order and dispense (Confirm collected via whatsapp)

Set Up Required

1. Paylah/ Paynow account

2. Whatsapp web account

3. Phone number, linked to these 2 accounts

4. Bank Account for payment (Done)

5. Template Messages

It is important that Chop Chop! duty roster is set up in advance to can ensure that there will be enough manpower throughout the semester to sustain basic operation. I will be collating the member's starwars timetable and comparing them to ensure that there will be at least two members available during everyday's operating hour.

As Kai Xiang will be on internship the next semester, we will be having a four men rotation schedule whereby each of us will be on duty for 2 days every week. A back up member will also be arranged if possible to as a counter for any last minute situations that might pop up.

However the duty roster will not be confirmed until the confirmation of everybody's timetable after starwars.

https://goo.gl/forms/Mc3XbqmyPZbaQtZN2

After the meetings with the suppliers 2 weeks ago, my team and I have crafted a survey on the suppliers Bento sets to find out if the students in NTU would like this the food. In the survey, we also included questions where we will find out about the pricing, standalone pricing and their drinks preferences. In a matter of a few days, we manage to get 70 responses from our friends by spreading the survey.

From the survey, students are generally interested by the new food options that is currently not offered at the south spine. Their top bento choice from the different choice we provided was the unagi set. Student were generally willing to pay $4-$6 for the meal. This proved our conjecture that students were willing to pay more for a better quality food even though it is in school.

We will be preparing a slide presentation and presenting this result to our suppliers this coming thursday (15 Nov 2018). There will then be more updates from the supplier if they will be able to cater to our cost price etc. which we will then update on the blog again.

Visited the bank today with Shu Rong to get the share bank account for the venture in place to better facilitate sales and purchases. Shu Rong will be the main in charge of the bank account and all related documents will be kept by her. However, both parties were allowed to deposit and withdraw any cash payments required when necessary. As a form of control, the other members will not be given the authority to control the bank account and may only do so under the consent of either of us.

In our previous meeting with RE&S (potential supplier), we discussed about the possibility of the need to have all workers go through the food handling course in order to be qualified to distribute the Bentos in school. Even though there will be no direct contact with the food, we still considered the possibility of contamination if there our workers are not trained.

I did a search on the course and the group decided that it was essential for all workers to be qualified before we hire them to ensure that all workers are certified to handle food safely.

As the labour are current supported by the founders currently, we have decided to take up the course to certify ourselves as qualified to handle food and the cost will be accounted as our own expenses. We will reflect on our course journey once the course is completed.

I did some further calculations on the sales figures, simulating the various scenarios that could happen when Chop Chop! commences operations. As the sales manager, one of the biggest concerns that I have is the food wastage. How to deal with the food that we cannot finish selling in any case. I did a search on NEA website to look out for solutions to deal with the waste and I found the inverted pyramid model.

It was a difficult decision between selling the food a discount or redistributing the food for free, which will then incur additional cost. Selling the food at a discount may cheapen the brand image while discarding the remaining food will reduce our salvage value to $0 when there might still be a slim chance of recovering some.

F&B establishment that sells perishables such as sushi or bread clear out their stock at 30%-50% discount rates. Due to the nature of Chop Chop! business model, there will also be a non zero probability that our food doesn't sell out. To have Chop Chop! sell our Bentos at such a discount will highly encourage students to wait till the stipulated time before making purchase from us, cutting our profits significantly. However, the food would have already turned cold then which will be a consideration for these students. Also if the students have limited lunch time, they will not have time to wait till us to cut the price before purchasing.

Hence, I feel that Chop Chop! should sell the food for a discount which will be determined during the operations itself unless there are strong objections by the founders. This matter will be discussed in the next meeting as well.

As the founders of a new business, I began to see things from a different perspective, accounting for labor was a nightmare as it will take up a huge bulk of our profits. This is also the first time I did not like a high wage as now we are the ones that are giving them out.

Our group also had a vigorous discussion yesterday regarding the business's operation plan as we finalise our group report, confirming our operation plans, method of payment and the financing details.

Our survey showed that some of the students in NTU would still prefer Koufu food over the other food (including food that we offer). We initially thought of a free food delivery as a differentiation to promote our product in NBS.

However, we have not considered trying out this idea to all the Koufu food stalls. Giving the students an option to pre-purchase their lunch and collect it during lunch time. This would have greatly reduced the waiting and queuing time at Koufu stalls. I shared this idea with my group to check if this idea would have worked out.

After discussion, we planned to put this idea aside first as a part of expansion. This is because the manpower and effort required to execute such initiative cannot be coped by all the team members as we already have the food supplier idea in mind now. However should Chop chop ! pull off, this could be an area that we should be looking into.

Our groups have ran through the numbers for financial projections, we have confirmed that the cost of food is the key to the feasibility of the entire business. If the cost of food to too high, we would not be able to cover the fixed cost of the operation. As such the right supplier is the key.

I have contacted several suppliers which includes food caterers, friends in the food and beverage business show our interest in starting up and food business. While waiting or them to revert, I have been researching on the rough price of catered food and school food price to know what to expect when I meet up with these suppliers and what price would be good to deal at.