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INTRODUCTION
The economic development that gives any country the potential to prosper and grow has always been as issue for the contemporary society. Being the attribute of “strong” countries, mainly belonging to the first world, economic development creates a completely new life-standard for people. Moreover, the definite goals of the economic development are the improvement of the quality of life of ordinary citizens and also the growth of the country’s wealth that is to improve the well being of the country’s inhabitants. The economical expansion is the guarantee of the growth of the number of investments which are able to convert a developing country into one of those belonging to the "strong" group that are called “developed” countries. The economic activities can be classified into three types such as profession, employment and also business. Among these, business is the one becoming more popular among the people nowadays since they are more interested in it.
The activities which are undertaken to earn a living are known as economist activities, the main objective of such activities is creating the wealth and money. A person who is office or a factory, an industrialist produces goods, a farmer plough a field, a trader sells goods, a lecturer teaches at college, a doctor treat his patients, a lawyer satisfies his clients, etc. These are the example of economic activities.
Economic activities are, concerned with production, exchange, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Men perform his activities either to satisfy their material needs or to earn money. However, economic activities are directly related to money. Economic activities can be deviated in to three categories, via, profession, employment and business.
Business can be defined as an activity concerned with the production and exchange of goods and services with the objective of earning profits. The word ‘Business’ literally means ‘a state of being busy’. Every person is engaged in some kind of occupation in order to earn one’s living. An entrepreneur runs a factory, a trader sells goods, a banker lends money, a transporter carries goods etc., all these activities are related to business. These activities are undertaken to earn a profit or a living out of them. Hardware shop is one of the business activity that carried out by some people.
According to Wikipedia, hardware shop is where people will sell household hardware for home improvemeent including the hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, cleaning products, house wares, tools, utensils, paint, and lawn and agricultural products directly to consumers for use at home or for business. It also can be said that one of the well-known hardware shop is the one selling agricultural products. To gain more informations regarding the hardware shop business, I have carried out a research about an agricultural hardware shop named Syarikat R.S.Maniam which is owned by two businessmen, Mr.Subramaniam S/O Ramasamy and Mr.Chandran S/O Ramasamy in Cameron Highlands.
LITERATURE REVIEW
At the beginning of this project, I have discussed about the economic growth and the role of business for its development. As my opinion, business plays an important role in the economic development nowadays. This is because the number of people who are interested in business are increasing day by day. Hardware shop that sells agriculture related products is one of the popular business in Cameron Highlands since the place is well-known for farming. Therefore, I had a research about a hardware shop named Syarikat R.S.Maniam to get more information of the business. I also have interviewed the owners of the shop.
Syarikat R.S.Maniam is located at Batu 49, Cameron Highlands. This shop is shared by two businessmen named Mr.R.Subramaniam and Mr.R.Chandran. They have run this hardware shop business since 1984. They have gone through a lot of challenges and hardships in their life. They have learnt many lessons from it. Moreover, they also gained some experiences which motivated them to work hard with kind of methods to achieve their goal in the business. Although they had some problems like financial problems, family problems and clients problems, they were brave enough to face through it. This was the main key to their success.
According to their clients, the businessmen are always giving a good service to their clients by providing them only the best products such as the agriculture chemicals, fertilisers for the crop growth and so on. Other than that, the clients told that the businessmen are really kind enough to them and they are trustable. They also added that there's a good image for both of them among the people in that place. This is because they are really so optimistic and the price of the goods there are reasonable which may attract the customers' attention to purchase the products over there.
3. CHALLENGES
Syarikat R.S.Maniam is a hardware shop in Cameron Highlands where they sell agricultural related products such as agriculture chemicals, hardware, carton boxes, fertilizers and also the farming equipment. This shop is owned by two blood brothers named Mr.Subramaniam S/O Ramasamy and Mr.Chandran S/O Ramasamy since 1984.
They both were from a poor family. They got to face a lot of problems in their lives from their childhood itself, especially once their father, Mr. Ramasamy passed away when they were small kids. It was a big loss for them. After that, they both had to help their mother, Mrs. Perumayee to survive and to take care of their three sisters. To earn money, they have started to do a part-time job in nearby farms right after their school time. They really worked hard to earn money and they were willing to save it for their future. Although they have gone through many hardships since that time itself, they did well in their studies too.
After a few years, they rent a land for farming so that they can earn more income. They successfully ran it and saved some money from that. Then, from that savings, they have bought an own land for farming and they looked after it very well. Once they had settled up with that, both of them have decided and started with a new business by opening up a new hardware shop called Syarikat R.S.Maniam in Cameron Highlands.
As we all know, to start a business, we have to choose a good place where there is an upcoming community of people who are interested in farming. So, after searching for a best place, they decided and started their business at Batu 49 which is one of the large farming areas in Cameron Highlands.
At the beginning, although they had some financial problems to buy the goods from the suppliers, they managed to overcome the problems without any of the others' help. This is because it is a necessary for every business person to give a deposit money to the salesmen when they want to buy the goods from them. In such situation, they had some financial problem to buy it. Luckily, there were some salesmen who were kind enough to trust and give them the goods without the deposit payments. With their help, they able to overcome such problems and they worked hard for days and nights to achieve a certain target in specific time.
There were also some people who have underestimated them. Although there were some people who always discouraged them by saying that they can't achieve their target in their life and so on, but they didn't bother about it and they just keep on moving to achieve their goals. After a few years of hard work journey, their hard work paid off and they started to run their business successfully until today.
DISCUSSION
Due to the economic growth in our country, there is a good opportunity for the hardware shops to gain a good income. Actually, there are few things that we should consider about when we are planning to start a hardware business. Syarikat R.S.Maniam can be said as one of the examples where the businessmen have considered about those things to run a successful hardware shop business.
As my opinion, before we start a business in a place, we have to make sure that it is a best place to start the business. This is because as a businessman, they have to know about their customers' need to run their business successfully. For an example, Syarikat R.S.Maniam is located at Batu 49, Cameron Highlands, which can also be said as a farming area. The owners started their agricultural hardware shop business there just because they knew well about the people's needs over there.
Furthermore, hardware business has minimal barriers of entry and for this reason cut throat competition is quite a common feature. The first step in dealing with competition is to avoid it in the first place. Ideally, we have to set up shop in upcoming estates and grow slowly as the market expands.
According to the two businessmen, it's also important to create strong relationships with the market. To achieve this, they said that we have to make sure that the prices of the products are reasonable. This may help them to get a good attention of the customers. It is also important for us to encourage a convenient shopping. For an example, they are allowing their trusted clients to place orders via phone, and they are delivering to the site for free and then allowing them to pay for it later in the evening.
The owners of Syarikat R.S.Maniam also suggested that as a good businessman, he must provide a one stop shop for his clients such that they don't have to go shop for anything else in any of the competitors' shops. A businessman also may want to talk to his suppliers so that they avail any items that may be on demand but are missing from his shop as quick as possible as the businessman strive to achieve the status of a one-stop-shop.
To run a successful business, we also have to consider about the profitability. On average a good performing hardware makes a net profit of 10% its daily sales. In this situation, we should take note that this figure may vary depending on your pricing policy and the list of expenses. Therefore, it is important for us to make sure that we know those strategies in business life before we get involved in it. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal : it is the courage to continue that counts". So, since we are interested in starting a business, we should not give up easily.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it can be said that business is one of the factor that lead to economic growth and development in each of the country. The quality of a business can directly affect the growth of an economy. The quality of the business is dependent on the person's skills, creative abilities, training and experiences. If the person who involved in a business such as hardware shop business is well skilled and trained then the output would be high in quality. To achieve a target in a specific business, we must know the basic things in that business, as well as, we should know the peoples' needs in that specific place.
Since we want to start a business like hardware shop business, we must make sure that we know the strategies and challenges that we might face in that field. To be a successful businessman, a person should not give up easily although he/she fails to manage it at the beginning. Instead, he/she should work hard to run their business successfully. Therefore, it can be said that, one's interest and hard work towards their business are the most important qualification to a businessman to start and run a business successfully.