JAKARTA, Indonesia – Some IT firms are confident that the rupiah devaluation versus the US dollar will not interfere with their overall performance. Despite the minor sales decrease, they believe the information and communication technology (ICT) industry in Indonesia will continue to grow significantly.
PT Helios Informatika Nusantara, an IT infrastructure solutions provider and a subsidiary of PT Computrade Technology International or CTI Group, is one of the IT distribution companies that aims for five times higher business growth this year.
Deddy Sudja, President Director of Helios, said that the company will expand its current marketing strategy, which includes boosting competency, expanding regional coverage, and upgrading services, in order to meet the fivefold growth objective.
Helios is a value-added distributor for IT infrastructure solutions recently established last April 2014. It is expanding quite aggressively for a company that has only been around for a short period of time.
In the first quarter of 2015, the company became a Hewlett-Packard (HP) Enterprise distributor. At the same time, Helios was also officially chosen as the distributor of Lexmark and launched a branch office in Surabaya, East Java. In addition, Helios expanded its business range in the second quarter of 2015 by becoming a distributor of Aruba Networks, as a vendor of wireless network equipment solutions.
“In order to build the company’s technical competence, we have built a Helios mini showcase at the CTI technology center in Jakarta with an investment of around IDR 2.5 billion,” said Deddy.
While the mini exhibit may be viewed from anywhere, we have no plan to launch a new Helios small showcase for the time being. In terms of service, the company offers technical support and HP repair parts within six hours.
Throughout the first half of 2015, Helios has contributed around 10%-15% for the CTI Group. Meanwhile, the holding company CTI Group is targeting IDR 2 trillion operational revenue growth this year, which means 5.26% growth from IDR 1.9 trillion last year. Other than that, CTI Group also revenue increased by 12% last year.
CTI Group President Director Harry Surjanto previously stated that this company goal was planned after witnessing significant growth of information and communication technology (ICT) in Indonesia last year. “Given the current economic state, we are optimistic about our growth continuity this year,” he said.
To attain this goal, the company has created a variety of strategies, including extending its product portfolio, expanding into overseas markets in Southeast Asia (ASEAN), and market education. As of now, the company has distributed 38 brands, including Lenovo, IBM, EMC, VMware, Google, Huawei, dan lain-lain.
Slowdown
According to Lucky Gani, Business Group Leader, Windows Division, Microsoft Indonesia, the dilemma of the weakening rupiah occurred not only in the IT industry but also happening in the entire other lines of industry. However, Microsoft is confident that it can continue to expand this year through collaboration among Microsoft, computer vendors, and distributors to market Windows 10-based products.
“Everything is under pressure, both for IT consumers as well as enterprises. Hence, we present a cost-effective solution through Windows 10 for enterprises,” Lucky said.
According to him, there are some features in Windows 10 Enterprise that are costly when purchased separately by the company, such as antivirus, locker, enterprise protection, Windows Store for Business, and many more.
Lucky did not give a nod to the IT products price hike forecast due to the IDR deprecation. According to him, Microsoft pricings are reflected from global prices and emerging market prices. Other than that, price adjustment will also be determined by respective computer manufacturers and distributors.
Setyo Handoyo, Secretary General of the Indonesian Information Technology Industry Association, previously stated that the strengthening value of dollar versus rupiah would automatically slow down the IT product market caused by purchases being restricted. Due to the increase in the dollar exchange rate, IT product sellers were compelled to raise the selling price of their IT goods by 5.5%-10%, depending on the hedging strategy used.
“Sales losses occur when product purchases are made in dollars and the sales are in rupiah. When a vendor raises price, there is a possibility that the product will not sell well. On the other hand, there are old product stocks with old prices,” said Setyo.
According to Setyo, global IT product vendors will experience lower losses than domestic IT product vendors because global IT vendors market well in many countries. Hence, when Indonesia suffers from the depreciation of rupiah exchange rates, other countries would benefit greatly from the increase in the exchange rate. Other than that, local IT vendors only have a market in Indonesia, which results in a more extreme decline.
However, the Indonesian Computer Entrepreneurs Association (Apkomindo) earlier predicted that the Indonesian computer product market would grow this year, but not significantly. In 2014, computer sales are expected to reach 7.46 million units, or USD 3.18 billion. (*)
Source : http://www.ift.co.id/posts/rupiah-melemah-vendor-ti-masih-optimistis-bertumbuh
