ILO’s SCORE and APINDO provide series of online training in fashion and culinary sectors

The programme on the APINDO MSME Academy platform with APINDO Top Karir was divided into two separate series for businesses in the fashion and culinary sectors.

To assist micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to elevate their business practices, the ILO’s Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE)  Programme and the Employer’s Association of Indonesia (APINDO) provided a series of online training.

The programme on the APINDO MSME Academy platform with APINDO Top Karir was divided into two separate series for businesses in the fashion and culinary sectors.

“The Master Class teaches business practices that participants can directly apply and impacts positively on their businesses,” said Ronald Walla, APINDO Chairman of MSME Department.

Ronald explained that there were a lot of MSMEs in both the fashion and bakery sectors that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially considering that food and beverage, as well as fashion/apparel businesses, are among the majority of dominant MSME subsectors in Indonesia.

“We chose the top two sectors with the most prevalent SMEs demographic to maximize the learning opportunity,” he elaborated.

Aside from the participating MSME sectors, the APINDO also selectively chose their speakers for both master class training programmes.

“The program partners were rich in knowledge, experience and also influential in each targeted manufacturing sector,” Ronald said, adding that they were chosen to ensure that the programme can provide the best learning value.

Over 300 participants joined the 3-session classes for bakery businesses. Meanwhile, around 55 participants joined the 5 sessions for fashion businesses, where they were taught on a number of modules, including fostering cooperation and sharing information in the workplace, clean production, human resources management and development, occupational safety and health, and quality management.

One of the modules Nancy from Gesyal company was able to implement in her fashion accessories business focused on clean production. Following the masterclass, she was inspired to repurpose leftover materials from her production process and turn them into pouches and packaging for her own products. “Not only did I get to have nicer packaging for my customers, I am also able to carry out my business more sustainably,” she said.

During the three-day bakery business seminar programme, featuring different speakers who were experts in the sector, participants were able to hear the success stories of the Founder of D’Cika Cakes & Bakery La Ode Haerun Ghowe who shared his experience and the importance of resilience in starting a bakery business.

Participants were given an insight on numerous practical materials that they can implement in their businesses, including how they can create their own marketing strategy, how to determine the selling price, and how to deal with complaints that may arise from their customers.

To Dimas from La Te Bakes, he was able to draw inspiration from guest speaker Frederick Reynaldo, a bakery specialist from PT Delisari Nusantara who shared his knowledge on the technical operations of his business. Determining the best type of oven for a bakery business, handling distribution issues due to food expiry dates and dealing with the occasional larger orders were among the insights Dimas was able to gain from the speaker.

At the same time, Aunil from La Miryata bakery enjoyed the presentations by the Founder of D’Cika Cakes & Bakery La Ode Haerun Ghowe who taught her to apply resilience and innovative thinking in starting a business. “Amid the impact on our business due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where our sales had experienced some decline, the materials delivered by Ghowe provided reassurance and inspiration to stay resilient in carrying out our business,” she said.

Data by APINDO showed that 27 percent of the participants from the bakery industry are in the process of implementing business practices from the program, while 66 percent had already implemented them. Concerning the fashion sector, 52 percent of participants already applied techniques taught by the five speakers in the programme and 29 percent are in the process of implementing them.

In light of the high turnout of participants, ILO’s SCORE Indonesia Programme Manager, Januar Rustandie, hopes for more MSMEs to be able to survive the pandemic, at the same time elevating their competitiveness in the post-pandemic world.

“MSMEs need to be equipped with applicable and innovative solutions that can assist them in the effort to adapt, especially during the pandemic, and to come back stronger,” he said.