An Indonesia-based unicorn collaborates with a learning institution to create e-commerce courses through a joint course programme. It aims to generate more digital talent in this sector.
The tech unicorn said that the formation of this academy is one of their initiatives or a forum to hone Indonesia’s digital talents. The academy also facilitates the creation of innovations that make people’s lives easier. This is open to students of the Management and Industrial Engineering study programme at their partner university. The tech company hopes that the presence of these courses can accelerate the adoption of digital platforms for as many Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as possible, including students. That way, business actors can maintain their business even during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the university hopes that the programme will unravel the obstacles for MSMEs when entering the digital market, namely the lack of introduction to technology and knowledge. The university will prepare a comprehensive curriculum for students across study programmes. The curriculum also refers to industrial needs. That way, students can get to know more about digital industries and markets such as e-commerce platforms, added the learning institution. The university has previously included courses related to digital technology, namely financial technology (fintech). They also designed modules to support training programmes for MSME players.
Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki stated that the collaboration between digital platforms and campuses will result in research, innovation, and entrepreneurial empowerment in terms of digital marketing, capital to pricing strategies for MSMEs. MSMEs can take advantage of this momentum as an acceleration of digital transformation, with the hope of adapting through various innovations and mastery of technology.
The Ministry added that 4.7 million MSMEs had penetrated the digital ecosystem in the last 11 months. Overall, the number reaches 12 million or 19% of the total around 64 million MSMEs.
Based on World Bank data, as many as 80% of MSMEs who are members of the digital ecosystem have better resilience during the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, as reported by OpenGov Asia, a multinational technology company signed a collaboration with Indonesia’s Surakarta City Government in preparing an export training programme for MSMEs.
Currently, around 40 thousand MSME players in Surakarta have registered with the tech company’s e-commerce platform, with five thousand of them having active export stores. The tech company assessed that the Surakarta players have great potential. This means that there is room for growth for local traders who produce their businesses to increase production capacity and quality to export.
This industrial collaboration with the Surakarta city government is carried out in the form of mentoring or education from upstream to downstream on five main focuses, namely sustainable education, distribution of funding, online marketing, payment and logistics systems, and exports.
The tech company stated that this collaboration is a form of support in developing Indonesian MSMEs. They aim to provide education and assistance that can hone the competence and knowledge of MSMEs to realise exports. They added that through this collaboration, the company is targeting a total of 10,000 new exporters from Surakarta MSME players by the end of 2021, as well as making Surakarta City a blueprint or pilot city for the first MSME export education.
In supporting the government’s programme to advance MSMEs, the tech company is also collaborating with export schools to produce 500,000 new exporters by 2030. This is also supported by the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs.
Also, through utilising e-commerce platforms, Indonesian MSMEs will be able to reap several benefits. One of which is financial where they may double their revenue. Technology allows faster transactions, therefore, providing an opportunity to rapidly increase their revenue as well.
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics encourage the MSMEs to expand their businesses and sell on digital platforms. Selling online will greatly improve the work patterns of these businesses, expanding their reach by utilising modern technologies.