LM FEB UI Survey: SMEs Have Not Been Familiar With Online Transactions

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Institute for Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia (LM FEB UI) presented the results of a survey on several challenges faced by SMEs that are not yet familiar with online transactions.

"One of the results of this survey shows that SMEs have started to actively use instant messaging and social media applications, but they are still not very familiar with e-commerce, both in buying and selling activities," said Head of the UKM Center FEB UI Zahra Kemala in a written statement, quoted from Antara, Sunday, February 12.

From the results of the FEB UI UKM Center survey, 61 percent of MSME owners are more than 40 years old, 37 percent are 25-40 years old, and 2 percent are less than 25 years old.

Meanwhile, from the level of education, 40 percent of high school graduates are dominated, 22 percent of elementary school graduates, 21 percent of junior high school graduates, 11 percent of undergraduate/master/doctorship holders and as many as 6 percent do not have an educational background.

Furthermore, Zahra said that there are still many SME players who have a traditional framework, "extended gadgets", limited time because they are busy with buying and selling activities, limited network infrastructure, and lack of access to information.

The government needs to create a roadmap for digitizing SMEs, conduct digital training that is tailored to market segmentation, improve digital ecosystem service standards, and there needs to be a community that can support each other's digitalization of SMEs.

"Based on previous experience, digitalization training needs to be done to all employees, not only business owners because often material is not conveyed effectively up to the executive level, thus hampering the process of transfering knowledge carried out by the government," he said.

Meanwhile, the Head of the ILUNI Digital Economy Division, FEB UI Imanul Hakim Camil, provided other alternatives for the development of SMEs. Based on his experience, it is much more effective in using a "super offtaker" scheme than on mentoring programs.

"So the form of business that is partnered with brands and quality that is guaranteed so that turnover is more maintained because it is undeniable that SMEs always focus on sales turnover, so it is difficult for them to participate in training and mentoring programs that sacrifice a lot of time and their energy that can be allocated to sell," said Imanul.

Meanwhile, he said, the purpose of the scheme is to create an ecosystem with a healthy SME turnover. "The form of cooperation will involve more BUMDes (Village-Owned Enterprises)," he said.

Meanwhile, FEB UI teaching staff Hapsari Setyowardhani initiated the need for a "big data" managed by the government as a "database" for MSMEs throughout Indonesia. The database can be used by various government agencies as well as by MSME players for market mapping and managing competition.

"In addition, there needs to be support from local governments such as local governments or municipal governments in terms of increasing class MSME assistance. Optimizing service localization also needs to be done by the government, especially for culinary businesses," said Hapsari.