It's been two months since I moved back to Indonesia. I joined my dad's company, a shoe company. We are practically still a small fry compare to other local brands, let alone giant shoemakers like Nike or Adidas. Our brand is called Record. The market segment that we target are the lower-middle income families. It is not the marketing strategy that I would like to share in this blog, but our company's philosophy.
Since our capital is very limited, we need to be more alert of our cost, both operational and production cost. We employ those who are not highly educated to pull the salary down. Our suppliers are also small home industries barely understand the current technology to produce shoes. The compensation definitely is it requires more time (and patient) to train them to achieve the standard performance.
Thus, it is not wrong to say that this company is run by the lower-middle class people trying to challenge those who have more capital and better human resources.
Many people laughing when I told them that I decided to help my dad to grow this company. There are two reasons for the laugh, one is I am wasting my education degree to bother about this small business. I am supposedly working for world-class corporation in United States, not a small shoes industry in Indonesia. The other reason is the doubt over my business skill or character. They say I am too straight and naive to run a business, or I don't have the necessary background to be successful (my education is in economic and statistics, not management or anything else related to business).
So, all the elements (technology, employees, and the boss) are indeed not the recipe for success.
I, however, have a different paradigm. Many of my employees are not in good financial situation while having numbers of dependent they need to take care of. And that, I believe, contains a great potential to make a miracle. Humans are capable to make miracles when their loved ones' lives are at stake. Their families are the biggest asset for them to work and to give all they have.
This is the kind of philosophy I want to engrave in everybody's mind: never underestimate those who are at the bottom and your destiny is not written on the stone.
Unfortunately, we don't know the ending yet, whether we can formidably challenge the giant companies. But, I pray, God, help us to win this war, not for us but for our loved ones, not for our glory but to prove Your Mightiness over challenges. If we don't win this war, let's have a good fight.
