Terampil, Digital Literacy for SME’s

Worldwide, COVID-19 has caused massive economic disruption, even an unprecedented economic crisis. Right after the strict movement regulation (semi lockdown), many of MSME couldn’t operate normally, due to supply chain disruption. Some of them are already closed, such a tourism sector, they have to find another livelihood temporary. Supporting those traditionally underserved with access to capital, networks, and in-demand skills is the key to survive the crises, as have been shown time and time again during 1998 economic crises in Indonesia.

Semut Nusantara consulting has been working in many years to developing SME’s readiness to the next level through business incubation and technical assistance. Our idea is we will give free of charged technical assistance for a year, and SOLVE can support the funding for the initial digital marketing activities and additional capacity building.

Roughly, two-thirds of jobs worldwide are created by small and medium-sized businesses, in Indonesia almost 90% of businesses is micro and small businesses. MSME give 60.34% contribution to Indonesian GDP. MSME’s absorbs 97% workers of productive age population. Indonesia’s economic is comprise by more than 70% informal sector, some of them have to work daily to get daily income.

We do believe that adaptability and human capacity are the keys. That would be the difference between just Immediate Response, with an initiative to ‘Building Back Better'. There has never been a better time to identify the ways in which businesses can transition to rebuilding stronger solutions.  So our problem is how do we can strengthen SME’s resilience, so they can impact the better and more inclusive economy in Indonesia? Not just to survive during pandemic

We have years experience on nurturing Community Based Enterprise in various sectors all over Indonesia. In marketing strategy we are working with local community to have a market insight with market research activities or business validation. Some of the SME’s / community based enterprise we developed has benefited from the digital marketing. For example the current activities during pandemic we are promoting herb traditional drinks of Java: Secang, -which was souvenir of tourism village-, so they can get alternative income. It also boosts human body immune, so their sales increase 500% in a month. We also create a new product in one of our SME’s in Makassar, who initially produce organic soap. When they are severely hit due to closure of supermarket or mall, they are pivoting into hand sanitizer, and then doing digital marketing, which directly led to dramatic increase in demand in several big cities.      

This technical assistance and capacity building will help SME’s to sustain their businesses, either by (1) pivoting their core products into relevant products needed by current market or simply (2) market their product to the untapped market segment through digital marketing strategy.

SME’s who will benefit from this program throughout Indonesia will have to meet this certain criteria:

• Has a potential to become an engine of growth on their area (its material are abundant in one area or has a promising supply chain);
• Logistic friendly (access to delivery);
• Committed to attend all the classes and committed to allocate some of the profit for the future digital marketing;

In order to understand what drives them to committed to the plan we will have a coaching session frequently.

We believe that this initiative will bring a huge impact to community resilience especially on economic livelihood in this unprecedented time. based on current experience we have seen improvement on sales around 73% in average per year 

The main advantage of digital marketing is that a targeted audience can be reached in a cost-effective and measurable way. It will be beneficial for the evaluation of the strategy, further decision making, and long term strategy.

SME’s represents not just economic opportunity, but also social resilience. They have been proven time to time as a messiah in time of crisis. Supporting those traditionally underserved with access to capital, networks, and in-demand skills is the key to survive and adapt to the ever-changing disruptive world.

based on our experience the activities will lead to several outcome metrics such as: 

Building Brand awareness, 

Customer engagement, 

Sales Improvement, 

Customer retention 

in our version, those metrics are the evidence for SME, to
prosper, sustain, create good jobs, and master the appropriate technology in digital edge.

nothing innovative in terms of technology. It is already there..

But we will reach out untapped communities. Currently our works has impacted almost 50.000 people n 15 provinces all over Indonesia. some of them are alredy "Best CBT in Asean" (tourism village impacted 1000 families in Jogyakarta), most improving fisherman cooperative in province (they have cold storage, and stronger supply chain). Basically we aim to leverage traditional business to the next level based on measurable metrics.

Our innovative solution lies in an approach in empowerment We will engage with communities, doing social mapping, market validation, using technology, building stronger institution so the SME's can impact more lives.

Digital Marketing;

Data analytics;

Impact measurement;

We've been working in many years to developing SME’s readiness to the next level through business incubation and technical assistance. our client mostly are company's CSR.
We believe that this initiative will bring a huge impact to community resilience especially on economic livelihood in this unprecedented time. The main advantage of digital marketing is that a targeted audience can be reached in a cost-effective and measurable way. It will be beneficial for the evaluation of the strategy, further decision making, and long term strategy. As mentioned above, based on our experience we have seen improvement on sales around 73% in average per year .

These are several metrics where we will be measured as a success rate of the digital marketing activities:

Building Brand awareness

Number of new followers, clicks, shared posting (viral %)

Customer engagement

number of comments, likes, mentions

Sales Improvement

close %/deals, conversion rate

Customer retention

referral, sales repeat, new reseller

out theory of change is: 

We will conduct a series of activities dedicated to the capacity of the team and marketing & sales performance. Below are some of the activities:

1. Webinar on How SME’s survive during Pandemic (strategizing)
2. Online workshop on Product’s photography using mobile phone;
3. Online workshop on Copywriting
4. Online workshop on Digital Marketing
5. Donation of Instagram & facebook Ads for 25-30 SME’s;

The output of these activities are the traditional metrics we have shared before.

The outcome of those model would be:
- increase in the capacity of the team;

- Sales improvement;

- new business / supply chain impacted;

finally the ultimate goal would be addressing the dimension of the SOLVE's challenge

Currently we had served more than 50.000 people in 15 provinces of Indonesia.

Next year hopefully we will reach 65.000 people (direct and indirect);

our mission is in the 2030 we will empower 1 million Indonesian

in the next year we already have a plan to partner with more clients to address current challenging projects in some rural areas.

we will provide platform for government institution and private sectors to
build partnership with social enterprises, communities, and other
prospective partners in order to create sustainable business process and
to empower  communities.

In the next 5 years we hope that we can transform our company to become aggregator where we can connect stakeholders (govt, companies, NGO, local people) to crowd their project and solution.

Team, we are quite small team with 9 staffs and 30 local facilitator across Indonesia,  so in order to serve more projects we have to recruit more staff. Finding a well suited staff is also quite a challenge.

Another limitations is were working with people everywhere. They are different each others. so it is not only about scale up. Usually it takes time to reach a success.

Lastly is convincing local govt to work together in advancing projects in their area.

Recommendation from partner to recruit appropriate staff;

working with local champion to achieve better results in our Empowerment activities;

better Advocacy to govt

10 staff (full time) and 33 local facilitator (semi full time)

we are blend of practitioners (social entrepreneurs) who had experience working with grassroots, CSR expert, and academia. we have quite robust networks as well, to policymaker, companies, and local all over Indonesia.

Companies, ranging from MNC, state owned companies, family businesses, etc.

Govt like ministry of social welfare.

Local govt (provinces and municipalities).

Start ups (fintech, e commerce, etc)

NGOs

third party payer for our services

beneficiaries are those around 50.000 in 15 provinces

getting more clients and partnership. our social impact and business are embedded.

We are interested to partner with SOLVE in leveraging our works on Empowering people in Indonesia. Perhaps with adoption of your appropriate tech.

we can host MIT student during summer for example

partnership for social and economic research also would be good.

We are also interested if any tech can be implemented to our works

any institution in MIT concerns on Social economic development

60 % of our beneficiaries are woman, and some of them are the decision maker in SME's / community based enterprise

our nature of works is empowering local people to have a SME's or community based enterprises or Social enterprises which can contribute to local economic and wellbeing of the society