Press Release in Indonesian

The existence of micro business can no longer be perceived half-heartedly. In reality, they provide support towards employment creation and as source of income for the people around them. This is proven by 28 young Shell LiveWIRE entrepreneurs who are able to provide employment opportunities for 218 people living around them.

Food stall “Kedai Rakyat” targeting university students as its consumer, is able to generate monthly sales up to Rp30 million with 11 permanent and 6 part time employees.

“Thank God, we are able to provide employment opportunity to many people this year. There is a 50% increase this year compared to last year,” said Mu’arif, owner of “Kedai Rakyat” in Yogyakarta. The creative 26 year old, managed to become the first finalist of Shell LiveWIRE Business Start-Up Awards (BSA) 2010.

The same goes with Mirza Akbar, albeit in different terms, this young entrepreneur of 23 year old successfully increased its ice cream outlets from 5 in 2009 to 15 outlets by the end of 2010. He started off with 2 workers, now he employs 10 employees to look after the outlets.

According to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in his speech at the Inauguration of National Entrepreneurial Movement at 2 February in SMESCO UKM, Jakarta, fostering the entrepreneurial spirit among the youths and university students is very important. This will create not only employment but also reducing poverty.

“Entrepreneurship can reduce the unemployment since it usually started by people with creative ideas and innovative means especially in creating the employment. They also have the courage to perform new things and take the risks involved,” said the President as quoted from the media center of Ministry of Cooperative and Small Medium Enterprises.

"If entrepreneurship is growing, our economy will continue to move and grow," added the President. Poverty remains the problems due to high unemployment figures. According to the data from Bureau of Statistic (BPS) in 2010, the unemployment figure is 8,32 million people or around 7.14% of total workforce in Indonesia.

No Capital to Start-up the Business, why not?

Big inspiration always comes to people willing to take the risks to make their dreams come true. Ari Wibowo, 23 year old, has proved this. From his daily observation around his campus, he finally came up with ideas to have eatery that is affordable, cozy, fresh, and a hang-out place for university students to just chat or finishing their assignments.

Finally, with the capital borrowed from his university friend, Ari opened up “Restoran Dorong” (RestDoor). Ari offered the concept of eatery catered for university students with home made food, comfortable surrounding, with Air Conditioner and WiFi. The food is affordable since it is no different than the common food stall (Warung Tegal). This concept was well received and now Ari has 6 outlets with 24 employees.

Ari Wibowo is one of the examples of creative young people and can be the source of inspiration from other youths in Indonesia. He is a successful young entrepreneur. He won the Shell LiveWIRE Business Start-Up Awards (BSA) 2010.

The 28 young entrepreneurs from the finalist of Shell LiveWIRE BSA 2009 – 2010, receive intensive Business Coaching on 11-12 February in Grand Kemang Hotel, Jakarta. This Business Coaching is delivered by Consultant of Shell LiveWIRE Internasional, Sandy Ogilvie, and successful young businessman, Sandiaga Uno.

Sandy Ogilvie who brought about the birth of Shell LiveWIRE in more than 25 countries speaks about the importance of building networking among business people in developing the business including utilising international networks provided by Shell LiveWIRE through numerous social medias. According to Sandy Ogilvie, “Shell LiveWIRE currently exists in 25 countries in the world and has produced more than 2,800 new businesses. The growing number of young entrepreneurs will strengthen the economy of each country”

In Indonesia, according to data from Bureau of Statistic in 2009, the number of small business is 520,220 units. Medium enterprises are 39,660 units and large business of 4,370 units. Therefore, the total of formal business is 564,250 units or 0.24% of total population in Indonesia. Last year, the successful young entrepreneurs was only 400 people, although the ideal figure of entrepreneurs would be 2% of total population of around 4,4 million people.

Sandiaga Uno shares his views on the prospects of micro, small and medium business and its challenges in 2011.

This business coaching is part of an appreciation from Shell Indonesia to young entrepreneurs who have successfully entered the final of Shell LiveWIRE Business Start-Up Awards (BSA). The topics covered include Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), SOP (Standard Operational Procedure), basic financial management, marketing, use of social media, management of product quality, access to retail market, human resources management, conflict management and others.

The owner of “Yogya Ice-Cream” Mirza Akbar said, “I feel fortunate with this business coaching from Shell LiveWIRE. The materials are very useful for developing micro business to ensure sustainability of the business”. The appearance of Mr. Sandy Ogilvie gives the spirit for me to expand the business to overseas countries”

Appreciation for Shell LiveWIRE

In the meantime, during “Inauguration of National Entrepreneurial Movement at SMESCO UKM” on 2 February 2011, President Director and Country Chairman of Shell Indonesia Darwin Silalahi received an award as Best Entrepreneurship Motivator from the Government. The award was bestowed by Minister of Cooperative and Small Medium Enterprises, Sjarifuddin Hasan. Two winners of Shell LiveWIRE Business Start-Up Awards 2010, Ali Bagus Antra, founder of Bebek Garang restaurant (Bandung) and Nur Kartika Indah Mayasti owner of Nata de Cassava (Yogyakarta) also received awards as “Successful Young Entrepreneur” in this event.

Shell LiveWIRE also received Excellence Award for Best Corporate Sustainability for Community Development 2009 from Indonesian-Netherlands Association (INA) and the Excellence Award for Poverty Alleviation category from Asian Forum on CSR in 2010.

In 2009, Asian edition of Business Week magazine also awarded nine young entrepreneurs from Indonesia as the Best Asia’s Young Entrepreneurs of the Year with five of them from Shell LiveWIRE.

About Shell LiveWIRE

Shell LiveWIRE is part of the social investment/CSR program of Shell Indonesia held since 2003. Apart from the “Business Start-Up Awards” (BSA), Shell LiveWIRE also provides training program on how to elicit business ideas, business consultation and business discussion to assist youngster to start their business or grow their already-developed business.

As part of global CSR program, up to present moment, Shell LiveWIRE has been applied in more than 25 countries and assisted with developing of more than 2,800 new businesses as well as creation of employment opportunities for 8,900 workers.

From its inception in 1982, this program already provided contribution to 1,3 million young people in developing ideas and businesses through information, suggestions and supports.

For further information, photographs or interview session, please kindly contact:

Budiman Moerdijat
GM External Affairs and Communications
PT Shell Indonesia

Phone: +62 21 7592 4700
Fax: +62 21 7592 4679
www.livewire-indonesia.org