COVID-19: Supporting enterprises, jobs and incomes

Keeping-up the business spirits of Indonesian MSMEs in the midst of uncertainty

The ILO’s SCORE programme together with the Parahyangan Catholic University not only improve the productivity of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), but also help them keeping their business spirits in the midst of uncertainty. Some MSMEs have shown increased revenues.

News | Jakarta, Indonesia | 25 November 2020
The culinary and bakery business during the COVID-19 pandemic
Utis Sutisna, owner of a bakery business named Donat Taro & Cake, is finally able to smile again after many difficult months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has slowed down many businesses in Indonesia, particularly small and medium-sized businesses.

The revenues continuously declined to 50 percent in the first three months of the pandemic. Yet, my sales and revenues have begun to rise when I started to maximize online marketing potentials by collaborating with an online platform."

Diki Kurnia, a founder of culinary business named Milan Food Bandung
After witnessing a decline in revenues in the months of April and May, he was able to double his revenue to Rp 82 million in June by providing new products and improving his marketing strategy to online marketing.

A similar business improvement was also witnessed by Diki Kurnia, a founder of culinary business named Milan Food Bandung. He was able to increase his revenue from Rp 5 million in April to triple revenue of Rp 15 million.

“The revenues continuously declined to 50 percent in the first three months of the pandemic. Yet, my sales and revenues have begun to rise when I started to maximize online marketing potentials by collaborating with an online platform,” Diki said.

Utis and Diki were two business owners out of 33 participated in the ILO’s Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) Training, focusing on assisting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in their bid to elevate productivity and working conditions particularly during the current pandemic.

Combining productivity and motivational training approach

One of the SCORE training programmes conducted by the Parahyangan Catholic University

Considering the circumstance, this is no longer business as usual. Thus, we decided to not only provide the participants with training programmes that help them increasing their productivity and competitiveness, but also with motivational seminars to revive their surviving spirits."

Fernando Mulia, the ILO’s SCORE trainer who is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Economy
The training was conducted by one of the ILO’s SCORE Training partners: the Parahyangan Catholic University (Unpar) in Bandung, West Java. The university has independently embedded ILO SCORE Training in its community development programme, seeking to provide not only reinforcements and assistance, but also motivation and support for struggling MSMEs.

“Considering the circumstance, this is no longer business as usual. Thus, we decided to not only provide the participants with training that help them increasing their productivity and competitiveness, but also with motivational seminars to revive their surviving spirits,” explained Fernando Mulia, a SCORE trainer who is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Economy.

The university had conducted a series of SCORE Trainings for local MSMEs before the pandemic. During the pandemic, the training team adapted and adjusted the materials to fit with online training. They also prepared Achievement Motivation Training sessions to lift up the participants’ spirits and provided a business coaching session through instant messages and phone calls.

“The training inspired and motivated me to do product innovations and improve marketing measures to elevate my competitiveness,” told Sutisna about the benefits gained from the training.

The training inspired and motivated me to do product innovations and improve marketing measures to elevate my competitiveness."

Utis Sutisna, owner of a bakery business named Donat Taro & Cake
Meanwhile Diki revealed that the training program had allowed him to make significant improvements in his business, including internal information sharing, production line arrangement and cleanliness, occupational safety and health, bookkeeping, product innovation as well as packaging and marketing improvement.

Shifting to online marketing strategy also helped Sara, owner of Beauty Handcraft, a garment accessories retail shop, to increase her conversion rate from 4.35 percent in March to 7.35 percent in September. The conversion rate refers to the number of sales divided by total visitors to her online display.

“We have been able to improve our online presence and build our brand. We will continue maximizing our e-commerce strategy,” she stated.

Empowering students to assist MSMEs

In addition to training programme for MSMEs, Unpar has also adopted the ILO’s SCORE Training methodology in its Faculty of Economy’s community service course. The course is designed to empower students so that they can gain hands on experience in assisting MSMEs.

One of the videos on SCORE programme featuring workplace improvement through 5 S
To make the course more attractive for the students, a video competition was held featuring three categories: workplace cooperation, workplace information sharing and workplace improvement through 5S. Around 213 students participated with a total of 61 videos submitted to the competition. The winning videos were announced in August.

“The themes for the video competition highlighted the ILO’s SCORE training Module 1. These videos are used as part of our training programmes and are distributed to all SCORE implementing partners,” concluded Januar Rustandie, SCORE Indonesia Project Manager.