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Longevity in business is rarely about doing the same thing well for decades. More often, it is about knowing what should remain unchanged — and recognising what must evolve. For Salleh Food Industries Sdn. Bhd., almost four decades in Malaysia’s food manufacturing industry have been shaped by precisely that balance. Established in 1987, the company began with products deeply familiar to Malaysian consumers: kerepek ubi, kerepek pisang and a variety of traditional snacks made from locally sourced agricultural produce. Chief Executive Officer di Salleh Food Industries Sdn Bhd – Mohd Fauzie Salleh. The flavours may be rooted in tradition, but the business behind them is increasingly looking forward. Today, Salleh Food distributes its products throughout Malaysia via retailers and distributors while embracing newer channels including e-commerce and TikTok Shop. Behind that expansion is a wider transformation taking place across the company — one that involves strengthening its brand, modernising systems, developing people and preparing the organisation for its next phase of growth. For a business approaching its fourth decade, the question is no longer simply how to sell more products. It is how to build an organisation capable of remaining relevant for decades more.   The Business Behind the Snack Salleh Food may be recognised as a snack manufacturer, but its role extends further along the value chain. The company takes locally grown agricultural produce and transforms it into accessible, higher-value consumer products. In doing so, its business connects farmers and suppliers with consumers while creating economic opportunities across the communities that support its operations. There is also an emotional dimension to the products it makes. Traditional food occupies a distinctive place within Malaysian culture. A familiar snack can carry memories of childhood, family gatherings and traditions passed from one generation to another. Preserving that connection has remained important to Salleh Food even as the expectations surrounding food manufacturing have changed. The challenge is to retain the familiarity consumers appreciate while ensuring the business behind the product continues to advance. That means bringing modern processes, technology, stronger quality standards and contemporary distribution into a category that has traditionally been dominated by smaller producers.   When a Good Product Is No Longer Enough When Salleh Food began operating in 1987, the opportunity in the market was relatively clear. Demand for local snacks was strong, but many smaller producers faced challenges in maintaining consistency, developing their brands and reaching consumers beyond their immediate markets. Building greater structure around these areas created room for businesses such as Salleh Food to grow. Nearly 40 years later, the market gap has changed. Producing something that tastes good remains fundamental, but it is no longer enough to guarantee success. Consumers have more choices. Brands are discovered through social media as much as supermarket shelves. E-commerce has changed how products are purchased, while digital platforms allow new competitors to enter the market much faster. Trust, consistency, visibility and convenience have become increasingly important. This has pushed Salleh Food to think beyond manufacturing. The company is now focused on building the infrastructure around the product — from its brand and distribution capabilities to its internal systems, people and leadership. Its strategic direction centres on three priorities: strengthening the brand, developing systems and talent, and expanding into larger markets. It is a deliberately focused approach. Like any business, Salleh Food operates with finite time, capital and management resources. Rather than pursuing every opportunity available, the company is increasingly assessing opportunities according to their ability to contribute to long-term organisational value.   Growing Stronger, Not Simply Bigger The distinction between getting bigger and becoming stronger has become increasingly important to Salleh Food. Sales growth is one measurement of success, but the company believes genuine growth should also be reflected in the organisation’s ability to operate without excessive dependence on any single individual. That requires processes that can be repeated, people who can make decisions and leaders capable of taking responsibility. As organisations expand, this becomes significantly more difficult. A management approach that works with ten employees may become ineffective with 50 or 100. Communication becomes more complex. Informal decision-making begins to create bottlenecks. Responsibilities must become clearer, and maintaining alignment around a common vision becomes a leadership challenge in itself. For Salleh Food, scaling has therefore required a shift in the way leadership is approached. Where a leader may once have been heavily involved in solving day-to-day operational problems, the next stage requires becoming what the company describes as a “builder of leaders”. Instead of solving every problem, leadership must develop people who can solve problems themselves. It is a fundamental transition for any growing organisation — particularly one that has evolved from a family-founded enterprise. The objective is to create a business that can continue progressing because capability has been distributed throughout the organisation rather than concentrated at the top.   What Four Decades Really Teach a Business Remaining in business for almost 40 years inevitably means operating through very different economic and commercial environments. Salleh Food has experienced changing consumer preferences, rising costs, operational pressures, new forms of competition and the disruption created by the pandemic. Through each period, the company’s competitive advantage has not necessarily been something consumers can see on its packaging. It has been adaptability. Products can be copied. Prices can be challenged. New competitors can enter a category. What is considerably harder to replicate is an organisation’s ability to continuously learn, adjust and recover when circumstances change. This willingness to evolve has become one of Salleh Food’s most important strengths. While consumers see the final product on a shelf or online, behind it sits an ongoing process of improvement — refining operations, strengthening systems, developing employees and responding to what the market requires next. That mindset is particularly important for established businesses. Longevity can be an advantage, bringing experience, market knowledge and consumer familiarity. But history alone does not guarantee future relevance. The companies that endure are often those willing to challenge the very practices that helped them succeed in the past.  

Revenue can grow while a business gets weaker. It is one of those uncomfortable realities that entrepreneurs tend to discover only after running a company for some time. A strong sales month does not necessarily mean strong cash flow. A profitable year does not automatically mean a business is financially prepared to expand. And a company that is completely compliant with its tax obligations can still be making poor financial decisions. Founder of KPL Corporate Advisory Sdn. Bhd. – Shu Yi Kuek. This is why KPL Corporate Advisory Sdn Bhd believes the relationship between an SME and its accountant needs to change. The Malaysian taxation, audit, accounting and corporate advisory firm works with business owners who are often very good at what they do. They know their customers. They understand their products. They can spot an opportunity and instinctively know when something might sell. What they do not always have is the financial clarity to know whether the business is actually moving in the right direction. And that can become expensive.   Compliance Is the Starting Point Tax has to be filed. Accounts have to be prepared. Regulations have to be followed. KPL does all of that. But compliance tells a business owner surprisingly little about what decision to make on Monday morning. Should another employee be hired? Is there enough cash to open a second location? Why is turnover increasing but profitability barely moving? Is the business financially structured for its next stage? What risks are quietly accumulating? These are not accounting questions in the traditional sense. They are business questions that happen to require a strong understanding of the numbers. That distinction has increasingly shaped KPL’s work. The firm has moved towards becoming an adviser that can sit alongside an entrepreneur and translate financial information into something commercially useful. No unnecessary jargon. No assumption that the person sitting across the table has an accounting degree. Just: What do these numbers mean for my business?   SMEs Have Changed. Their Advisers Have To Change Too. The Malaysian SME of today can move remarkably quickly. A small e-commerce company can suddenly be selling nationwide. A family business can move into export markets. A founder-led operation can become an organisation employing dozens of people within a relatively short period. The financial complexity grows with it. KPL saw early that accounting and taxation were still frequently treated as obligations to be dealt with after the fact. Professional advice could also be overly technical, creating distance between advisers and the very business owners who needed to understand it. Digitalisation has since raised expectations further. Clients want answers faster. They expect better visibility. And increasingly, they want advisers who understand commercial realities rather than simply regulatory requirements. That has pushed KPL towards three priorities: technology, deeper advisory capabilities and people.   Bigger Isn’t the Objective There is an interesting restraint to KPL’s growth philosophy. The firm does not necessarily want every client. It has become increasingly selective about the businesses it works with, favouring organisations that value transparency, ethical practices and sustainable long-term growth. The logic is simple. Taking on more work means very little if the quality of advice deteriorates. For KPL, a better measure of growth is whether clients trust the firm with more complex decisions, whether relationships become deeper, whether employees become stronger professionals and whether internal systems allow the organisation to handle greater complexity without becoming impersonal. That philosophy also explains why rapid expansion holds limited appeal if it comes at the expense of culture or service.   Technology Should Make Advice More Human Accounting is one of many professions being transformed by technology. KPL has increased its adoption of digital workflows and paperless processes, improving efficiency while reducing unnecessary operational waste. Further digital integration forms an important part of its next phase. But the interesting question is not whether technology will replace parts of traditional accounting work. Inevitably, some repetitive processes will become easier to automate. The more important question is what professionals do with the time that creates. For KPL, the answer should be more advisory, not less interaction. If technology can process information faster, professionals can spend more time interpreting it. If systems can handle routine workflows, advisers can devote more attention to understanding the client, identifying risks and discussing decisions. In other words, technology should make the relationship more valuable rather than more distant.   The Growing Pains Are Internal Too KPL faces the same challenge it advises many clients about: scaling changes the organisation itself. In a small team, information moves informally. People know what everyone else is doing. Decisions can happen across a desk. Growth makes that increasingly difficult. The firm has had to strengthen workflows, improve delegation and create clearer processes while investing more heavily in developing its people. Leadership has consequently shifted from personally overseeing work towards building teams capable of taking ownership. The balancing act is maintaining the responsiveness associated with a smaller advisory firm while developing the discipline required of a larger professional organisation. That is not always easy. But neither is building a sustainable SME—which is precisely why KPL understands the clients sitting on the other side of the table.   The Question After the Numbers KPL’s next phase is centred on becoming recognised less as a company businesses visit because they have to file something and more as one they speak to because they are about to make an important decision. Taxation, accounting and audit will remain fundamental. The opportunity is what happens after them. Because when a business owner receives a set of financial statements, the most valuable conversation should not end with: “Here are your numbers.” It should begin with: “So, what are you going to do next?”