Category: Bite Sized Wisdom

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This post is a part of Bite Sized Wisdom series.

Nowadays, there are a lot of organization that promotes enterpreneurship to rural areas. They aim to encourage people to start businesses, to grow the economy, and making an impact to the community. There are banks with incubation programs, government bodies with enterpreneurship training program, but the impact still leaves much to be desired. With more than 250 million people in Indonesia, with all the resources that exist here, Indonesia should be able to grow much much more than this.

One big matter that was identified was the continuity. Programs that is designed to help enterpreneurs are generally treated more like a project, for example, a 6 month coaching, and then they leave the enterpreneur to fend for themselves and to keep up the habit. In theory, this is not wrong. But in practice, these enterpreneurs, these people that were trained, needs a longer term guidance. Programs like this must not be a one time thing, there must be a continuity.

Of course the fault doesn’t lie on the enterpreneurship program itself, but in part it’s the habit of the people that they’re trying to help. Habit is not easy to break, and there are tons of research and books on this point. It’s necessary to help these budding enterpreneurs change their habit slowly instead of expecting them to change everything after a workshop/program period.

One way this can be done is to have an “account team” that periodically checks on the enterpreneur and be a point of consultation for them. Enabling chat via WhatsApp to a single number is also helpful, as people are becoming more reliant on instant messaging, and they avoid calling people in fear of disturbing others, and in part because of anxiety of calling.

In combination with the above, a welcome addition is to deliver bite sized workshops and programs that is longer in period, but less compacted in content. For example, instead of a workshop encompassing a single week, or a few months, make a year long program with checkpoints, and monthly workshops. This will enable the enterpreneurs to develop the habit, and help the organization track the retention and application of the knowledge that they’re trying to teach.

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This post is a part of Bite Sized Wisdom series.

Young generation(Gen Y, Gen Z, Millenials, Xennials) have tastes that is clearly very different from their predecessors. Long gone are the days where people look for the cheapest alternative. Price is now just one spectrum from which you can see a product/service. Instead of striving for cost leadership, it’s better to strive for differentiation. What value do you offer other than price, that makes you a good choice for clients?

For example, 30k IDR (~2.5 USD) for toasted bread sounds ridiculous if you look at the cost of goods sold perspective, but from a “nongkrong”/hangout place perspective, that’s fine. You spend 50k IDR (~4 USD), you hangout with your friends for a couple hours!

Related to jobs to be done, and value selling, what’s the story that you tell to these young generations? Why should they hire you? Are you enabling them to be happy? In the end, we spend money for a reason, for a specific purpose. Until you identify it and communicate it with your clients, younger generations will be assuming things, and have the wrong expectations about your brand.

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This post is a part of Bite Sized Wisdom series.

Having a low Non-Performing Loan(NPL) is critical to a lender, and in effort to speed up growth of a lending business, some banks/financing companies increasingly willing to lend to riskier profiles (corporate/personal). They are pressured by shareholders, by the market, and also by the government to channel funds, to grow the economy, and to support the country. But how does a lender suppress their Non Performing Loan?

One way is to have a great credit scoring metrics for corporate clients, starting from (obviously) a guarantee (in the form of long term asset like land / building), the guarantor/sponsor, and finally, the industry the business is operating in and the bank’s point of view on whether the industry is growing or contracting.

The good thing about having a very prudent lending is that your NPL is very low and controlled, and you are able to channel more financing to 1 client. But on the other hand, it’s risky because you only have a small number of clientele, even 1 disaster can impact your NPL significantly.

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This post is a part of Bite Sized Wisdom series.

In a family business, having too many family members in the same company, working with each other can be disastrous. For example, if your family owns a factory, then the first kid handles marketing, the second handles finance, and the third handles operations. There’s a sizeable risk on conflict between family members on how the business should be run.

Potential solutions to this problem is to institute just 1 person in the family as the chief of the business, and the others handles other business / acts as advisors. Or if it’s possible, to have your family business divided into several business units with autonomy that doesn’t impact each other too much. For example, the first kid handles logistics business, the second handles factory business, etc.

In the end, a business needs to be professionally run and enabled to be able to grow. Hiring professionals to run the family business is an important thing, to bring in external knowledge, to bring in expertise, and to stop stagnation in the business.

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This post is a part of Bite Sized Wisdom series.

Although there are a lot of definitions of startups, startup in the end is Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME). It’s typically said that startups disrupt the environment, startups are technology-focused companies, startups are the harbringer of destruction to the old business empires.

There are a lot of ways people try to define startups, and there are disagreements on this. People in the tech startup community generally doesn’t like it when startup is defined as MSME. Because startup is a disruptor, and can be enabled to grow very quickly. For example, see how fast Gojek rises from a small company, to a unicorn right now.

But etymology-wise, startup is “a newly established business.” Although it can be modified to mean “company designed to scale very quickly”.

India is the only country that has properly defined what a startup is and with clear metrics:

  • Startup means an entity, incorporated or registered in India :
  • Not prior to seven years, however for Biotechnology Startups not prior to ten years,
  • With annual turnover not exceeding INR 25 crore in any preceding financial year, and
  • Working towards innovation, development or improvement of products or processes or services, or if it is a scalable business model with a high potential of employment generation or wealth creation
    Provided that such entity is not formed by splitting up, or reconstruction, of a business already in existence.