Emerging Trends in the Indonesian SME Sector

Ivantius Limampauw boasting of a career spanning over 12 years, Ivantius specializes mainly in the areas of Sales, Marketing, Route to Market, e-Commerce B2B, and Organizational Leadership. Prior to joining PT Esensi in 2022, he was associated with GoToko and Unilever across diverse functions and capacities.

SMEs in Indonesia are increasingly embracing digital transformation post the covid pandemic, due to which there are now some policies and restrictions that are implemented in Indonesia. As a result, customer behavior through digital platforms is evolving rapidly in recent times. For example, the food ordering & delivery through digital platforms played a crucial role during the pandemic. Also, the interest of dine-in customers too is shifting towards digital, wherein they can now order food and make payments in any restaurant by just scanning their QR codes. This combination of smartphone penetration and change in consumer behavior during covid has been the key factor fueling the digital transformation among Indonesian SMEs.

While companies today implement a variety of strategies to efficiently handle market conditions, I personally feel that increasing the revenue must be the topmost priority for all SMEs. Some of the key strategies through which this can be achieved are expanding only in potential areas, combining on-ground activation, and getting into strategic partnerships. This way, SMEs can not only enhance their brand image in the market, but increase their employee productivity as well. Unfortunately, most of the SMEs in Indonesia are still using their past experiences and gut feeling to make decisions due to lack of proper data and other supporting systems. Thus, it is important for the Indonesian SMEs to implement a solution that can provide end-to-end data and also support the system. Once this is in place, they can then leverage predictive analytics to make informed decisions.

Cybersecurity & Its Impact on Digitalization

For any SaaS company that is undergoing digital transformation, cybersecurity plays a crucial role. Since SMEs are the primary target for criminals lately, it is important for cybersecurity solution providers to maintain the same standards for all companies irrespective of their size or growth stage. Additionally, the cybersecurity companies not only focus on prevention, but also offer more security for their clients by offering a variety of features that enable business owners to take predictive action based on past data and trends. I light of this, we at ESB offer data protection and privacy compliance services to our enterprise and SME clients.

"Indonesian SMEs still rely on manual recruitment for talent acquisition and development. However, we are slowly witnessing the emergence of a new trend, especially in the F&B sector"

E-Commerce Platforms Facilitating Growth & Competitiveness

Currently, SMEs in Indonesia are leveraging e-Commerce platforms on a massive scale to maintain a competitive edge in the market and achieve enhanced growth. However, the key challenge SMEs are currently facing while using e-Commerce platforms in Indonesia is the competitive platform fee that those platforms charge. Given the increasing popularity of Whatsapp and social media in Indonesia, I feel this is the best opportunity for SMEs to use their social media presence to create their own e-Commerce links and start selling their products & services online.

Talent Acquisition & Development to Support Digitization

Currently, Indonesian SMEs still rely on manual recruitment for talent acquisition and development. However, we are slowly witnessing the emergence of a new trend, especially in the F&B sector, wherein companies are including digital certification along with certain years of experience as the basic requirements from the candidates. Additionally, SMEs today are increasingly collaborating with digital platforms for taking care of their recruitment process.