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A School of Applied Science (SAS) student pits his brains against other youths in the region by pitching Sakae Sushi as the McDonald’s of the sushi world.
You can hardly call dining hard work. That is what Cheong Wai Keong did as his month-long research for the inaugural Asia Pacific Enterprise Challenge (APEE). The 22-year-old ate his way through several sushi restaurants and scoured through food websites to come up with a business model for Sakae Sushi. For all his efforts and ingenuity, he beats participants from countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, seizing the regional top award for APEE.
One of the key competitions under the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), APEE is a regional platform for youths to propose creative solutions to business case studies. The inaugural APEE was held from 16 to 22 November 2009, as an international initiative involving over 80 countries worldwide.
The regional participants were given two case studies to pick from – Sakae Sushi and BYSI – with innovation, cost effectiveness and practicalities in implementation as the key judging criteria.
Although a biomedical sciences major, Wai Keong, a Malaysian, ventured out of his comfort zone for this challenge. To do market research, he dined at Sakae Sushi and Sushi King, one of the top sushi franchises in Malaysia, for food tasting sessions so he could adapt interesting new ideas for Singapore.
His interesting thesis: Localisation. By that, he means to adapt food items to suit local taste buds, for instance, to offer fermented tofu sushi in some parts of China, or chilli crab sushi in the Singapore context.
But first, Wai Keong observes that it is important to anchor an authentic image by importing a piece of Japan with each meal. Having the staff say ‘itadaki-masu’ or offering hot towels before a meal are two ways to do that. Each meal will then feel like a bona fide Japanese dining experience to the customers.
“As a biomedical sciences student, I took on this project for the experience and really didn’t expect to win,” Wai Keong relates to the 3,000-word report, which has won him the APEE regional award.
His success however, has fuelled a passion for entrepreneurship. He dreams of founding a marketing consultancy company to add value to products and services, refine unique selling points and discover new markets.
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