Touched by i-Sentuh

Leilanie Mohd Nor, Mohar Yusof and Alex Cheng Boon Liat

Rohaiza glides her right palm across the sapphire blue silk material. “Soft, delicate,
such a pretty colour – bright, but pretty, six metres i-Sentuh1”, she whispers to herself.
Her left hand gently moves as her fingers lead her to an array of Islamic attire
showcased at the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week 20132. Her mind floats to envision how
i-Sentuh can move in tandem with the fashion industry for the Moslems as she lands
herself on Discover the Beauty of Modesty 3 . Inspired by what she saw, Rohaiza is
mustering for her business proposal to SME Bank. She has a week before she pitches
her way through an RM200,000 loan.

The Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2013 took Rohaiza back to her home town in Malacca. It was a good
time for her to take a breather off her business and be with her loved ones. The scrumptious
spread of food, the laughters, the giving away of “duit raya” reminded her of the journey she
had taken and how blessed she was. Rohaiza also noticed that women were donned with
colourful attire and a display of accessories but she was a little erred by how the attire did not
quite fit or complement the bearer of the dresses. The more she paid attention to what women
wore, the more erred she got. All she saw was how i-Sentuh could come to shape to fill that
void which she felt women were not getting from their community boutique.

“Adik, see that lady”, as Rohaiza pointed out to a lady sitting

across the hall. “See how the stitches are uneven”. Rohaiza’s
sister nodded. “Last April, I attended a three-month sewing
class that taught me how to sew seamlessly using different
types of materials. i-Sentuh will make exquisitely designed

1
Sentuh as defined by the Kamus Bahasa Malaysia DBP is “terkena sedikit” / touched by.
2
Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week 2013 was held from June 19-23, 2013 at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. The aim of
the event is to develop the Malaysian fashion industry, providing our emerging designers a continuous fashion
and retail platform that gives recognition to Malaysian made fashion and retail items.
3
Islamic Fashion Festival is part of the KL Fashion Festival, spreadheaded by Dato’ Raja Shah Rezza.

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 dresses at half the price of what Rizalman 4 would charge his
clients”.

Educating Rohaiza
Rohaiza Nizan binti Rosnal @ Roslan was born in 1979 in Melaka, the eldest among four
siblings. Her father was a civil officer and her mother, a housewife. Her parents divorced
when Rohaiza was 13 years old and she and her siblings stayed with their mother. At the age
of 15 years old, Rohaiza told her mother that she wanted to live on her own. Her mother
agreed as the house which Rohaiza rented was just across the family home.

Rohaiza went on to UiTM Shah Alam to pursue a degree in BBM (Finance) 1997. However,
two years later, she requested to be transferred to UiTM Dungun where the cost of living is
cheaper. Her business sense followed her throughout her university days. During the
university’s convocation, she set up stalls to sell flowers, and at sporting events, she sold t-
shirts. When there are no events, she would take orders from university clubs or associations
and provided them with her corporate gifts offerings.

“I’ve always been independent. Never wanting to cling on to

my parents and asking for money. In school, I used to sell
candies and trinkets to my friends. I make money and I even
pay for my house rental. At UiTM, I was just an average
student, I don’t party that much, it’s a waste of time. I use my
time to find business opportunities”, Rohaiza said.

The Turning Point

Upon graduation in 2002, Rohaiza took on an offer to work as a Finance Administration
Executive at Evergreen Lot Holdings Sdn Bhd. Rohaiza was a diligent worker and gave her
best at work. She got to work on time and ended her day way after 7 in the evening. Her
superior noticed her capabilities and decided to transfer her to bigger tasks.

4
Rizalman is a prominent Malaysian fashion designer (see Zalora and Tesco : Priced at RM300 – RM500)

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In 2003, her portfolio was changed to a Sales Executive where her primary job was to prepare
documentation, and carried out sales and marketing activities.

“I worked so hard for this company. I go out and find

quotations, speak to suppliers. I go out and do marketing at
malls, selling the housing units within the housing project. I
even go out and entertain suppliers and clients – and these
made me very uncomfortable. I am a woman. A young Moslem
woman. It just didn’t feel right to go out entertaining clients at
night. And this got me thinking: I might as well do all the above
for myself, my own business rather than “makan gaji 5 ”,
Rohaiza said.

In July 2005, Rohaiza tendered her resignation and braced herself for uncertainties, yet, she
believed it will be filled with opportunities.

Prepping Up
Rohaiza was uncertain what business opportunities she wanted to venture into. She knew she
needed to decide quickly because she was unemployed. Together with her sister, Roslinda,
whom she fondly called “Adik”, they drove around housing areas to get a sense of what
people were interested in. They also spent many hours walking in various malls to understand
the market, what people were buying and what their preferences were.

“Adik, it has been three weeks since we first started this,

driving around in circles”, Rohaiza told her sister. “I don’t think
the answer is out there. I feel it’s this” as Rohaiza pointed to her
sister her red floral blouse she was wearing. “You want to sell
blouses?”, Roslinda responded in shocked. “I want to wash, I
want to set up a laundry”, Rohaiza got excited as she started to
drive towards the closest row of shops in Subang Jaya to show
her sister what she has in mind.

5
A term used in Bahasa Malaysia to refer to earning a monthly salary.

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In September 2006, Rohaiza attended the “Kursus Latihan Hands-On Dobi” which was
organized by MeCD6.

“Adik, you got to follow me on another drive around”, Rohaiza

had called her sister over the phone, immediately after her
training. “I need your help to count the traffic flow. I need to
find a location”, Rohaiza told her sister. “Can….”, Roslinda
chimed in.

The two sisters drove around for several days in trying to find the right location. They
explored Melawati, Ampang, Taman Seputeh, Subang Jaya, USJ, Damansara Uptown,
Mutiara Damansara and Kota Damansara. For each location, they needed to find the rows of
shop lots, and they needed to spot the kinds of shops that were available at these rows of shop
lots. For several weeks, the two sisters did this, and to Rohaiza it was all worthwhile.

In October 2006, Rohaiza finally decided to zoom in her focus on Kota Damansara – a
particular two-rows of shops. So, they parked their car and stayed in the car with a note book
in their hands and jotted down what they saw: what people were buying, how much worth of
goods there were buying, how long they spent in the selected shops, what cars they drove in,
what they wore, what days/times were the biggest crowd, the least crowd and so on.

Rohaiza spotted Laundromat that was up for sale because the owner wanted to move to
Kedah. After weeks of negotiation, with another contender, Rohaiza lost her bid to buy the
readymade outlet. However, this did not break Rohaiza. Her tenacity and enthusiasm made
her look for another spot. She remembered seeing an empty shop lot behind the Laundromat,
and decided to work her way to setting up her business there.

Setting Up
Rohaiza remembered in one of her university class project that the cost of operating a laundry
business was only RM1,000. Rohaiza had also spent her past week conducting her own
research regarding suppliers and she even had shortlisted her potential key business partners.

6
Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development, the then main agency responsible for coordinating
the development of Bumiputera entrepreneurs. MeCD also provides entrepreneurial training and
development programmes to Bumiputera entrepreneurs. MeCD was abolished in 2009.

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 “That was a university class project”, she whispered to herself
as she was jotting down the list of suppliers to contact, “this
time it is for real”.

By December 2006, she had a list of items in her hand to work on which she believed would
take her closer to realising her dreams.

Table 1: Start-Up Capital

Description Amount (in RM)

Own capital from savings 80,000
Shop – rental deposit (25,000)
Monthly operating cost (3,000)
Monthly rental (4,700)

Rohaiza started her business, RR Jitu Resources in January 2007 with one washing machine,
a dryer, a steam iron and a regular handheld iron. She ran her business only once a week
because she wanted to be careful with her working capital. The signboard to her business was
put up and proudly shouted out “MyDobi”.

Fortunately, business was good and within two weeks, she decided to increase operations to
four times a week. And in her second month of operations, the business swung into full
operations. From the beginning of the business, Rohaiza was assisted by her sister, Roslinda.
She hired her first employee in the fourth month of operation.

Operating MyDobi
MyDobi could not offer dry cleaning services because a dry cleaning machine was expensive
for a new start-up with limited funds. Hence, to meet market demands, Rohaiza decided to
outsource dry cleaning services which amounted to RM2,000 per month. The cost not only
ate up her profit margin, but also increased customer complains which she had no control of.
Delays in delivery and jobs done not to her standards were among the biggest problems she
had with her outsourced business partners.

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The revenue for the first month of operation was RM3,000. Upon receiving the SME loan in
2009, Rohaiza had purchased a dry cleaning machine which was equipped with aqua
technology. By using this machine, she increased her profit margin by more than 100% on
aqua cleaning services alone.

Rohaiza had also setup a website at www.mydobi.com to allow her to reach out to her
customers much easier. Rohaiza was even thinking of setting-up an emailing system where
customers could be notified via email to collect their laundry but it did not materialised as she
was also prudent with her spending. Rohaiza had planned to purchase more laundry machines
to keep up with the demands. By July 2013, MyDobi owned five laundry machines, had also
bought an additional steam iron. The laundry services raked in more than RM12,000 per
month in revenue and almost 60% of this revenue came from aqua cleaning services.

Whilst trying to keep her expenses at a minimum, Rohaiza employed two employees to assist
her with the laundry services but ensured that she paid her employees at par with the industry
standards. Rohaiza, however, had over several occasions, ran into problems with staffing, and
agreed that retaining employees was difficult because the job may not appeal to many.
However, she had been blessed with one of the employees who had stayed on to work with
her since the inception of the business.

Funding MyDobi
Rohaiza needed to expand her business to meet business demands. Even though her business
was running well, she needed a lump sum of money to buy equipments. Rohaiza had heard of
the “Program Inkubator Usahawan Siswazah (PIUS)” which was organized by SME Bank
through a business acquaintance. She quickly enrolled herself into the program which started
in February 2008. During this three months training period, Rohaiza was taught on methods
for writing proposal and the relevant procedure to apply for the loan.

Rohaiza was then given another three months to prepare the business proposal. In doing so,
Rohaiza conducted extensive research on machine prices to keep her cost at a minimum. She
needed to purchase four machines, and this led to a discovery that the price difference could
be as high as RM6,000 as different suppliers quoted different prices. When all the quotations
were done, she ran into a delay in submitting her application because she did not have
financial statements. This caused some delay in her application process.

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 “I’m a sole proprietor. I don’t really need to prepare an
elaborated financial statement. I know I should, I know I can.
More so, I am from a finance background, but running my own
business, I just do not have the time to sit down to prepare those
documents”, Rohaiza sneered as she described her failure to
producing the documents.

The loan covered 88% of the equipment cost and reimbursement was paid directly to the
suppliers. Rohaiza had also paid 12% of the loan upon the purchase of the four machines
directly to the suppliers.

Table 2: Payment Schedule for Term Loan Bai Bithamin Ajil of RM40,000 at a rate of
4%

Description Instalment per month (in RM) Total instalments (in RM)
First 6 months 133.34 800.04
Month 7 to month 59 810.64 42,963.92
Month 60 810.47 810.47
Total 44,574.43

The disbursement to Rohaiza begun in February 2009 and was to complete paying off her
loan on February 18th 2014, but she paid up the debts way ahead of schedule and successful
did so in February 2012.

“Rohaiza was a good paymaster. There were no delayed

payments and she paid all her installments on time. She even
gave us twelve pieces of post-dated cheques every February of
the year”, Azidah Azman, the SME Bank Officer fondly
remembered.

Rohaiza was offered more financial assistance by SME Bank but she had declined the offer
even though she had plans to diversify her business into tailoring.

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 Tailoring MyDobi for More
Rohaiza’s desire to setup other ventures led her to rename her outlet to ‘Dobi & Jahitan’ in
2010. This idea came to her because she saw the potential of expanding the market within the
existing customer-base. She felt that if they trusted her with washing their clothes, they would
trust her with sewing their clothes, too. However, Rohaiza’s lack of experience in tailoring
led to customer dissatisfaction. She realised that if she continued this way, it would tarnish
the business image and her credibility.

Rohaiza always believed that the quest for knowledge and skills is an endless process. She
also acknowledged the fact that she needed to master cutting different types of materials and
sewing variation of designs to bring it to perfection.

She reinvested her earnings from her existing laundry business and bought two new
automated sewing machines to complement the existing traditional manual sewing machine.
With the help of an employee whom she hired in 2011, Rohaiza found time to set aside three
hours a week to attend fashion design courses and two hours a week on the art of beading.

“Orders started to pour in. I was surprised that customer’s

perception on my workmanship had improved within six
months after I started to set aside my time to learn the art of
designing, understanding materials, cutting, sewing and
beading”, Rohaiza smiled. “Tailoring provides high profit
margin, almost 400%. Combined, our business now easily
makes RM20,000 a month and 40% of our total revenue is
contributed from the tailoring business”.

Rohaiza showed no signs of slowing down even though she was raking in more than she
could ever imagined when she first ventured into business six years ago. This petite single
lady had more up her sleeves.

Touching on i-Sentuh
For Rohaiza, customers’ experience became complete after touching every single product or
service that she offered. Her inspiration in fulfilling customer satisfaction was when she had
touched the hearts of her customers.

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 “I wanted a word that is simple to remember. I want customers
to understand the process of which their clothes had gone
through with MyDobi. I realized that everything that I do for
them, I touch. When they send their clothes for washing, I touch
their clothes. And when they ask me to sew a dress for them, I
touch the material which they had entrusted me with. And just
like that, I said, I wash, i-Sentuh, I sew, i-Sentuh”, Rohaiza
giggled as she explained the birth of her rebranding strategy.

Rohaiza’s knack for reading also prepared her to act on her rebranding strategy. She
understood the importance of protecting her intellectual properties. In July 2013, Rohaiza
rebranded her entire business to i-Sentuh and trademarked it with MyIPO.

Stashing for Sustainability

Rohaiza bought herself a new car in 2012 despite all the money she had been making over six
years of running her business. She took what she felt she deserved and not more than she
needed. Her principles were simple: “Pay your bills and debts on time; Pay your suppliers by
cash or not more than thirty days; Give credit only to credible and reliable customer; Do not
use credit cards”.

She accredited her cash management skills to the years of doing business from way back
when she was a teenager. Rohaiza planned carefully for big expenses and was prudent with
current expenditures.

“When I first started my business, I paid myself only RM500.

Imagine I was employed before earning around RM3,000. It
was hard, very hard initially. But I was afraid that I couldn’t
pay my staff and meet deadlines to my bills. Things are so
much better now, I am still careful with my spending, but of
course, I now pay myself around RM8,000,” she shyly
admitted.

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Rohaiza also used online payment system especially for her debit payment. She said that by
doing so, she was better able to monitor her revenues and expenses efficiently. This move
was important because Rohaiza had also ventured into an online business in 2007 selling fast
moving products which she bought from Kenanga Wholesale City (KWC). The initial start-
up capital was RM500 with a return of this investment of RM1,000 per month in net profits.
She also ordered notable products from Bangkok to complement the products she was selling
online and this move also doubled the sales of her company.

More than Just i-Sentuh

Rohaiza would not been able to accomplish what she had achieved today if it were not for her
loyal employees. She believed that there must also be a balance between trust and supervision.
Rohaiza scheduled several days a week to meet them at the respective branches. In doing so,
Rohaiza was able to communicate and discuss with them on the current issues and challenges,
as well as to streamline her operations. Rohaiza trained and monitored her employees’
regularly to ensure they understood the pillars of her business, i.e. honesty and integrity.
Rohaiza was also perceptive on how she handled and trained each employee.

Rohaiza’s perseverance and personality of bulldozing into uncertainties were warranted with
thorough research on business landscapes and constantly seeking advice from experienced
individuals in the same industry.

As Rohaiza drives home from the advanced fashion designing class which she has just
registered for, she visualises i-Sentuh, a boutique that caters for middle class Moslem
executives. She remembers reading on the Internet that Rizalman has collaborated with
Tesco 7 in September 2012 and Zalora 8 in April 2013. Yet, she is confident, her
aspiration for i-Sentuh will hold strong. She must carefully position i-Sentuh to ensure
the success of this brand. She must also figure out how the laundry business shall
follow-suit towards this transformation and carry the brand i-Sentuh. Rohaiza is
excited as she begins to see ideas forming in her head. She needs to reach home fast so
she can pen her ideas on paper, and be ready to pitch it to SME Bank.
7
Tesco and Rizalman collaborated in 2012 to offer a new line of clothing brand known as “20” :
http://sashabashir.blogspot.com/2012/08/20-by-rizalman-at-tesco.html
8
Zalora Asia and Rizalman collaborated in 2013 to offer “Rizalman for Zalora”:
http://www.murai.com.my/article/default.asp?article_id=14630&c=30&s=152

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