“ When it comes to hiring , first and foremost I like to have a good mix of people that are essentially smarter than me in their areas of expertise ”
BIMA TJAHJA VP OF GROWTH AND DATA
BUKALAPAK
Bukalapak community Valuing their people is a trait that spills into the Bukalapak business model , which , despite its state-of-the-art technologybased platform , is heavily invested in its community of customers . Tjahja explains , “ In Indonesia , the business culture is very different from the west . When I was in Australia , I experienced a business environment that had a lot of trust in big government institutions .
“ Your life is basically centered around your bank - from bills and rent to savings and financial transactions . But in Indonesia , there is a natural distrust for big corporations . The population generally is very supportive of small businesses and communities , which is why mom and pop shops have become the lifeblood of our economy .”
Tjahaj says that this unique business environment , therefore , presented several marketing challenges for Bukalapak . “ In the west , you would simply run social media campaigns and contact influencers to get the word out . But in Indonesia , community and more specifically , community leaders are the key to doing business . It sounds very untechnical , but in order to reach our customers , after exploring several other avenues and realizing they weren ’ t going to work , we hired teams of reps to go and visit the communities we wanted to do business with . technologymagazine . com 265