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Mr Kam Kettin

Indonesia has a lot of potential for building materials; we have over 240 million people which equates to a big market. All classes of people need housing and materials to improve their homes so there are opportunities in all the main, large cities of the country.

Java is the largest market which is why we started there and then also moved to Bali as there is there is also the advantage of the availability of managers and qualified human resources there. We plan to expand into secondary cities such as Medan, Palembang and Makassar in the future.

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Mr Kam Kettin

We tend to prefer local suppliers from Indonesia. Most of our products are finishing products such as paints, ceramic tiles and flooring; for this we prefer Indonesian products. However, there is a large source of products available from China which is interesting to us only for areas where Indonesian producers cannot offer an alternative, but we do prefer our local suppliers.

Prior to the China - ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, Chinese products were imported with a high level of duties and taxes. Nowdays there is a lot of competition for Indonesian products to face but the country requires a lot of products to meet the market demand so there are still opportunities.

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Mr Kam Kettin

The Indonesian consumer is ideal but they do require education on how to use the product and how to determine the level of quality between different products.

In terms of behaviour, during Lebaran there is a peak in activity as people like to improve their homes for when their families come over and as the country is majority Muslim there is a noticeable rise in sales. During the summer months of June we normally see a drop in activity as people take their holidays and money is prioritised for the children returning to school etc.

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Mr Kam Kettin

My daughter will lead the company in the future and our focus at the moment is on our capability and our management. We need a strong team to deal with the future of the market as the competition is tight and we expect more competition from foreign companies as well. Therefore in the future once we have built up this capability, we would be open to collaboration to grow the company.

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Mr Kam Kettin

We like local products as all of our products are very technical and so they require customer care following their purchase. Many foreign produced goods do not have a representative office in Indonesia so we would have to import spare parts from abroad and customer service would be difficult and inconvenient. It is not that we would not like to stock products from international suppliers, especially those that offer more in terms of quality but the after service has to be available.

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Mr Kam Kettin

Human resources are a big challenge; for retail and supply management there is no formal training available externally so we have to create our own system. We do a lot of internal training on product knowledge and take our model from examples of management in the US and Europe.

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Mr Kam Kettin

The regulations for modern retail for our type of company are very vague. We can use them as guidelines but there are no direct regulations for our line of business.

Miss Amanda Kettin

In terms of expanding into new areas of the country, outside of Java the idea of modern retail is completely different. In many areas there is none of what we would classify as ‘modern retail’.

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Mr Kam Kettin

Indonesia is a large market with a lot of resources and a lot of needs. Housing especially is an area of great demand and thus building materials. There are good conditions for both local and foreign companies for collaboration, so come to Indonesia and join us.