Accelerating Business Digitalization Through 100 Champion SMEs

Digital business illustration (doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises of the Republic of Indonesia supports the "100 UKM Champion" program. A program initiated by the Indonesian SME organization and messaging application owned by Facebook, WhatsApp.

"The '100 UKM Champion' program with WhatsApp, can really become a champion and will move the Indonesian economy. We, the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, the government in a broad sense, are ready to support," said Destri Anna Sari, Assistant Deputy for Marketing of the Indonesian Ministry of Cooperatives and Small Medium Enterprises. quoted from Antara, Friday, October 23.

Destri revealed that before the COVID-19 pandemic only 8 million SMEs "Go Digital." However, COVID-19 has accelerated the digitization of SMEs, with a total of nearly 3 million SMEs Go Digital from May to October.

Destri hopes that UKM will not only be successful in digitizing, but also know how to survive in this digitization. So, with this program it is hoped that SMEs can have more knowledge, especially about promotion and marketing.

"This is an extraordinary innovation because there will be evaluation to monitoring until January, how many transactions were created from this innovative initiation, this will be a lesson in the government's insight from the selected 100 UKM Champion. We support this," said Destri.

The "100 UKM Jawara" program is a continuation of the "Go Digital & Scale Up" training program which encourages 3,600 micro, small and medium enterprise (UMKM) owners in 12 cities in Indonesia to start and run digital businesses.

The "100 UKM Juwara" program invited 100 selected SMEs from the "Go Digital & Scale Up with WhatsApp" program to be introduced to the wider community through the WhatsApp Business application catalog.

"After the go digital training, then the promotion itself can the impact be optimized. This is the background we want to continue with a promotional program. This is our first program to catalog and then social media campaign activities," said project leader ukmindonesia.id, Dewi. Meisari.

This catalog program will create a product profile like a business directory. Dewi said that the SMEs listed in this catalog have been curated from a member database that has been verified by the Deputy for Business Restructuring of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small Medium Enterprises.

Furthermore, UKM Indonesia curated the 100 UKM based on the appearance of their business on digital platforms, such as websites and social media, such as product photos on Instagram.

"Because this is a program that ends up wanting to invite more UKM Go Digital, so we need to sort of promote the role models that have already gone Digital, the curated criteria focus on the digital aspect," said Dewi.

To invite more UKM Go Digital, Dewi also conducted a campaign on Instagram using the hashtag of UKM Juwara. So, when the search is carried out with this hashtag, not only 100 SMEs are listed in the catalog, other UKM will also get a positive impact from the program.

WhatsApp Asia Pacific Director of Public Policy, Clair Deevy, said that the collaboration of digital platforms with associations and government is important, especially to help SMEs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Clair, digital prowess will help SMEs get through the pandemic, even being the key to their success in 2021 and beyond. With the "100 UKM Jawara" catalog program, UKM owners can learn how to communicate with customers in a better and personal way.

"Indonesia is the first country in the world to use this catalog. This program is also in line with the campaign and movement initiated by President Jokowi, Proud to be Made in Indonesia, to support SMEs in Indonesia," said Clair.