Tech-Savvy Warungs to Take Key Leap Toward Digital Economy
09 March, 2020
With robust digital inclusion encouraged by online-to-offline systems, small mom-and-pop shops, or warung, is now able to take a key leap toward the digital economy.
Indonesia happens to be Asia's largest and fast-growing digital market, worth an expected $133 billion by 2025.
At a recent meeting, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo called on the industry to reap the entire benefits of the technology revolution.
The president's call also pertains to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) - the country's economical backbone with an gross annual GDP contribution of around 60 percent.
Warungs have remained one of the most common types of MSMEs in Indonesia, with around 4.5 million of them found over the archipelago.
Catapulting them in to the digital realm, however, presents lots of challenges.
Commonly owned by more affordable or middle-income families, these traditional businesses typically lack financing and skillsets. Many of them are maintained by older persons who aren't very tech-savvy and incredibly few have insurance.
In a nutshell, they lack the fiscal literacy to greatly help them develop their business.
It's this tech and financial illiteracy among warung owners that later induced a surge in online-to-offline (O2O) platforms.
Ride-hailing huge Grab tapped in to the offline industry with a significant acquisition of O2O program Kudo on 2017. Kudo was shortly rebranded as GrabKios.
"Pick up realizes the pivotal purpose played by MSMEs inside our economy. That's where our program chimes in, to upscale these traditional merchants toward digital inclusion," GrabKios head Agung Nugroho explained at a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Teamwork Makes Dream Work
Such as a traditional O2O system, GrabKios gives warungs quick access to fast-moving consumer goods and digital payments, amongst others.
To create it an all-encompassing software for their 2.8 million micro-businesses, GrabKios companions with Pick up Ventures Velocity (GVV) graduates - an exercise and partnership program for top-seeding startups across Southeast Asia.
One of the graduates includes insurance tech startup Qoala who have provides micro-insurance starting from only Rp 2,000 (15 cents).
"We've noticed that many warungs aren't covered. Our partnership with Qoala permits warung owners to receive easy access to micro-insurance and also allows them to get other financial products ideal for their line of business," Agung said.
In the past half a year, a complete of 20,000 insurance policies have been issued to GrabKios owners.
With prepaid phone credits being perhaps one of the most purchased goods on GrabKios, the program also gives away screen protectors for the warung customers.
GrabKios aims to include a million merchants found in 2021 within their digital inclusivity plan, GrabForGood 2025.
Source: jakartaglobe.id
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