(Courtesy of Simon A Panggabean)

Failure in business can leave some despondent and fearful of taking risks. Even though it's tough to deal with failure, one successful businessman finds that striving and moving forward eventually pays off.

Business executive Go Hengky Setiawan knows first-hand the feeling of failure, but he is not fazed by it.

He embraces it and the knowledge it brings.

'Failure is part of the process of achieving success,' said the owner and CEO of PT Agung Sedayu Properindo and Binakarya Properindo Group.

'My experienc of failure gave valuable lessons for me and I learned much from the failure,' said the 57-year-old father of three.

He started out as a traveling shoe salesman after graduating from high school in the 1970s.

The young Hengky traveled throughout Java and Bali, bringing leather shoes to be sold to retail shops. The footwear came from cottage industries. .

Selling the shoes on consignment led to his undoing.

'Many shops that received my shoes opted to pay later and some of them even demanded extensions of up to three months. This made it difficult for me financially because I had to pay the shoemakers,' he recollected.

'The cottage industries needed money for their daily operations and therefore I had to pay them punctually and on a regular basis.'

The arrangement left him in the red. After six years, he turned to the furniture sector in the hope of making up for his losses.

He opened a furniture shop in Sur.abaya, but once again late payments from customers left him in a financial predicament. He once again decided to move into another field.

Despite the failures, Hengky was firm and determined to move forward. In 1988 he decided to move from his hometown of Jember to Jakarta and try his hand at the property business.

'Property is a good business because the price of land never drops but tends to go up and cannot be produced in great quantities,' he reasoned.

His property business has continued to grow over the years, and weathered economic downturns.

From a simple shoe salesman and owner of a furniture store, he has turned into a property owner and CEO with numerous projects that include shop-houses and apartments.

He drew on his tough learning curves of the past to face challenges.

Like other property companies, his firm was hit severely by the financial crisis in 1998. However, he knew how to deal with the crisis to safeguard his business and employees. He kept selling despite the decline in customer purchasing power among customers because of his conviction Indonesia would recover from the economic slump.

'Apart from nurturing a sense of perseverance, I encourage my employees to not easily surrender to problems, challenges ahead and difficulties,' he said.

He applies clear rules of reward and punishment, including large bonuses for employees with outstanding performance. 'Such differences and rewards can spur them to better achievement,' he said.

When it comes to business operations, he sticks to commitments, deadlines and quality. 'I lead my company by adopting a family management style and consider the employees as my children and in that way, we can survive and we can cooperate with them,' he said.

Hengky always keeps abreast with issues expected to have an impact on property business. For the property industry, Bank Indonesia's (the country's central bank) move to issue a regulation on loan to value (LTV) in housing loans (KPR) in September 2013 was tough and challenging.

According to him, the current property market situation is somewhat unfavorable, especially in the wake of BI's issued policy of the LTV in housing loans, especially with regard to the ownership of a second or third house.

The regulation, he said, has had a great impact on sales, which have decreased by 50 percent to 60 percent.

Matter of interest

He expressed the hope that the policy could still be revised given that members of Real Estate Indonesia (REI) had yet to be involved in making the policy.

'Such a regulation is normal in other countries. But there, the interest rate is low, while here there are so many regulations.'

The problem is many developers are often unaware whether the house purchased is the first home or not as declared by the customer. 'When BI checks, it finds out that the customers already have a house,' said Hengky.

'The regulation creates a burden as a developer has to build the house first before the bank's disbursement of KPR,' he said.

Under the current law, a married couple can only have one house. 'So, if the husband or the wife later on buys another house it automatically is regarded as the second one. The impact is great on the consumers as well as developers,' he said.

He gave an example of an unmarried customer who purchases a house. 'Initially the calculation was based on KPR and after marriage if the spouse already has a house then it is considered as the second house,' he explained.

Hence, the payment mechanism changes as there will be no disbursement of KPR for the second house, so the developer suffers a loss as the house has to be completed before he can receive the housing loan. 'So if only depending on the down payment from the customer, then wait for the completion of the house to get the housing loan, all this means the price structure has changed and can cause a conflict between the developer and the customer. This is very tough.'

At Ease

Life's essentials
Family is number one for Hengky. He vacations with his wife, three children and five grandchildren both here and abroad.

Weekend activities
Getting together with family members and having dinner with them to maintain harmonious and intimate relationships.

Favorite family activity
Watching movies.

Keeping fit
Sparing about 40 minutes exercising daily, particularly running on a treadmill, for coronary health. Has regular check-ups.

Place and Date of Birth
Jember, East Java, Jan.8, 1957

Experience
From 1991 to present, owner and CEO of PT Agung Sedayu Properindo and from 1996 to present, owner and CEO of

PT Binakarya Properindo Group. Previously, he was a traveling shoe salesman and owner of a furniture shop.

Education
Senior High School.

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