Nurturing Family-like Management Style, Key to Noor Arfa Holdings’ Growth

From a small shop in Kuala Terengganu to have grown into one of the most prestigious batik companies in Malaysia, Noor Arfa Holdings started from an effort of a loving couple of Wan Mohd Ariffin Wan Long and his wife, Noor Hijerah Hanafiah.

Many would question the secret behind the success of this four-decade batik company based in Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu. Nothing much can be revealed as the only key factor to this company’s longevity is due to the strong bond and family-oriented management of the company.

A former employee of Noor Arfa Batik, Taqiuddin Mohammad, 25, revealed how he felt welcomed and pleased throughout the period when working with the company.

"Our management never dismisses the employees' idea to make programmes. Back then, when I was working at Noor Arfa Craft Complex (NACC), I managed to channel my idea and had successfully did a 'Cintai Seni Batik' campaign and colouring contest though I was only in charge of demonstration of batik," said Taqiuddin.

Resigned from Noor Arfa Batik last September, he now embarked in his journey of pursuing his dream to set up his own business. Though now he has his own business, the successor and the Managing Director of Noor Arfa Batik, Wan Mohd Hafiz Wan Mohd Ariffin and wife, Ismanisa Itam, the Manager of Noor Arfa Batik still help him in the journey of his business.

This is in line with Noor Arfa Batik’s company mission to share the experience and business knowledge apart from to build corporate agents within Malaysia.

Wan Mohd Hafiz or also known as ‘Sir Hafiz’ is a father-like figure among his employees and knowledge isn’t something that he keeps for himself. He also feels responsible to support the dreams of his people the moment they set their foot to join the company.

“On my table, it’s full of the dreams of my employees. It can be about wanting to have cars or houses or going to perform Umrah (an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca). Because at the end of the day, we work to achieve our dreams. If I don’t know them, how am I going to help my employees?

“I perceive our team as my own children. I will guide them from the moment they walk until the moment they succeed,” he said with a smile.

He noted the reason why they have a strong sense of community among the company’s employees. He also added that some of the employees that work with them have a history as long as 20 years serving at Noor Arfa Craft Complex.

Embracing the concept of inclusion without considering former employees as opponents, the management of Noor Arfa Batik still lends a helping hand when they need assistance and guidance.

"I now make my own batik kit, but with the help of Noor Arfa Batik. Since I am a new entrepreneur and do not have my own studio yet, Noor Arfa Batik let me use their studio to show their support to me.

"Noor Arfa also never fails to assist me though I am no longer their responsibility. For every batik kit that I've produced, Noor Arfa Batik helps me to improve by giving feedback and constructive criticism," said Taqiuddin.

Apart from that, Noor Arfa Batik believes that positive energy always starts in the morning hence, they often emphasize on morning assembly.

Adopting from the Japanese culture, namely “Chorei”, where it stresses on the importance of morning routines within an organization, it is also Noor Arfa Batik’s culture to do a daily morning assembly with all the staff; to revise on the company’s vision and mission, do morning exercise and share motivational talks from none other than the Managing Director of Noor Arfa Batik himself.

Wan Mohd Hafiz is known for his passion to spread knowledge, be it business knowledge or even motivational talks.

“However, since the Movement Control Order (MCO) was implemented during March last year, the morning ‘ritual’ was shifted to Facebook Live. Sir Hafiz wouldn’t go through the day without sharing good values with others,” Taqiuddin stated.

Though Taqiuddin is no longer working there, he expressed that he still longs for the company. He stated that many former employees, too, told that the working environment in Noor Arfa Batik is distinctive if it were to compare with their current company.

The management of Noor Arfa Batik has always organized collective activities for all staff with one specific goal, to focus on bonding of the staff and close the gaps between colleagues. They usually went for hiking, kayaking and even had a cooking competition with all the staff before.

It is indeed that the bond built is too strong until former employees who no longer work at Noor Arfa Batik are still in contact with the existing employees, telling them they longed for the working environment in Noor Arfa Batik.

It was no exaggeration that Noor Arfa Batik is a well-known batik company in Terengganu. The locals acknowledge the batik in Noor Arfa Batik as the exclusive batik, making them value the products more.

Despite a clear difference in the price range of its batik products compared to others’ in the market, its high-priced yet high-quality products that attract the customers to purchase it even more as it serves a luxurious material and exclusive touch from their own tailors.

“Noor Arfa’s batik products couldn’t be compared with the batik in Pasar Payang, especially in terms of branding. The Sultanah of Terengganu herself, Sultanah Nur Zahirah, also knows and acknowledges Noor Arfa Batik,” Wan Mohd Hafiz stated.

The turning point of its marketing plan

As Noor Arfa Batik is already a trusted and well-established brand among the locals, they need to promote and market their products with more effort and in various ways possible to the people throughout the nation.

In order to be different and a step ahead of everyone else in the market, Noor Arfa Batik has been quite persevering in marketing their products. This includes organizing their own ‘Fashion Show’ to showcase their masterpieces from hand-drawn batik of intricate patterns to the block stamped Batik of various designs and colours.

As the saying goes, first impressions matter the most. In marketing and promoting their batik pieces, Noor Arfa Batik has been sponsoring abundant and various television shows, dramas, and programmes to make sure that their brand is well-known to every corner of the country.

A number of famous celebrities and public figures such as Ziana Zain and Sufian Suhaimi can also be spotted donning the batik pieces and products of Noor Arfa Batik, which adds value to its brand even more.

“When it comes to fashion, we need to get people to wear it first, so that the rest can follow and eventually buy our products. Other than from the celebrities and television programmes, sometimes, we also sponsored quite a lot of media people such as the news anchors from Astro Awani and NTV7. It depends on the certain day if the theme for the day is Batik, we will let them put on some of our pieces,” said Wan Mohd Hafiz.

In the past, Noor Arfa Batik focused on franchising and introducing its brand to the big cities and more developed states such as Kuala Lumpur and Melaka as part of its growth strategy and expanding its business. However, the year 2018 became the year of their turning point as they started to slow down on their franchising plan and devoted more to online.

Online and offline were once very different from one another, yet with the emergence and the booming era of e-commerce platforms, the line between those two worlds seems to be fading away. The emergence of an online selling platform, particularly known as e-commerce, has allowed the retailers like Noor Arfa Batik to execute what they do offline the same way but better, more flexible, and convenient.

During their first year of doing things differently, they had successfully gained a sale as much as a franchise could make, which has totally changed their marketing strategy as they started to focus more on online platforms such as Zalora, FashionValet, and the home-shopping channel, Go Shop.

Thus, looking at such an opportunity, in 2019, Noor Arfa Batik immediately made the drastic decision to shut down three of its branches as their online sales increased three-fold than the year before, which had proven the effectiveness of the online platform.

“We decided to put a closure on some of our branches not because it did not do well but because we now know how far the online platform can go. Why should we pay more for the branches when through online we can save the operating cost so much more?” Wan Mohd Hafiz noted on Noor Arfa’s decision.

With that in mind, Noor Arfa Batik started to build their own online team, ‘Noor Arfa Empire,’ to handle the online platform, mainly Shopee and Lazada, which was the same as the dropship system, with its members addressed as ‘Noor Arfa Affiliates.’

The team was initially established in 2018, but it was not given a serious thought at the moment as they were still in the trial process to see whether it could succeed. In the year 2019, they were very sure of the success of e-commerce, thus leading to the newly established ‘Noor Arfa Empire.’

Coping with the pandemic

When things were going smoothly, the country’s economy was suddenly hit with the unprecedented event, the pandemic, causing business disruptions to the sellers and retailers, including Noor Arfa Batik. However, Malaysia was not the only one affected, as the world economy also did.

With the business operation needed to be halted as the Movement Control Order (MCO) was implemented, Noor Arfa Batik also faced some hurdles as they still needed to run their business despite the inability to do so.

Therefore, an emergency meeting was held among all the staff regardless of their status and positions to discuss the measures and actions that can be taken considering their situation.

“The factory workers obviously cannot work from home as all the equipment and machines are placed in the factory. So, we try our best to find the best solution to help these workers to continue working amid the pandemic,” Wan Mohd Hafiz explained.

Eventually, they came up with the final decision to shift all staff to the only available department of the moment, the online sales department. Unlike most of the companies who either retrench their staff or lay them off, Noor Arfa Batik did not. Instead, they found an alternative way for the teams to continue working even during the pandemic.

However, it is understandable that not everyone would agree to shift from working in a physical store to an online platform; it is not an easy change. Thus, Noor Arfa Batik offered them two options, whether to stay but join the online sales team or instead of being retrenched, they were granted a ‘leave without pay’ at the employees’ request.

Those who chose to stay were not alone as Noor Arfa Batik would help guide them in adjusting to the new division of work as they are one team, so united they stand, divided they fall.