Case 1

TASKA KYRANA SDN. BHD.: TO CHANGE OR NOT TO CHANGE ITS

OPERATING DAYS?

Introduction

It was early morning of 3 November, 2013. Mrs Azizah Ayob (to be subsequently known
as Ayob), the entrepreneur cum founder of Taska Kyrana Sdn. Bhd. was lost in thought.
She read in the newspaper that, the State Government of Johor Bahru had decided to
change the weekend rest days from Saturday and Sunday to Friday and Saturday with
effect from 1 January 2014. However, it was not the case for other states like Negeri
Sembilan, Melakka and Selangor. The change of business operation days had been
announced by the State Minister of Johor and was ordered to be implemented
predominantly in the government sectors in the State. On the other hand, businesses
and corporations in the private sector were allowed to choose to continue observing
Saturday-Sunday weekends or switch to the new official rest days which were Friday-
Saturday.

In 2013, Taska Kyrana was a notable kindergarten and nursery in Johor. Its operating
days followed the usual pattern, which was Monday to Friday. As customers of the
Taska Kyrna consisted of the parents who were working in government as well as the
private sector, Ayob, the founder of Taska Kyrana wondered which option to choose as
the operating days and rest-days for Taska Kyrana. She whispered herself:

It means, I have to change the operating days of Taska Kyrana to align with the
government’s requirement. Should I change the operating days as per the state
government’s new ruling? Or should I stick to the old operating days? Is there
any other indirect move that I need to consider to overcome this situation?

Ayob had approximately two months, until the end of December 2013 to find a solution
for the problem. She realized that, failing to do so might affect Taska Kyrana’s profits,
as 65 per cent of its customers were parents who were working in the public sector and
35 per cent were working in the private sector. She was overwhelmed by thinking that,
changing its operating days might increase additional working hours and extra overtime
pay for the employees.

Ayob was the founder and owner of Taska Kyrana Sendirian Berhad. She was born into
a poor family. Due to monetary constraints, she started to work right after completing
her secondary education. She started her career with a clerical job in a small company
in Johor Bahru. Prior to launching Taska Kyrana, she worked for 20 years in different

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institutions in different posts. Ayob was a self-motivated, focussed and determined
individual. To establish her own company, she used her own hard earnings,
approximately RM130,000 as a start-up. Although Ayob encountered lots of challenges,
she managed to sustain the business, and by 2013, she expanded its services by
having not only a nursery but also preschool programmes.

Taska Kyrana was registered as a private limited company on 1 September 1998. The
first Taska Kyrana branch was opened at the Taman Bukit Dahlia, Pasir Gudang. The
nursery was located at No. 17, Jalan Sejambak 1, Taman Bukit Dahlia, 81,700, Pasir
Gudang, Johor. The company had another branch at Taman Air Biru, Pasir Gudang,
Johor. Taska Kyrana’s motto was “Pilihan yang TERBAIK, TEPAT dan SELAMAT” (The
BEST, TRUSTWORTHY and SAFE choice). It had a logo that symbolized the
company’s good intention to take care of their customers’ children in a good manner at
day and night. There were 18 employees working in Taska Kyrana who used to take
care of 100 children approximately for both branches.

Taska Kyrana used to provide a child care facility for the children who were aged
between 3 months and 6 years. There were three groups of children (based on their
age):

1. Infant – aged between 3 months and 12 months;

2. Toddler – aged between 1 and 2 years old; and
3. Pre-school children aged between 3 and 6 years.

Taska Kyrana offered basic needs of daily child care routine including dressing, feeding
and diapering/toileting. In addition to routine care, the nursery also used to provide the
appropriate activities to support the development of children’s gross and fine motor
skills especially for the preschool group of children. The early childhood education
programmes helped the children to build their confidence, expand their physical
abilities, enhance their social skills and take part in play-based learning. In an attempt to
provide the best services, Taska Kyrana fully equipped its premises with high-class
recreational and classroom facilities which included furniture, tables, chairs, storage
cabinets, television, DVD Player and CD player. Taska Kyrana also offered additional
services such as medical facilities and “pick and drop” facilities for busy parents.

Target market

Taska Kyrana focussed on meeting parent’s needs for child care services on either a
part-time or full time basis within the Pasir Gudang areas. Taska Kyrana targeted
middle to upper income Malaysian and Singaporean parents, working either in the
public or private sectors who valued the quality of education and child care. In total, 35

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per cent of Taska Kyrana’s customers were from the private sector, while another 65
per cent were from the public sector (Table I).

Middle income family.

In this group, both parents were working full-time, and they did not have time to take
care of their children during the day. Thus, they were in need of support to take care of
their children while they were at work.

Upper income family.

The parents who belonged to the upper income group were more demanding, especially
in regard to service quality, certification and reputation of the child care centre. They
were willing to spend more money for a better quality of childcare services and
advanced development programmes. This customer segment demanded their children
were taught basic concepts such as reading, singing and socializing. Considering the
demand of such a group, Taska Kyrana continued to develop children’s skills to the
advanced level. Taska Kyrana tried to ensure that they were offering competitive prices,
high-quality child care services, a leading-edge educational programme with certification
and maintaining a reputation with parents and the community.

Operation

Taska Kyrana used to operate from 7 a.m. in the morning until 6 p.m. in the evening
from Monday to Friday. However, there were days when Ayob used to receive request
from certain parents to take care of their child for additional hours. In such cases, Ayob
used to charge additional RM10 per hour for overtime (i.e. after 6 p.m.) per child.
Parents who sent their children to Taska Kyrana used to pay RM150 for non-refundable
registration fee (one-off charges) and monthly commitment fees based on children’s’
age. The parents also paid extra if they wanted extra time to take care of their children
as overtime charges which was very common practice. This is because, many parents
also worked for extra hours and they were in need of childcare services to take care of
their children until they came back home. For part-time basis or drop-off children, Taska
Kyrana charged RM20 per hour for child care services. In the past, Taska Kyrana
generated about RM5,000 income per month from part-time services (Tables II and III).

During 2013, Taska Kyana had 18 teachers and 4 support staff. The teachers were
being paid RM1,200/month and support staff RM900.00/month. The fixed expenses
included the rental cost of RM2,000/month and utilities bills of RM1,000/month. Taska
Kyrana paid their staff’s overtime claims approximately RM2,000 per month (Table IV).

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Promotional strategy

To stay competitive in the market, Taksa Kyrana communicated directly with customers
and prospects through mail, texts and fliers. In addition to that, Taska Kyrana ensured
that positive word-of-mouth spread amongst parents living nearby the kindergarten
areas. In January 2013, Taska Kyrana launched a new distribution channel by
extensively promoting its business through social mass media, newspaper and parental
magazines. A loyalty programme was also introduced whereby parents were offered a
loyalty card which entitled them to receive up to a 20 per cent shopping discount at
baby toys and clothes shop. These efforts were taken to ensure its business growth. In
the near future, Taska Kyrana planned to open a few branches in Kuala Lumpur.

Change of operating days by the Johor state government

Ayob recalled an experience that she had encountered early in the morning. Once she
parked her car, she bought the daily newspaper from the nearest grocery shop in front
of Taska. Her eyes caught a sentence stated “Johor to have Friday and Saturday
weekend rest days from January 1, 2014”. She read the news with curiosity. According
to the news, Johor’s Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar had declared the
change of the state’s rest days to Friday and Saturday (which was Saturday and
Sunday) with effect from 1 January 2014. The much-anticipated decision was
announced during the investiture ceremony on Saturday in conjunction with his 55th
birthday. The Sultan said that the change of weekend would take effect from 1 January
2014. The decision to change the weekend holidays was made after receiving feedback
from various quarters and to allow majority in the Southern state of Johor Bahru to
perform their religious duties on Friday. The change of the state’s rest days to Friday
and Saturday would be compulsory to those who were working in the public sector. The
private sector had the freedom to comply with the regulation or to remain with rest days
from Saturday to Sunday. As such, most of the companies in the private sectors,
especially in the banking industry chose to keep their working days as Monday to Friday
due to the fact that their headquarters were in Klang Valley, which observed the rest
days on Saturday and Sunday. Those banks were operating their businesses in other
countries and a change of working days might affect their businesses. On top of that,
some employees who worked in private companies had to work for a half day basis on
Saturday. Therefore, changing the operating days were not a good choice for such
companies.

As Taska Kyrana had parents working in both the private and public sector, they need
to operate on Saturday as well. Instead of having 5 days a week (approximately 20 days
a month), now they might need to operate 6 days a week (24 days a month). By doing
so, it might increase their operation costs including the additional childcare staff/

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overtime pay, utilities expense and kitchens supplies for children meals. All the fixed
expenses were expected to increase by 20 per cent per month, except for fixed salaries
for teachers and support staff). They also might need to consider developing a new
schedule for staff, as children attended at different times of the days. Moreover, not all
children used to come and leave at the same time. As such, to operate over 6 days,
Taska Kyrana needed to accommodate those costs and revise their payment system (or
charging extra rate). In addition to this, there are some parents who may not be affected
by these changes especially if one family has both parents working in the private sector.

The newspaper article had given Ayob a headache; she was not satisfied with the new
regulation imposed. She thought that the new regulation would affect not only her
business but also all other businesses in the state. Although her nursery was a private
listed company; thus, it was not mandatory for her to have rest days on Saturday and
Sunday, she was worried about losing her customers. Taska Kyrana’s customers were
from various sectors ranging from private and public, Ayob needed to choose the
appropriate working and rest days for her business.

Ayob was in conversation with her senior employee Sayeda who had worked at Taska
for the past 15 years. Sayeda was 45 years old and a single parent. She had seen
Taska Kyrana grow since 1998. Seeing Sayeda staring at Ayob for a long time, Ayob
broke the silence:

Ayob I am wondering about our next step. This new regulation will affect our business
operation.

Sayeda You are right. You have to think carefully before you make a decision.
Because, our customers are working in both private and public sectors. If you want to
follow the State Government’s new ruling, then the parents who are working in private
sector will be affected. If you stick to the existing operating day’s schedule, then we may
lose the customers who are working in public sector.

Ayob Perhaps, we need to think any back up plan to handle this unexpected situation.
May be we can consider expanding our business and to focus on more promotional
strategy!!

Sayeda Agree. Why not we open one more branch at Kuala Lumpur? But the question
is whether we can support the extra expenditure at the moment? Also, definitely the
competition is going to be fierce in KL, unlike here in JB!

Ayob Yup. Competition will be high that is true for sure. But if we do not try, we never
know!

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The discussion did not proceed further. Ayob felt that she would need to think properly
about the circumstances before taking any further steps.

Kindergartens in Malaysia

In Malaysia, kindergarten (also known as preschool education) was a non-formal and

flexible programme for children between 4 and 6 years old. The programme used to run
for one to three years’ time. Both public and private kindergarten curriculum guidelines
and programme was set and monitored by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia (MoE).
While admission was free or charged at a very minimal rate for public kindergarten, the
priority for admission was given to lower income families and under-privileged children
who could not afford to attend privately run kindergartens. Although all kindergartens
had to abide by the curriculum guidelines set by the MoE, there were some exceptions
for the International or Expatriate Schools. These schools were privately run, catered for
children from high and middle-income families and followed the British or US curriculum
as well as the syllabus of their home country. The fees charged by these kindergartens
varied significantly and was largely determined by overhead costs and market forces.

Curriculum for kindergarten was set by MoE. The curriculum was prepared to enable
children to acquire basic communication, social and other positive skills in preparation
for their primary school level. Specifically, the aim of kindergarten education was to
develop children’s skills in five different aspects. The first aspect was to develop social
skills which focussed on children’s interaction with the environment and the people in
their surroundings, development of positive self-concept, discipline, social
responsibilities and positive attitudes towards learning. The second aspect was to
develop the intellectual skill which emphasized physical environment such as the
concepts of space, numbers, alphabets and prerequisites for writing, reading and
language competencies. The third aspect was to develop physical skills which focussed
on the physical activities that involve co-ordination of the various parts of the body such
as the head, hand, leg, eye and fingers. The forth aspect was to develop the spiritual
skill which emphasized the inculcation of noble values and believe in God. The fifth
aspect was to develop aesthetic skills which aimed to train the children to express
themselves through their hand-made creations, drawings, music and movement.

The major competitor: NURI Kindergarten

Ayob was wondering what would be the strategic move of her close competitor NURI
Kindergarten after this incident. NURI Kindergarten was situated at Pasir Gudang. NURI
kindergarten started its first operation in a small residential estate in Taman Perling,
Johor Bahru with 20 students. The founders opened a kindergarten after decades of
experience in the education line and managing kindergartens in Singapore and

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Malaysia. From a single and small building with only 20 students, it had expanded to 3
buildings with over 400 students in only 2 and half years. Demand from society had
been increasing since then. During 2013, NURI had 20 branches in Johor and 4
branches in Selangor. NURI’s headquarters and training centre was located at Tampoi,
Johor Bahru.

NURI offered its customers two types of services: childcare and kindergarten. NURI
Childcare programme was a whole-day learning programme for ages 6 months to 6
years. Their Childcare programme was named Creative Kids Academy. Fees for the
programme started from RM 560 per month. NURI Kindergarten programme, on the
other hand, was a 4 h learning programme for ages 3 years to 6 years. The programme
was known as Junior Kids Academy (Figure 1). The cost of the programme was RM 300
per month. Both of the programmes offered by NURI were a comprehensive quality
English medium programme, complete with elective language modules like mandarin,
Tamil or Islamic studies. Teachers and staff of all programmes were selected and
employed by NURI, as the founder decided not to franchise or license her brand. The
decision was made by the founder in an attempt to maintain the quality of education and
services provided to their students and parents. NURI’s customers were Muslim,
Chinese and Indian parents working in the public and private sectors.

Ayob was lost in thought. She realized that if she failed to make the right choice, her
customers may switch to NURI which would be a devastating situation for her business.

Ayob’s dilemma

Ayob was in a hurry to come up with a decision. She was aware that there would always
be two sides of the coin. “I’ll lose some of my customers from public sectors if I chose to
remain with the old rest days. On the other hand, I’ll lose some of my customers from
private sectors if I chose to comply with the new rest days. So, should I stick to current
working days? Or should I comply with the new working days requirement? Which
decision would be the best for my business? What consequences I’ll face if my decision
turns to be ineffective?”

Ayob was continued to think. “Should I consider any possible growth strategy to expand
my business to other area? Do I need to think about more compelling promotional
strategy to attract more customers. So that I can cover some of the cost of the lost
customers?” Lots of questions overshadowed her mind.

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Figure 1 Programme offered at NURI Kindergarten

Segmenting (%
criteria )
Nationality
Malaysian 88
Singaporean 12
Occupation status
Public sector 65
Private sector 35

Table I Taska Kyrana’s customer segments

Operation time Daily schedule

7:00 a.m. to 8:15
Free play
a.m.
8:30 a.m. to 9:00
Breakfast/snack
a.m.
9:15 a.m. to 9:45
Diapering and clean up
a.m.
10:00 a.m. to 12:00
Outdoor activities or free play
a.m.
12:00 a.m. to 1:00
Lunch; diaper changes
noon

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1:00 noon to 3:00
Nap time/ quiet time
p.m.
3:00 p.m. to 4:00
Diaper changes; Snack; Free play
p.m.
4:00 p.m. to 6.00 Free play; Outdoor activities; Diapers
p.m. changes

Table II Infant and toddler group daily schedule

Operation time Daily schedule

7:00 a.m. to 8:15
Staggered arrival
a.m.
Exploration Time:
Playing blocks
Science/ Math
Art and craft
8:15 a.m. to 9:00 Sensory (water, sand, play-doh
a.m. etc.)
Puzzles
Painting/ writing, printing
Computer
Music
Group circle:
Curriculum and class discussion
9:00 a.m. to 10:30 ABC’s, 123’s, Colors, Shapes
a.m. Music and movement
Song & nursery rhymes
Outdoor play
10:30 a.m. to 10:45
Snack
a.m.
10:45 a.m. to 11:00
Clean up/ tidying time
a.m.
11:00 a.m. to 11:30
Story time
a.m.

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11:30 a.m. to 12:00 Co-operative games and Good
noon Bye circle
12:00 noon Dismissal
12:00 noon to 1:00
Lunch and clean up
p.m.
1:00 p.m. to 3:00
Nap time/ quiet time
p.m.
3:00 p.m. to 4:00
Wake up and snack
pm
4:00 p.m. to 6.00
Free play; outdoor activities
p.m.

Table III Preschool group daily schedule

Different groups
Toddle
Criteria Infant Group (3 months
Group Preschool Group (3-6 years)
to 1 year)
(1-2 years)
Teacher –
1: 3 1: 5 1:10
child ratio
Number of
7 6 5
teachers
Number of
21 30 48 (15 half day and 33 full day)
children
RM450.00 per month for half-day
Monthly fees RM450.00 RM400.00 (up to 12noon)
RM550.00 per month for full-day
Meal cost (a RM5.00 per RM2 per child (half day)
RM5 per child
day) child RM5per child (full day)
Overtime pay RM10.00 per
RM10.00 per hour RM10.00 per hour
to staff hour

Table IV Information on Taska Kyrana’ operation

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CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Discuss Ayob’s dilemma in regard to the announcement of sudden change of

operating days. What could be the impact of this change to other organizations in
Johor Bahru?
2. Discuss the institutional support of Taska Kyrana based on the institutional
support concept.
3. Identify and discuss market segments of Taska Kyrana to target the right
group of customers
4. In your opinion, what possible growth strategy should Ayob consider to
manage Taska Kyrana in this volatile situation?
5. Suggest possible marketing strategies for Taska Kyrana to keep up with the
competition from NURI Kindergarten.
6. How should a small company like Taska Kyrana promote its business to attract
more customers?
7. Assume that you are Ayob, would you maintain the current operating days, or
follow the new operating days as announced by the state minister?
8. Based on the information provided in the case narrative, which operation days
will be more profitable?

REFERENCE

Ministry of Higher Education Report (2015), “Malaysia education for all end decade
review report 2000-2015”, p. 8, available at:
www.moe.gov.my/cms/upload_files/files/KPM%20-
%20Malaysia%20Education%20For%20All%20(End%20Decade%20Review%20Report
).pdf [Google Scholar]

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