Nurhayati Subakat (JP/Dea)

In Indonesia’s foreign-dominated fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, Nurhayati Subakat has successfully raised her own makeup brands to rule the domestic market through the company she founded, Paragon Technology and Innovation (PTI), which produced Wardah, one of the most popular cosmetics brands in Indonesia.

PTI has delivered distinguished brands such as Wardah, Make Over, Emina and Putri. Wardah, its flagship brand, is a halal-licensed makeup line with over 30 percent of the domestic cosmetics market share, according to Nielsen Company Indonesia.

Nurhayati’s accomplishments earned her the honor in April of becoming the first woman to be awarded with an honorary doctoral degree by the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), where she studied to become a pharmacist.

Recently, The Jakarta Post’s Rachmadea Aisyah sat down with Nurhayati to discuss her perspectives and experience as a leading businesswoman in PTI and the cosmetics industry as a whole.

Question: What is your secret to this success?

Answer: The key to the success is that I, as the first generation leader of the company, have managed to collaborate with the second generation leaders to perfect our innovations.

I have planted my roots in this company since it was established in 1985. We had our ups and downs, but the key to overcoming that is to make the entire company work as hard and as diligently as possible, as well as to make sure that we care about how others progress within the company.

I had also worked at cosmetics companies [before establishing PTI] and had an educational background as a pharmacist, so I was able to produce high-quality goods with competitive prices.

Starting in 2002, the second generation began relaunching our products so that it could attract younger consumers. In 2009, the hijaber trend [trend among Muslims of wearing hijabs] started and I thank Allah for the perfect opportunity, because that was also the year we relaunched Wardah. Our millennial teams have since been given freedom to be as creative as possible, and they have done so with such hard work too.

In the last couple of years, how have your brands, especially the bigger ones, progressed?

Alhamdulillah [thank God], our growth is always above that of the cosmetics market, which in 2018 grew at around 17 percent. In some years, our growth even doubled from the market figure. We have only obtained the data from the last three years from The Nielsen Company, but it is safe to say that we are now the market leader.

Some of your brands have ventured into body care products, like body lotions and shampoos. Is it true that the growth of this category has not been as good as that of makeup?

We have not actually fully entered the body care segment. We have started with shampoo and some other products, but these categories are ruled by multinational companies and it has been such work for us. For instance, we have launched our Wardah shampoos over a year ago but I cannot yet say that it has been a successful release.

Wardah entered the Malaysian market. Do you plan to expand your sales to other markets in the near future?

We indeed already have a presence in Malaysia and we would love to expand to other surrounding countries, but I think our team is not ready for it yet.

We have not really thought about expanding overseas because we want to focus our efforts on the domestic market. We have a population of more than 250 million people whose market is mostly supplied by multinational companies, so first and foremost would be to top the local market.

As for possible overseas expansion, we prefer to expand in countries with a prevalent Muslim population and the marketing has to be as rigorous as possible.

The Wardah brand already has over 30 percent market share. How much higher do you want that number to go? What are your marketing strategies within the domestic market aside from your halal certification?

We want the number to be over 50 percent, we want to be the king. But I should say that we do not showcase our halal certifications that much in Wardah — our campaign is more about “feeling the beauty” of its users. Beauty, as Wardah promotes, is how we should feel about ourselves and how we should reflect it toward others.

Are you optimistic about reaching that 50 percent market share in the next five years?

I am optimistic, insya Allah [God willing]. We hope to become the king of our own market in the next five years, and in the next 10 years, make it to the top 10 or 20 biggest makeup brands worldwide. It is possible, given that we have overtaken [global brands like] Maybelline and L'Oréal here. Our vision will support that goal since we want PTI to become a company that is constantly growing [and] keep on making quality goods that benefit many people.

You are the first woman to be awarded by an honorary doctoral degree from ITB. How do you feel about such an achievement and as a woman who has successfully raised a big company from nothing?

I certainly feel proud of myself, but I believe that the award is more for my [company] team instead of just me personally [...] this is how ITB acknowledges us as a locally made company that could take on the competition with multinational companies.

You are one of the few Indonesian women who managed to reach the highest position in the formal career world. How do you perceive gender equality at professional workplaces according to your professional experience?

I prefer to call myself an entrepreneur because I founded this company, but to other working women out there, I think the biggest challenge comes from their own ability. We cannot deny that there are still a lot of concerns about working women [in Indonesian culture], how they manage their family and children. So if they could succeed in the latter, there should be no more barrier for them in chasing their career. It is a challenge for women to set their [career] priorities as we are still the ones who have to compromise.

In your entrepreneurial experience, have you ever been discriminated against by anyone just because you are a woman?

Should anyone undermine me because of my gender, it’s going to be a big fault for them. When someone considers me weak since I am a woman, I simply do not have to consider them a match to my competition since they refuse to acknowledge my true competency.

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