Debbie currently serves as the head of business development at Gift Card Indonesia. She was a recruitment branding specialist at PT Astra International where she trained more than 1,200 top university students in preparation for their careers. You can connect with her on LinkedIn here.
Indonesia’s emerging digital business is a sexy market for investors, VCs, and US graduates.
They have made a solid business plan, done their market research, but they often forget to consider one factor: human resource.
A friend of mine once told me proudly that they will build a courier service business (like JNE and TIKI). I chuckled and commented, “That’s a tough business.” He didn’t seem disturbed and explained confidently that they already have this sophisticated software from Singapore. I nodded and said, “That’s not what I meant. Managing the couriers is the difficult part. Imagine having to educate hundreds of couriers, many of whom aren’t tech-savvy. They need to learn how to use a piece of sophisticated software on the road.”
Even if your startup mainly consists of white-collar workers, you will still find difficulties, such as:
1. The best fresh grads are taken
Unlike in US, Indonesian university graduates differ widely in quality (caused by lack of standardization and regulation to open and manage a university). There are only a few good universities, and their best graduates have been booked even before they graduate. Top companies in Indonesia, such as Astra, Unilever, Danone, Chevron, and Pertamina actively engage those universities and do massive employer branding activities: scholarship, training, business competition, funded project assignments, etc. They aim to be the top-of-mind employer when these best students graduate.
It’s hard to instantly change these best students’ mindsets to join startup companies; maybe it’ll take years. For now, we have to be contented with second layer fresh graduates.
2. Middle-level executives desire stability
Blue chip companies offer a great range of facility and stability that’s almost impossible to compete with, such as soft loans for house/apartment ownership (e.g.: Kompas Gramedia group) and car ownership plan (e.g.: Astra group). For employees with families, those benefits are significantly important. Not to mention if the startup is very young, unprofitable, and perceived as “can collapsed anytime”. (Comparison: Indonesian blue chip companies are 30-70 years old. Indonesian most successful startups are only 5 years old.)
3. Eastern culture of sungkan
We cannot find direct translation of sungkan. Sungkan means non-direct communications and actions due to respect for other people. Many companies still honor this sungkan culture, which means employees with bad performance cannot be reproved or fired openly. While in startups, you cannot afford even one underperforming employee.
4. High collectivism in society
This is the definition of collectivism in psychology:
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