The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed culinary businesses, including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), to adopt technology. Fortunately, online food delivery service GoFood, a part of ride-hailing application Gojek, has prepared a wide array of support to enable culinary MSMEs to navigate the digital platform.
“Even though they have successfully pivoted to the online platform, culinary MSMEs still face challenges in ensuring business sustainability,” said Catherine Hindra Sutjahyo, chief food officer of Gojek during the Komunitas Partner GoFood (KOMPAG) second anniversary in October.
With that in mind, GoFood has committed to assisting MSME partners in growing their business through various activities. Earlier this year, GoFood provided a commission subsidy program for MSMEs to help them survive the emergency public activity restrictions (PPKM Darurat). In the area of food safety, GoFood has also regularly distributed hygiene equipment to MSMEs while also facilitating access to COVID-19-vaccination.
Moreover, GoFood provides a variety of new educational materials at KOMPAG and has helped MSMEs to improve their business skills at the Konferensi Maju Digital (Digital Advance Conference). “We learned that educational support and capacity building through KOMPAG were important so that MSMEs could improve their skills and be able to compete against increasingly fierce culinary business competition,” Catherine added.
These efforts were deemed successful as reflected in research conducted by the School of Economics and Business at the University of Indonesia. According to the survey, GoFood contributed significantly to the growth of MSME culinary businesses during the pandemic.
The research also discovered that GoFood MSME partners also experienced an average 66 percent revenue increase in 2021, compared to the previous year, and one third of GoFood partners were new entrepreneurs who adopted digital transformation right away. Catherine further explained that the number of partners increased by around 250,000, reaching 1 million partners, 99 percent of which are MSMEs.
Furthermore, four out of five MSMEs surveyed believed that GoFood encouraged business growth and nine out of 10 partners planned to maintain a long-term partnership with the platform.
“From the middle of last year until now, there has been an increase in weekly to monthly transaction growth, where the average monthly income of culinary MSME partners who have joined during the pandemic until now (Q2 2020 - Q3 2021) has increased by seven times,” said Catherine.
The increased income for MSME partners and driver partners has proven to be beneficial to the national economy, as the contribution of the Gojek and GoTo Financial ecosystem has increased 60 percent compared to the previous year and predictably accounted for 1.6 percent of Indonesia’s GDP in 2021. The income is calculated at Rp 249 trillion this year.
The research also found that the main reasons MSMEs trust GoFood are because of the promotion opportunities, the expanding market access as one of the most used food delivery platforms in Indonesia. Moreover, GoFood has also successfully eased operational management through the GoBiz application, and lastly, the application provides entrepreneurship training to grow businesses.
GoFood MSME partner Made Bayu Darmadi, who is the manager of the legendary Nasi Ayam Kedewatan Ibu Mangku in Seminyak, Bali, said, “When we reopened the outlet during the pandemic, our income dropped drastically to Rp 50,000 to Rp 200,000 per day. Hence, we implemented various innovations to attract customers by relying on online food delivery services, such as GoFood.”
After using GoBiz, Bayu felt the restaurant system became more structured. Thanks to the application’s transactions report, the restaurant can run in “autopilot” mode, easing Bayu’s daily workload.
“In terms of service, the Menu Variation feature allows us to accommodate our customer’s different preferences. It’s totally unexpected that there is technology that can help the food business so that all operational aspects can be covered,” said Bayu. He explained, “When public activity restrictions (PPKM) began to be relaxed, only a few guests wanted to dine in a restaurant. GoFood has helped us [to survive the pandemic]. I even found one customer who ordered dishes from our restaurant three times in one day via GoFood. I was very grateful and sent greetings to them through the driver.”
Now the restrictions have begun to subside, Bayu found that sales through GoFood have increased the restaurant's turnover by up to two times.
