4.3 Challenge 3: business expansion issue 4.3.1 Keep growing bigger or keep getting better? Halil, Zoraidah and their son in-law, Mahathir, were sitting in front of their cake house enjoying a cup of coffee with their freshly made kek lapis Sarawak when opportunity almost literally knocked on their door. They overheard their next-door neighbour's conversation about moving from the premise. Halil and Mahathir looked at each other knowingly and hurried up to the office to share their thoughts, leaving Zoraidah puzzled and curious about what they were up to. Once in the office, both father and son-in-law were excited and discussed the possibility of renting the soon to be vacant shop next door to open an open concept cafe selling their delicious and exotic kek lapis Sarawak to be enjoyed with freshly brewed beverages. They discussed the possibilities and opportunities they may gain by acquiring the space and started to picture how the cafe should be renovated to display their corporate image while at the same time provide an enjoyable and relaxing atmosphere for their customers. They were so engrossed with their ideas that they did not realize Zoraidah was standing by the door with worried frown on her forehead, listening to another one of Halil and Mahathir's expansion ideas. In Zoraidah mind, she was reliving their recent years of hardships and failures. In 2005, they had to close down their restaurant after 10 years due to their inability to bear the continuously increasing overhead costs. Then they had invested in another location in 2006, spending a lot of money for restaurant renovation but that only lasted for a year. They then rented a premise at the newly opened food court in The Spring Shopping Complex in 2008, and were not able to cover the operating costs and had to withdraw again. In 2009, they saw another promising opportunity with the opening of Plaza Astana, another prime location in Kuching. They took the risk of temporarily closing down the heart of their business at Satok to have enough funding to open up and renovate the restaurant at Plaza Astana. They had spent a fortune and were not able to maintain the place due to the late opening of the plaza, which cost them a month's profit, in addition to high renovation and maintenance costs, compounded further by a lack of employees as well as inconsistent sales. Most recently was their success in acquiring a very strategic premise at Kuching Waterfront right in front of the river taxi dock that was constantly filled with tourists and locals. This has the best location and sought after by many entrepreneurs and retailers. They spent MYR50,000 to renovate the premise especially installing built-in chillers to store their cakes. However, that too was not making profit and had to be temporarily closed due to a manpower issue, as they did not seem to be able to hire committed and enthusiastic workers that share the same business goals. The halal controversy also caused such distress that Zoraidah became alarmed at any possibility of controversial challenge.Zoraidah became increasingly worried with Halil and Mahathir's new ideas and knocked on the door to announce her presence. She startled them both when she said "Honey, we should probably sit down together and really think it through. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done but we really need to discuss this together with the rest of the family". Money, time, personnel and inventory all needed to be managed effectively. Another problem was in their strategic plan, as their business had the tendency to make the mistake of overexpansion that resulted in dramatic changes in their business and an inability to maintain their expansion