INDEX NUMBER: 74468
UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA
Second Semester Examination
Academic Session 2021/2022
28 JULY 2022
ATW401 – Entrepreneurship
ATW396 - Entrepreneurship
[Keusahawanan]
Duration: 2 hours (and 45 minutes for submission)
[Masa: 2 jam dan 45 minit]
Please check that this examination paper consists of 5 pages of printed material before
you begin the examination.
[Sila pastikan bahawa kertas peperiksaan ini mengandungi 5 muka surat yang
bercetak sebelum anda memulakan peperiksaan.]
Instructions: Answer ALL questions in Section A. Choose and answer any TWO (2)
questions from Section B. You are allowed to answer the questions either in Bahasa
Malaysia or in English.
[Arahan: Jawab SEMUA daripada Bahagian A. Pilih dan jawab mana-mana DUA (2)
soalan daripada Bahagian B. Anda dibenarkan menjawab soalan sama ada dalam
Bahasa Malaysia atau Bahasa Inggeris.]
PLAGIARISM is strictly prohibited. Kindly take note that USM will not tolerate any
form of plagiarism which include direct copying, rephrasing, taking someone else’s
idea and putting it in different words, or directly quoting passages or ideas but citing
the work as a general source. The penalty for plagiarism is an F grade if found guilty
by the University Disciplinary Committee.
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SECTION A: CASE STUDY (50 marks)
MALAYSIA’S STORY OF “THE LORRY”: THE UBER-ESQUE PLATFORM
THAT TRANSPORTS BOXES RATHER THAN PEOPLE
Listed among the 11 Inspiring Malaysians that made it into “Forbes 30 under 30 Asia
2017” Award, Goh Chee Hau and Nadhir Ashafiq the co-founders of TheLorry.com
are truly inspiring role models for young Malaysians. TheLorry.com is a well-known
name in the local start-up ecosystem. Since their launch back in 2014, the company have
made headlines from investors showing their interests via funding for stronger growth to
happen.
Nadhir Ashafiq, one of the co-founders of TheLorry.com, came from Finance background. He
graduated from Curtin University with a Degree in Accounting and Finance and then Masters
in Finance. Upon graduation, he went on to build a career in the finance industry with CIMB
and various other institutes before leaving to pursue TheLorry full time. His fellow co-founder,
Goh Chee Hau, had also pursued a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance at HELP University before
pursuing a career in aviation logistics for about 5 years. Throughout his worklife, he has
dabbled in being business head, sales, customer service and relationship management with
multiple global airlines. As the co-founder of The Lorry, he likes reading about economics and
tech-related news.
The education background of the two co-founders does not exactly deal with logistics much per
se but that did not stop them in pursuing their vision of providing a technology-enabled platform
that can help to match lorry owners and drivers with private and corporate customers who need
help moving house, office and/or general cargo.
TheLorry.com started with the hope of bringing technological innovation to the logistics
industry and they currently focus on road freight as they believe that it experiences the least
amount of innovation. TheLorry.com aims to provide the customer with more transparency,
speed and the ease of finding a mover when in need. Conceptually, The Lorry is an Uber/Grablike service that provide logistics services for businesses to help transport their goods. While
they do help customers when they’d like to move houses, they also cater to businesses and
companies.
Since their inception, the young startup has successfully overcome quite a few challenges. In
fact, they initially launched with only 2 transporters because many of the potential transporters
did not show up for meetings. However, as they gained traction, more transporters were willing
to hop on the bandwagon. Today, TheLorry.com has over a 100 transporters and has a network
of over 450 lorries and vans that spread throughout the nation.
According to Mr Goh, working in a new startup company is not as easy as some people might
think. He often starts his day by reading articles in the morning to get himself updated with
recent happenings in the world. Once he gets into his office, he would conduct a meeting to
see how the company is doing and to reflect on what the company did right (or
wrong). “Usually, mornings are about looking at our recently updated data.” As entrepreneurs,
both Nadhir and Goh would spend their time meeting up with customers, investors, and the
drivers themselves.
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When asked about the common mistakes he sees people starting their own business make, Goh
states that it is the act of pouring a huge amount of money while not focusing on
demand. “When we started The Lorry, we spent some amount of time just to see if there’s
demand. But right now, some startups create perfect products without validating if there’s
demand for it and in the end, if it fails, they end up wasting a lot of money.”
While working in a logistics aviation company which managed the cargo operations for
multiple international airlines, Goh noted that the way they used to manage their operations was
very backwards; they were keying in every single piece of data manually. This made him and
Nadhir to consider bringing technology to logistics, particularly in the airlines industry.
However, given the complexity and scale of the task, they decided to start small and focused
on the ground transportation. They realised that it was hard for people to rent trucks and they
wanted to change that. “People would go on classified websites and search for rental trucks and
would have to go through a lot of processes just to get one truck” hence, The Lorry was born.
At first, they weren’t sure if it would last but there has been a steady stream of customers, they
are able to grow their business.
As an entrepreneur, there are many projects that Mr. Goh finds interesting - the most interesting
one involves an internal process innovation. Now, drivers working for The Lorry can upload
their schedules and they will be visible for customers to check. “Before this, our drivers would
go to Penang from Kuala Lumpur for a job but would drive back without a job. With the new
system, drivers can fully utilize their capacity.” Because of this, both parties can be equally
satisfied.
Starting something new is always challenging, especially if it is something that is unheard of.
The biggest challenge Mr. Goh and his partner faced when starting the company was to
convince the drivers that this is the new way of doing things. “When we first started our
business, no drivers believed in us. To make matters worse, most lorry drivers didn’t have
smartphones back then.” According to Mr. Goh, out of 50 drivers that they approached, only 2
agreed to join them. The 4% success rate disappointed them, but they remained patient and
everything eventually worked out. “After the first batch of drivers started to see the benefits of
joining us, they told their friends and our numbers started to grow.” As of this year, they have
over 4000 drivers. In fact, one of his proudest achievements is to help the struggling drivers
find jobs.
What differentiates The Lorry from other ways of renting trucks is that it gives customers
freedom and security. Similar to how Uber and Grab works, The Lorry’s apps allows users to
order a truck and set their location and destination. They will then be quoted a price. After that,
it is the user’s choice to proceed with the dealings. This is much safer than in the past where
one would have to call the numbers advertised at roadsides, not knowing whether it was a scam
or not.
Mr. Goh shared that he is a firm believer in keeping an organization flat, especially if it is still
a small company. As of today, The Lorry’s organizational structure consists of only 2 layers of
management, the Head of Departments (HODs) and the team members. “I firmly believe that
when you are small, it is better to keep it flat rather than to complicate stuff.” He also believes
that employees are a company’s greatest assets. “It is all that we have because when you’re a
small company, you don’t really have other assets and those people are your most important
asset.”
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Now, The Lorry is already operating in both Peninsula Malaysia and Singapore. In the future,
Mr. Goh hopes to expand to Thailand. He expects the expansion to take place in 2018. After
Thailand, The Lorry plans to expand further outwards to other ASEAN countries such as
Vietnam, Indonesia, and Philippines. Mr. Goh opined that a startup is reaching its success when
the company is no longer dependent on the founders. “If I’m able to be absent for one month
and the business is still going, I consider that to be a successful business.” When asked, Is The
Lorry already at that state? “We’re getting there,” he said with a smile.
Mr. Goh stated that when The Lorry first started, they joined a special accelerator program
called WatchTower and Friends (WTF). “Usually, with these programs, you get a lot of
mentorship from mentors who are experienced.” With these mentorship programmes, he
believes that new companies can avoid risky mistakes that could potentially lead to an early
death for new companies. In fact, Mr, Goh believes that the Malaysian Global Innovation &
Creativity Centre (MaGIC) which was established under the National Blue Ocean Strategy
(NBOS) initiative has played, and will continue to play, a very significant role in shaping
Malaysia’s entrepreneurship landscape.
Source: http://www.flymalaysia.org/story-of-the-lorry/
: https://vulcanpost.com/610347/malaysia-startup-thelorry-job-vacancy-founder/
: www.nadhir.me/making-thelorry-com-how-we-started/
QUESTION (Answer ALL questions)
Referring to the case above, please answer all the following questions:
[a]
Based on the case above, discuss TWO (2) entrepreneurial actions undertaken by the
co-founders of TheLorry.com to be listed among the winners of ‘Forbes 30 under 30
Asia 2017’ Award.
[10 marks]
Answer:
The entrepreneurial actions undertaken by the co-founders of TheLorry.com to be listed
among the winnes of ‘Forbs 30 under 30 Asia 2017’ Award is they focus on the innovtion.
They always observe the current trends and they immediately do something that innovates
according to the prevailing trends. They start their business in technological innovation and
they focus on road freight because they believe that it experiences the least amount of
innovation. They also make changes in technological innovation in the logistics industry and
this innovation makes it easier for them to do work and provide convenience to customers.
They are always looking for new solutions to improve their business performance and they also
make improvements and provide effective service facilities to customers so that their business
becomes more advanced.
The next entrepreneurial action that co-founders do is that they constantly improve their
knowledge. They constantly improve their knowledge in various fields so that they can develop
their business in a better direction. Although they have a good educational background, they do
not stop to improve their knowledge in the field of logistics. For example, Mr Goh always
starts his day by reading several articles in the morning to get updates on himself to avoid
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missing out and he can use that knowledge in expanding their business. They also regularly
hold meetings to see how their company is doing including updated company data and spend
time with staff, customers and investors in their company. While working in a logistics aviation
company which managed the cargo operations for multiple international airlines, Goh noted that
the way they used to manage their operations wasvery backwards; they were keying in every
single piece of data manually. This made him and Nadhir to consider bringing technology to
logistics, particularly in the airlines industry. This experience can help them to grow their
business and manage the technology well in their business.
[b]
In your opinion, what do you think would be the major challenges faced by
TheLorry.com. Describe TWO (2) examples of the challenges. Provide TWO (2)
suggestions on how TheLorry.com could overcome these challenges. [20 marks]
Answer:
In my opinion, the major challenges faced by TheLorry.com is to convince the drivers that
this is the new way of doing things. They lack trust from drivers and this makes them nervous.
Drivers lack confidence because this company is new and worry if they can't do their best and
can't meet customer demands and most drivers don't have mobile phones when doing work.
The suggestions on how TheLorry.com could overcome these challenges is they give the first
group of drivers the benefits of joining their company. After the drivers sees this, they told
their friends about this benefits. This give effect for tis company where the numbers of the
drivers has started to grow up. Now they have 4000 numbers of drivers in their company.
TheLorry.com also can increase salary for the drivers and give the facility to all the drivers.
The second challenge is the drivers don’t have the mobile phone. This is very worrying
because mobile phones are very important to every driver to connect drivers with customers.
The suggestions for this challenge is they can give the mobile phone for free to all the drives
so that they easy to do their job.
[c]
Assuming that you are a consultant that has been hired by TheLorry.com to plan for
their future, provide TWO (2) recommendations that you could offer TheLorry.com to
ensure that they could sustain in the longer run. [20 marks]
Answers:
The recommendations that I would offer TheLorry.com to ensure that they could sustain in
the longer run is to establish the fast delivery to the customers. This is because the customers
loved their parcel to fast delivered by he courier. To ensure this happen, the company should
do the training to all the drivers so that they can do their job fast.
The second recommendations is TheLorry.com should give many innovation for their
company. This is because the innovation can give effects to the company to grow up in the
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future. For example, TheLorry.com can do innovation on their technology and others websites
to increase the satisfaction of the customers.
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SECTION B: Choose and answer TWO (2) questions (50 marks)
BAHAGIAN B: Pilih dan jawab DUA (2) soalan (50 markah)
[1]
In providing an explanation of the ‘struggle for survival’ between new organizations
and older ones, Arthur Stinchcombe (1965) introduced the ‘liability of newness’
hypothesis to account for those relevant problems that firms may face in the first years
of their life cycle. The liability of newness can be seen as the root problem new ventures
need to address in order to survive and prosper.
Discuss the term ‘liability of newness’ and suggest TWO (2) ways that a new venture
can overcome this handicap.
[25 marks]
Answer:
Liability of newness refers to the fact that companies often falter because the people
who start them aren’t able to adjust quickly enough to their new roles and because the
firm lacks a ‘track record’ with outside buyers and suppliers.
The two ways that a new venture can overcome this handicap is by attending
entrepreneurship-focused workshops and events. The events or entrepreneurial
workshop that company can join is business plan competitions, Startup Weekend, boot
camp and so on. These types of event and activities are sponsored by local universities,
small business development centers and economic development commission.
Next, joining one of the growing number of start-up accelerators that are popping up
across the country. This access to mentors, investors, subject matter experts and other
entrepreneurs. All this type have many experience, skills and education about the
business and this can help the small business or who want to start up the business grow
their business. A small business can also do the collaboration with other entrepreneur
so that the business can grow in the future.
[2]
An international expansion strategy comprises of market entry strategy including crucial
choices in regards to primary markets of focus, determination of target customer and
channel strategy, resource allocation, product and service value offerings, brand
positioning, and creation of an operating model. A successful market penetration
strategy ensures the most suitable and efficient use of resources and helps companies
increase their success (Delloitte, 2018).
Explain TWO (2) international expansion strategies for entrepreneurial firms. Discuss
THREE (3) main issues that a firm need to evaluate in order to determine its overall
suitability for growth through international markets.
[25 marks]
Answer:
Two international expansion strategies:
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The international expansion strategies or entrepreneurial firms is enter foreign market
strategy. The strategies called as exporters but firms also use licensing, joint ventures,
franchising and wholly owned subsidiaries to start international expansion. The
exporting is the process of producing a product at home and shipping it to a foreign
market. Many company start their business international by export. This give
inexpensive way fr a firm to become involved in foreign market but this way have
high transportation costs when do bulky products. Next foreign market entry strategy
is licensing where firm do agreement whereby a firm with the proprietary right to a
product grants permission to another firm to manufacture the product
For specified royalties. This can put up most of he capital needed to establish the
overseas operation. Furthermore. Joint venture involves the establishment of a firm
that is jointly owned by two or more otherwise independent firms. This strategy can
gaining access to the foreign partner’s knowledge of local customs and market
preferences.
The next international expansion strategies for entrepreneurial firms is selling
overseas. many firms start their business by selling overseas by responding an
unsolicited inquiry from a foreign buyer. It is important to handle the inquiry
appropriately and to observe protocols when trying to serve the needs of customers in
foreign markets.
Three main issues that a firm need to evaluate:
There are three main issues that a firm need to evaluate in order to determine its
overall suitability for growth through international markets which are
management/organizational issues, product and distribution issues and financial and
risk management issues.
Firstly, Management/organizational issues. In this issue, there are include the depth of
international experience which a firm’s first consideration is to test the depth of its
management commitment to entering international markets. A properly funded and
executed international strategy requires top management support. A firm also should
assess its depth of experience in international markets. To be successful, an
inexperienced entrepreneurial firm may hav to hire an export management company to
formalize itself with export documentation and other subtleties of the export process.
In this issues also have interference with other firm initiatives. Learning how to sell in
foreign markets can consume a great deal of entrepreneurs’ or managers’ time.
Secondly, product and distribution issues. A firm must determine if its products or
services are suitable for overseas markets. A firm should ask the questions regarding
of the products. For example, do the products require local service, supplies, or spare
parts distribution capability. Next for distribution issues is about the transport the
product or services to the foreign country.
Finally, Financial and risk management issues. This issues have financing export
operations regarding on a firms’s fund through the operation made in the foreign
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country. A firm can ask the questions such as can the foreign initiative be funded from
internal operations, or will additional funding be needed?
[3]
In today’s customer-controlled world, marketers may be spending their money to build
a brand. But they don’t own it. In one of the influential book, “Groundswell”, Charlene
Li and Josh Bernoff state that “your brand is whatever your customers say it is.”
Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or
B2B. An effective brand strategy gives companies a major edge in increasingly
competitive markets (entrepreneur.com, 2018).
Discuss the importance of branding for a company. Elaborate the TWO (2) major ways
in which a firm builds a brand by providing relevant examples.
[25 marks]
ooo000ooo
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