Tanri Abeng Appreciates The Performance Of Erick Thohir And Budi Gunadi Sadikin In Handling COVID-19

Former Minister of BUMN, Tanri Abeng. (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Former SOE Minister Tanri Abeng shared his experiences he had done to improve the performance of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) when the economic crisis hit Indonesia in 1998.

According to the BUMN minister in the era of President Soeharto, at that time there were 159 BUMNs that were considered unhealthy so that efforts were needed to fix them.

"I propose to Mr. President Soeharto to profitatize, restructure and finally privatize," he said at the Talk Show & Awarding "Corporate Reputation BUMN (Before & After Pandemic) Millennial's Perspective" as well as BUMN Brand Award 2020, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, September 30.

He said that at that time 10 BUMN holding companies were formed and one of them was merging several existing state-owned banks to become Bank Mandiri. According to Tanri, currently BUMN has a significant role in the country's economy, so that it is able to help Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to grow.

"At least these BUMNs provide comfort and safety in the health sector to the public. BRI has a portfolio to help MSMEs," he said.

He considered that BUMN currently had an accurate strategy to overcome economic problems due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, he appreciates Erick Tohir and Budi Gunadi Sadikin for being involved in overcoming the outbreak, especially in the economic sector.

Meanwhile, Iconomics Founder & CEO Bram S. Putro said the company's reputation was not built overnight, but was formed with a long time and process.

However, the collapse of the company's reputation can be instantaneous, therefore, the company and the leadership level must pay close attention to internal and external aspects that can harm the company's reputation.

"No exception to state-owned companies which have a role as profit institutions as well as have a greater responsibility in supporting government programs. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

According to him, the challenge will be even harder for BUMN, in the current situation, each BUMN will certainly manage its reputation in its own style, including building its reputation in the eyes of millennials.

Related to this, Iconomics sees the performance of state companies in maintaining their reputation, especially during the pandemic and after the COVID-19 pandemic, it will hold a BUMN Brand Award 2020.

In the BUMN Brand Award 2020, BUMN companies were assessed from 4 indicators including market dominance indicators, namely the number of products and services used by BUMN companies surveyed.

Then brand strength involves the number of respondents who know the existence of the brand, then aspects of customer satisfaction as seen from the respondents' assessment of the brand service quality of BUMN companies.

Another aspect that is seen is the perception of BUMN company respondents in contributing socially and economically.

According to Research Director Iconomics Alex Mulya, the survey was conducted on three millennial segments including early, mid-term and late by grouping them based on income segments, namely low, middle and upper.