Association Of Muslim Professionals: Non-profit Organization For Education, Research, And Counseling Essay.

1. Provide details of competitive analysis for Association of Muslim Professionals. The analysis would be grouped under:
1.1 Competitive analysis - To elaborate into 3 paragraphs. Show any examples or charts if any.
1.2 Customer Analysis- To elaborate into 3 paragraphs. Show any examples or charts if any.
1.3 Competitor Analysis- To elaborate into 3 paragraphs. Show any examples or charts if any.
1.4 Market Analysis- To elaborate into 3 paragraphs. Show any examples or charts if any.

2. Discuss and proposed one (1) strategy with supporting arguments for Indofood that must be related and relevant to the above competitive analysis given in Points 1. Please do not provide strategy that involves pricing of services or competitive pricing.

About the Association of Muslim Professionals

The association of Muslim professionals have dedicated educational, research, counselling and training programs for underprivileged Muslim families and youth. Ranging across most Muslim populated nations of Asia, this organisation also provides help to customers in cases like debt advisory premarital as well as marriage counselling, young couples program as well as registry of Muslim marriages. Hence, there is no specific target customer base for the organisation as they mainly indulge in non-profit activities. However, from a different perception the Muslim community of All the Nations where the organisation operate can be considered as the target consumer base for the Association of Muslim professionals. The Organisation was initially established in the year 1991 as an outcome of the first national convention of Singapore Muslim professionals held in 1990.Since that time, the basic priority of the Association has been the Malay community of Muslims in Singapore. 

The organisation has been conducting development and reintegration program mostly for the people of Singaporean Muslim community. Over 40% Muslim inhabitants in the country have lack of home access, home ownership and education and establishment funding. The organisation also helps the young couples in marriage and establishment through their marriage preparation for young couples program. The organisation also have their own Academy where underprivileged Muslim individuals are funded to undergo the micro business program skills future service program and so on. The aim of AMP is to make them economically self dependent. Lastly, the youth enrichment programme of the organisation also deserves mention. The Muslims of the Singaporean Malay community easily allured towards terrorism groups and their activities. The lack of habitation and basic needs promthethem to adotheterrorism. The youth enrichment program has been launched by the organisation in order to reabsorb the Muslim youth associated with terrorism into the mainstream society. 

The home affairs minister of Singapore confirmed that the situation of Muslim professionals have played a key role in improvement of the lives of Muslim families in the specific community in Singapore. Problems like radicalisation, losing out jobs and over representation of the Malay youth in crime have reduced by 40% because of the active social health programmes launched by the organisation. The ex-offenders and their families are memory supported by the association. A significant role is played by the organisation in supporting those susceptible to drug abuse also. As per the statistics provided by bin Rasheed and Saat (2016), the proportion of Malaya Muslim students crossing the limit of post secondary Education has become 93% in 2016. The value was only 42% in the year 1997. In 2010 also the aggregate number of educated youth in the community was 21%. The contributions of the association towards the community has also helps to increase the number of working professionals from 7 % to 28% in the Malay community. The home access scheme of the association has been very popular and because of this scheme 90% of the Muslim people are having their own homes today.

AMP's Programs and Activities

The association of Muslim professionals in Singapore is a non-profit organisation. The competitive organisations of the AMP in Singapore are also serving the same target consumers. In this context Zainal and Wong (2017), reflects that the corporate relationship among the various Islamic help organisations in Singapore is very strong. There are more than 15 strategically allies Community Health programmes launched in Singapore for the development of the underprivileged Muslim community. This implies that there is no definite market segmentation or specification of business domain between the Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura, the KESUMA, RIMA or the Association of Muslim Professionals. In spite of that minute conflicts regarding government funding, corporate health and other similar factors exist among the various Community Health group that exists in Singapore. Again Williams et al. (2017), opines that since most of the Community help groups in Singapore or lead by Muslim professionals and are targeted to help for the development and upliftment of the Malay Muslim community, their ventures and community programs often comes across into conflict.

The Muhammadiyah Association of Singapore is the most potential competitive of the association of Muslim professionals. This is because they receive International funding from Turkey, Saudi Arabia as well as Bahrain, UAE, Brunei and USA also. This is why the scope of the programmes launched by them are much larger than that of the AMP. The philosophy of this organisation is also contradictory with that of the AMP. The MAS believe that the unification of underprivileged Muslims should take place according to the philosophies of the holy Quran. That is why they encourage funding from Muslim bodies only (Hendriks, van Doorn & van Ewijk, 2016). On the contrary the association of Muslim professionals believe that irrespective of the religious identity, the Muslim of Malay community of Singapore are living in underprivileged conditions. This is the only justification against the social help they do for the people of this community. They have strategic Alliance with all sorts of social help group and encourages funding from any and every individual or agency.

The AMP also preserved conflicting attitude towards the Muslim Converts' Association of Singapore. The basic ideology of the latter is to conduct social welfare and provide religious guidance in Singapore with the aim of converting people into Islam. The organisation also conducts organised classes manipulating the Muslims to influence the non Muslims to get converted to Islam. On the contrary, the AMP conducts charitable help for the Muslim people which only 4 core areas of social benefit (Majul, 2015). These are social education, vocational training, setting of family units and providing them home access and ensuring the overall betterment of the Muslim community in the country. The clearly set objectives of The Association of Muslim professionals have helped them to gain foreign market entry in countries like Myanmar, Thailand, and India and so on. 

Youth Enrichment Program

The association of Muslim professionals mostly operate in the two countries namely Singapore and India. The Organisation was basically launched in Singapore in the year 1990. They work for betterment of all underprivileged people of the Malay Muslim community, all over Singapore. There are also involved in obtaining educational programs and self funded school and colleges under the Singapore Muslim education funding program. After successful ventures in Singapore, organisation started to work for the development of non-privileged Muslims in other countries like India also (Syed & Pio, 2017). The primary centre of operation of the association of Muslim professionals in India are Bangalore, Delhi and Pune. In India the organisation mostly involved in third party programs in collaboration with other self help Groups for the development of the living standard of Muslim. Organisation means to enter the market of China, Philippines, Myanmar Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the financial year 2020-21 also (Hamber & Haneef, 2017). The organisation has also launched a home access scheme for the underprivileged Muslims in Thailand. Under this scheme about 6000 impoverished people will get access to their own home. The organisation has started to provide funds for the micro business program 2015 to Muslim individuals in Singapore and also outside the country. 

The AMP uses an intensive strategy as a part of their competitive strategic standpoint. The intensive strategy of the company is segregated into three main strategies including market penetration strategy, where by the company aims at increasing area of  operations, advertising budget and other promotional efforts, market development strategy where the goal of the company is to increase the number of self-help groups in the local domain by expanding into new product or service areas and lastly there is the individual consultation service providing strategy where were the aims at modified and improving the quality of their existing services by providing those at a personal level.

As a part of the service development strategy, Association of Muslim Professionals has taken the decision to develop a potential scouting team for spotting the community members who need help which would incorporate prospective sponsors willing to help in the ventures of the organisation. The organisation wants to deliver service neutrally and in an unbiased manner (Kolmar & Kamal, 2018). In this context the vocational education academy that they have opened, can be mentioned. The scout groups of the organisation can attract the attention of potential donors and increase the market coverage for their entire range of services that they offer.

Competitive Organizations in Singapore

This is a significant part of the vertical integration strategy of the organisation that depends highly on the distributors, suppliers as well as competitors of the organisation. As a part of their market development, the company is following the joint venture strategy. By the joint venture with Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, the organisation might be able to gain better by gaining strength of the suppliers. This is because Islamic Religious Council of Singapore has contract with almost all major markets suppliers. Another important perspective behind the joint venture with Islamic Religious Council of Singapore is to take control of the financial funding agents of Religious Council of Singapore. The company can use this as a source of capital investment in their new markets within and outside the country. From the point of view of the company the joint venture will help the company to play a more significant role in counselling the former offenders, supporting their family members, as well as supplementing those who are at risk from extensive use of drug and drug abuse (Ganapathy & Balachandran, 2019). This market strategy has helped the company to accumulate a market cap close to $5 billion US dollar and thereby gain a prominent listing among the names of the authorised social help organisations. This will be of further help in gaining funding for their future projects.

This listing will in turn help the organisation to enter in foreign markets. This is because increment organisational value always impact the brand loyalty of any product/services. Secondly, major joint venture also create news headlines that increases brand awareness. The capital share against their legitimacy for social help share went up to 58% in 2016 and has gone up to 70% in 2018 (Jalil et al. 2017). The company has foreign presence in various Western countries including America. However, in spite of the growing popularity of the organisation for their welfare activities, Association of Muslim Professionals is not licensed to conduct their activities in the foreign countries without prior consultation and permit from the local area authorities. However, it is worth mentioning that the valuation of Indonesian rupiah is falling drastically against the US dollar. This implies that in order to bear the advertising, promoting and scouting cost in the market of Western countries, the company has to gain market capital from their stock capital only (Husin, Azahari & Rahman, 2018). In this context, brand awareness of the company is a significant achievement. The vast market presence of the company in the Indonesian market will allow foreign investors to recognise Association of Muslim Professionals as a major welfare organisation whereby they will receive foreign aid for the upliftment of Muslims. 

Reference List and Bibliography

bin Rasheed, Z. A., & Saat, N. (Eds.). (2016). Majulah!: 50 Years of Malay/Muslim Community in Singapore. World Scientific.

Ganapathy, N., & Balachandran, L. (2019). “Racialized masculinities”: A gendered response to marginalization among Malay boys in Singapore. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 52(1), 94-110.

Hamber, N., & Haneef, M. (2017). Waqf-Based Social Micro Venture Fund: A Proposal for the Malay-Muslim Community in Singapore. Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, 30(1).

Hendriks, P., van Doorn, L., & van Ewijk, H. J. (2016). Turkish and Moroccan Dutch professionals in social work. European Journal of Social Work, 19(5), 679-691.

Husin, S. N. M. S., Azahari, R., & Rahman, A. A. (2018). Wedding Expenses by the Malay-Muslim Community: An Investigation into the Sources of Expenditure. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN BUSINESS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, 8(10).

Jalil, M. H., Dakir, J., Awal, N. A. M., Sham, F. M., Hassan, W. Z. W., Ibrahim, S. M. I., & Terin, M. I. M. (2017). Peripheral studies of muslim identity in islamic world: Malay muslim case study. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 2017(November Special Issue INTE), 711-715.

Kadir, F. K. A., Rahman, A. A., Salamun, H., Embong, A. H., Adam, F., & Embong, R. (2018). Heresy Phenomena in the Malay Community in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(4), 697-705.

Kolmar, A., & Kamal, A. H. (2018). Developing a Path to Improve Cultural Competency in Islam Among Palliative Care Professionals. Journal of pain and symptom management, 55(3), e1-e3.

Majul, C. A. (2015). The contemporary Muslim movement in the Philippines. BookBaby.

Sidek, F., Pavlovich, K., & Gibb, J. (2018). Entrepreneurship as worship: A Malay Muslim perspective. Journal of Management & Organization, 24(5), 698-710.

Syed, J., & Pio, E. (2017). Muslim diaspora in the West and international HRM.

Williams, P., James, A., McConnell, F., & Vira, B. (2017). Working at the margins? Muslim middle class professionals in India and the limits of ‘labour agency’. Environment and Planning A, 49(6), 1266-1285.

Yeo, G. (2016). Malay-Muslim Community in the Next Lap. In MAJULAH! 50 Years of Malay/Muslim Community in Singapore (pp. 129-136).

Zainal, H., & Wong, G. (2017). Voices behind the veil: Unravelling the hijab debate in Singapore through the lived experiences of hijab-wearing Malay-Muslim women. South East Asia Research, 25(2), 107-121.