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Below is our recent interview with Joe Wong, CEO at Kopitime Cafe:
Q: What is your mission?
A: We at Kopitime wants to use our National Dish, the Nasi Lemak to bring Malaysians together.
In a country where we share the same space with different cultures and races (Malays, Chinese, Indians), we learn to live in harmony by being sensitive to each other’s cultures.
We believe that Malaysians love for food can bridge any differences. At Kopitime we want to contribute by offering a space where all races can sit together and share this love for Nasi Lemak and become proud to be Malaysians first rather than focusing on race or cultural differences.
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Kopitime Café?
A: Kopitime Cafe started business in 2004 and opened it’s first outlet in a small humble shopping mall in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, serving a popular Malaysian National Dish Nasi Lemak (A Malay fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf served traditionally with Chicken or Fish marinated in Sambal (a type of Malaysian Chilli Paste).
Q: Give us some background on Kopitime Café? How did it start? How has it evolved over the years?
A: Kopitime Cafe started at a time before cafes in Malaysia serving local delicacies were popular in shopping malls. Kopitime made the right investment to venture into opening a cafe in a shopping mall and has since ex panded to 4 outlets to date. Kopitime eventually ventured into the Hospitality Business which focuses on Corporate Catering events and Hotel F&B Management when we saw intense competition with similar business models enter the retail market within 2 years.
Q: What’s your primary objective?
A: As CEO my primary objective is to build Kopitime to become a multi-disciplinary solutions provider and contribute to the Food And Beverage Industry in Malaysia. On the Retail front, we will focus on building our brand by opening more outlets in 2019 across the country via a mix of JV and franchises. We set to have creative menu offerings by identifying what is trending in food around Asia and then be the first to introduce them to Malaysia by creating a fusion of these trendy foods with our best seller the Nasi Lemak.
On the Hospitality front we intend to aggressively expand the business by leveraging on technology. Other than expanding our sales team to build new and existing relationships with our Corporate clients to cater for larger corporate events around the region, we will also be investing in technology to streamline the food production process. These will include robotics that help cook particular dishes in bulk by j ust a programmed input of the required recipes. This way, our central kitchen chefs can be better utilised to manage other business functions such as R&D into new menu offerings to keep our customers engaged.
Recommended: Q: Can you give us insights into your menu?
A: At Kopitime we push the boundaries by offering a classic National dish called Nasi Lemak in creative variations. We have come up with interesting names such as the KING OF KING’s Nasi Lemak, which is dished using fresh Gigantic Big Headed Prawns served with Green Pandan Nasi Lemak Rice, Rendang and Sambal, a local Malaysian Chilli Paste. Our new and upcoming products for 2019 include the GOLDEN INGOT Nasi Lemak (Golden Brown Salted Egg Yolk deep fried Chicken Cubes, served with Green Pandan Nasi Lemak Rice) and NYEOM-CHIKIN Nasi Lemak (Korean Spicy Coated Chicken Drumlets served with Green Pandan Nasi Lemak Rice and Korean Chilli Paste), just to name a few. These foods such as Giant Shell Fish, Salted Egg and Korean Themed Chicken are the current trends in Asia, so the idea is to fuse these foods with our traditional Malaysian dish the Nasi Lemak.
At Kopitime we enjoy new challenges and to break away from the status quo our team is still constantly on the lookout for new exciting trends.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your business and how did you overcome it?
A: Family Partnership. It was a tough period for the founders, when personal interests of it’s founders came first. This was when larger competitors overtook our brand and we saw sales plummet mid 2006 till 2010 as the focus was not on building the business.
The company re-structured by removing family members as partners and a new CEO was hired.
As I took over as CEO, I proposed that a good team played an important role in achieving our vision. I realigned our existing staff and offered our senior management more autonomy to run their teams and encouraged junior staff to also play their part in giving open feedback to our senior management. I also introduced incentive schemes by tiered sales targets for each retail outlet. This encouraged creativity and helped streamline many processes within the company which helped improve our profit margins.
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Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: At Kopitime we want to become a leading Multi-Disciplinary Food And Beverage Solutions Provider in Malaysia. As CEO I will put focus in leveraging on technology to help improve efficiency in our businesses we operate, streamlining our supply chain from production to our outlets.
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