TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Bhinneka stays relevant with B2B model in crowded industry
The country’s fast growing e-commerce industry has seen more and more businesses tapping into the market, making it an area of intense competition
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
T
he country’s fast growing e-commerce industry has seen more and more businesses tapping into the market, making it an area of intense competition.
According to data from Bank Indonesia, e-commerce transaction values in 2016 reached Rp 75 trillion (US$5.28 billion).
Staying relevant in the crowded e-commerce market can be difficult, especially when up against local giants such as Tokopedia and Bukalapak, as well as foreign-backed online marketplaces such as the local entities of Singapore-based Lazada and Shopee.
One way to stay relevant is to be different.
For example, one of the oldest local e-commerce companies, Bhinneka Mentari Dimensi (Bhinneka), is strong in its business-to-business (B2B) model, unlike most other platforms that focus on business-to-consumer (B2C) models. Bhinneka partners with official suppliers to sell electronics to corporate customers, which usually purchase in bulk.
Bhinneka commissioner Andi Surja Boediman said the B2B strategy was effective for competing in the country’s booming e-commerce industry as it was profitable. He also said the B2B model was promising as corporate procurement had also shifted from conventional to digital means.
“The advantage of Bhinneka’s B2B business model is from its large volume of transactions, meaning we can get big discounts from suppliers,” Andi explained to The Jakarta Post recently.
With the B2B business model, Bhinneka does not need to compete with the majority of e-commerce businesses that use B2C models.
Andi claimed that Bhinneka was the biggest player in the B2B sector as it has some 26,000 corporate customers including banks, hotels and private or stated-owned enterprises. The transaction value for each company alone can reach up to Rp 180 million a year.
A recent report by e-commerce aggregator website iPrice revealed that Bhinneka was the seventh most visited e-commerce site with 7.3 million visits from January to March.
Bhinneka has also tapped into the business-to-government (B2G) market, which focuses on procurement for government organizations. Bhinneka cooperates with the National Procurement Agency and its goods are listed in the agency’s e-catalogue at e-katalog.lkpp.go.id.
“There are around 4,000 government organizations that have used our services for procurement,” said Andi.
Bhinneka provides a wide range of goods including electronics, office supplies and gadgets.
Separately, information and communication technology expert Heru Sutadi said each individual e-commerce model has its own advantages and disadvantages. B2B and B2G strategies are reliable for customers seeking a large volume of transactions.
“In B2B models, even though the [business] does not have many customers, the profit they can earn could be larger because of the volume of transactions,” said Heru on Tuesday.
Heru also said another advantage of the B2B and B2G model is the transparency they offer, as the procurement history is recorded in the system. With a more transparent system, the procurement process, which used to be a heaven for the corrupt, can be eradicated gradually.
“That’s the spirit of information technology: Transparency,” he said.
