Introduction

The company that we have chosen to base our task on is SSPS Supermart. It is a small
supermarket that employs roughly 10-15 employees. The supermarket was founded in 2009
by Mr. Sathiah Karuppiah and is a family owned business located in Jalan Ipoh. Like any
other supermarket, SSPS is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of fresh greens, meats
and household products, organized into sections and shelves. It is larger and has a wider
selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of
merchandise than a hypermarket. They have also opened SSPS Wholesale, whereby, goods
are packaged and sold in bulks to restaurants, hospitals and hotels, however, our main focus
would be on SSPS Supermart.

Differences and ability to defend position against competitors

SSPS Supermart is a retail service that provides vegetables, fruits, dry goods and
other variety of goods to the vicinal residents which have been brought a lot of conveniences.
According to what the manager has said, most of the grocery stores and retail stores such as
Cold storage were offering almost the same goods and services as SSPS. Therefore, if SSPS
Supermart wants to become the first choice of the targeted customers, the store needs to have
certain competitive advantages in which SSPS will be the one doing better than its
competitors.
First of all, all fruit and vegetables in the store are freshly delivered every time it is
reordered. The manager wants to ensure all the customers are satisfied by buying the good
quality fresh greens from the store. This is because the quality of goods and services that are
offered to the customers will create a positive impact for the company and public which is
significant to SSPS Supermart. Furthermore, word of mouth among the public is a very
powerful tool that can be utilized as advertisement which is without any cost. As the saying
goes ‘every coin has two sides’. Word of mouth can also be a disadvantage when the
company intentionally or unintentionally does something that would affect the quality of the
products or services.
In addition, the company has set a reasonable pricing level for all their products in
store. This is very vital for the company because quality products and services is not the only
factor that will influence customers’ satisfaction during their decision making process. By
offering high level quality product, normally it will have to charge a higher prices to
customers. Since most of SSPS Supermart’s income come from mid-range customers, they
were giving an affordable prices which brings contentment to consumers without
compromising on quality of products and services at the same time. Hence, the equitable
pricing that is able to fulfill the customers’ need and purchasing power is also considered as
one of the competitive advantages of the company.
Other than that, SSPS Supermart also delivers products in bulks to restaurants,
hospitals and other retail stores effectively which can also be considered as one of the traits
that differentiates them from their competitors. The justification is that, not many small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) offer such services due the potential increase in operating cost.
Moreover, this company also allows credit purchase to their customers or clients and the
company is also reassured because their clients always settle the outstanding payment on
time, hence, trust is created between the buyer and seller. This provides flexibility to the
customers when they do not have immediate cash, or are too occupied to cash out
temporarily.
Thus, fresh goods, affordable pricing, delivery services and flexible credit
transactions make this company different from its competitors.

Location selection
It is important to think and consider plenty of factors in selecting the most suitable
and appropriate location to start a business. This is because, the location chosen has a direct
influence to the company by either boosting the company’s entire profit or bringing down the
business due unforeseen risks resulted from poor choice of location.
Besides that, the selection of location for business is also highly essential because
there is no going back once a business is set up in a certain location because it would be
highly costly, financially and non financially, to relocate. If the company do so, it will be a
costly decision for the company in financial and nonfinancial aspects. Some of the factor that
will influence the location decision of a company are availability of labor, exchange rates and
currency risks, costs, political risk, values and culture, proximity to markets, suppliers and
competitors. The major reason that lead the owner to choose the recent location is the
proximity to markets (textbook). Proximity to markets means that the company thinks that
selecting a nearer location to customers is the most crucial factor among all the reasons.
At the primary stage for choosing the place, the owner found out that the recent area
did not have much retail grocery stores which may cause some inconveniences to the
residents. Additionally, there was only one other grocery shop in the area at the time but the
shop does not sell fresh products such as the veggies and fruits like SSPS Supermart does
now. Furthermore, the selected place to start the business had a newly built apartment nearby,
so it will be an easy access to the residents around.
According to the interview with the manager, even though the place was tend to
proximate to customers rather than suppliers, SSPS Supermart is still able to maintain a
proper logistics system and provide fresh veggies and fruits and sufficient stock by getting
those green goods daily and the other dry goods depending on the customers’ buying rate
without any delivery mishaps.

Layout choices undertaken

Another other important aspect of operations management that need close attention
for the operation of business is the layout choice undertaken. Since SSPS Supermart is a retail
grocery store visited by people from different walks of life, the owner gives considerable
thoughts to the layout of the shop. The layout of the shop is designed in such a way that the
space is utilized to the maximum while still having lots of room for customers to walk
through or even squat to look at products at the lower level of the shelve and still have space
for other customers to walk by without having to squeeze in. They have also allocated the
shelf space in a way that allows them to respond to customer behaviour (textbook).
Moreover, the layout is also designed in such a way as to allow proper display of the highly
sought after items in the store to customers.
As mentioned above, SSPS supermart was mainly focusing on selling fresh produces
like veggies, fruits, poultry and meat. Hence, the owner prioritized the placement of major
selling items, which means the fresh groceries are put in front of the main door to attract the
attention from customer. The following produces were dry goods such as spices, junk foods
and so on. Lastly, household supplies like detergents will be placed at the back of the store.
According to Bonnie (2017), the main reason supermarket always set the fresh good at the
entrances is because the product will be seen more tempting under the natural lights which
can increase the selling (https://bizfluent.com/info-8651141-advantages-disadvantages-
supermarket-layout.html).

On the other hand, the owner also use the aisle system by placing goods from most
preferred to the least preferred which is not being followed by other grocers in the vicinity.
Based on what had Daniel (2018) stated, aisle layout is commonly used to put those popular
items scattered with other products around the shop which can lead the customers to buy
more unnecessary items that were not even in their provision list in the first place
(https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/7102971/supermarket-layouts-shopping-habits/). The main
objective of SSPS Supermart owner is to make the products easy to access and have
customers walk less and get the wanted items without a hitch.

Conclusion
In a nutshell, SSPS Supermart considers more about their customers and also the
environment when comparing them with other supermarket. They are a ‘kid-friendly’
supermarket. They are also a sustainability company to the environment by implemented
some strategies which had been mentioned above and future environmental strategy like
‘Live Zero’. Besides that, as an SME like SSPS Supermart, they need to reduce some costs
such as utility expenses by applying the suggested methods if they wanted to be more eco-
friendly and increase the company profit at the same time. Last but not least, this supermarket
should do more advertisement or events and spread the information through online which is
free of charge and this will help the business in many ways.