Hendrik Setiawan, a young entrepreneur in fresh fruit juice, was preparing for his presentation. He's going to meet potential clients in the next few days. He got various alternatives to promote Mama Roz, a new brand of fresh fruit juice, which displayed some signs of success. Mama Roz was considered as the most saleable fresh fruit juice product in top class supermarkets.

However, he's wondering whether it was appropriate to call his marketing strategy as the blue ocean strategy? His potential client would understand this new concept. And so, he had to be able to present strong evidence that his marketing strategy was indeed blue ocean strategy.

In front of him lies the ethnographic report from Reny Virniati and Nia Kurnianingsih, graduate students of MM Strategic Marketing, Binus Business School. From this report, Hendrik should summarize the evidence from the field, as a resourceful feedback for his marketing strategy.

Budi Raharjo has been interested in participating in the digital music business since he saw the big music market still ignored by the Major Labels recoding companies.  In his blog, Budi often receives complaints from the amateur musicians who want to take action in the recording world or distribute their music recording product, but they still meet with a lot of obstacles.

According to Budi Raharjo, a Canadian doctor graduate, to run a musical digital shop is to meet the continuous need for music which becomes more personal day by day.  The consumers need more choices of songs.  Unfortunately Budi thinks, there are still many people who like to buy pirated CD and MP3 or illegally downloading songs in the internet.  He thinks then why don’t we provide software that makes downloading legal.

The time was approaching 5.45 p.m. A mother was hurriedly moving towards an elevator   in Jakarta’s golden triangle apartment while checking on her wrist-watch at times.  Reaching the second floor, he sound of small kids could be heard coming from a Daycare with noticeable design on the same floor.  As she approached the Daycare entrance, her face became radiant.  She walked faster in order to see her sweetheart. Inside the Daycare, a cute little girl rushed towards the mother accompanied by a neat uniformed Daycare staff.   She explained to the mother all the activities her daughter has done during the day according to the note written in the agenda.  The mother listened to it with full interest while carrying her three years cute daughter.

Dr. Lukiarti, the Director and the person in charge of the daily activities of the High Reach Learning Care Institution was observing each of the picking up activities of the children under her observation. She also spoke to a few parents on the subjects that needed further explanation regarding the kids’ development. These routine interactions with parents are done to make sure that everything runs smoothly and under control.

After the children’s pick-up operation was completed, Ibu Luki, this was how Dr.Lukiarti was addressed by her colleagues, entered her office and sat down on a chair in the corner of the room.  Her eyes did not show tiredness although she is in her early fifties.  She quickly picked up a folder from the table which contained to pieces of proposals on the business development.  For the past one week her mind had been preoccupied with these proposals. It was not a simple offer and hard to be chosen:  Franchising the Daycare business which had been developed for one year or developing the business organically, collaborating with a few office buildings.  The periodic meeting of the High Reach founders / share holders would be held in an hour’s time.  The discussion on the development of this Daycare business was one of her agendas. She picked up her glasses and started making deeper analysis on the pros and cons of the two offers.

Before the year 2003, Indomie domination (Indofood) in instant noodles market was unbeatable. It succeeded with hardly any competitors. Several attempts to take over the market share of instant noodle market was done by competitors and failed. Instead Indofood succeeded to defeat them. Even multinational company like Unilever which had skill to develop brand and wide distribution network tried to enter the instant noodle market to no avail.  Mie&Mie brand (Unilever) was forced to exit market by Indofood. This also included the failure of Tara Nasiku, an instant rice brand launched by Unilever in 1999, with intention to switch consumer buying behavior from instant noodle to instant rice. Although the production budget and development of Tara Nasiku exceeded boundary of new product launching, consumers still preferred Indomie.

Initially, Indofood did not suspect that Mie Sedaap from Wingsfood would succeed in taking over the market share. Although Wings Group was long enough in toiletries industry, supported by solid marketing team and a wide range of distribution network, Indofood still believed that food business needed special expertise. And Indofood, indeed, did not think that Wingsfood had that. Indofood was not seriously counter the aggressive marketing activities done by Mie Sedaap. It could be said without any obstacles Mie Sedaap glided to the market.

Slowly Indofood’s Indomie domination broke down. Its market share fell. Their 90% market share in 1999 declined to only 70% in 2003. The national instant noodle market itself was worth 8 trillion rupiahs, thus Indofood’s sales decline disturbed the plan to increase their sales in the country.

What super strategies did Wingsfood use with its Mie Sedaap to overpower Indomie’s domination in instant noodle market?   What effort and attempt did Indofood take to regain and restore their lost market? How were the consumers’ perceptions after of this noodle war?

As Indonesian central bank, Bank Indonesia launched a campaign to create a cashless society. E-money is a sort of solution for the ‘un-bankable’ society of Indonesia, and for those who often conduct banking transactions, e-money can play a role as complementary of other non-cash media such as credit cards, debit cards, checks, etc.

This campaign was based on the fact that Indonesian people do more often conduct non-cash transactions compared to people in other ASEAN countries, which accounts for more than 50%. Therefore, Bank Indonesia needs to encourage the use of non-cash alternatives in Indonesia.

By encouraging non-cash transactions, the country will be able to reduce the use of currency, which makes it more efficient and saves the budget of money printing and storing. Bank Indonesia also believes that non-cash transactions can be successfully implemented because it is more secure, more practical, and more efficient. Besides, by implementing non cash-transactions, Bank Indonesia will be able to control the circulation of money in the community.

In Indonesia, the e-money market is still wide open, and there are still many potential usages that have not been explored. The actual growth rate of e-money use has been significant over time, both in the number of cards issued and in the transactions using e-money. Each year e-money transactions have grown by 120 percent.

However, according to data from Bank Indonesia, until now growth in the use of e-money is still slow, which is approximately 5 percent. Growth per year is only approximately 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent. Growth is still considered slow because there are still many people in Indonesia who do not use e-money, whereas only approximately 9 percent of the Indonesian population uses e-money.

According to the Indonesian Central Bank (2014), electronic money is a means of transaction/payment that has the following elements: (1) it is issued based on the value of money deposited by users with the issuer; (2) the value of the money is deposited electronically in a medium such as a server or chip; (3) it is used as a means of payment with merchants who are non-issuers of electronic money; and (4) the value of the electronic money deposited by the user and managed by the issuer does not play the role of savings, as defined in banking rules and regulations.

The main purpose of the created e-money is to provide convenience in the transaction; the user does not need to spend cash and wait for change when shopping. In addition, the time required is quite short because the cash does not have to be counted, and signatures or PIN numbers for regular use debit and credit cards are not required.

Several types of transactions are covered by e-money, (1) daily transactions to a payment on a convenience outlet stores, bookstores, gas stations, and fast food restaurants, (2) e-commerce transactions via online shops, (3) transactions for public transportation: buses, commuter rail lines and highways. This study discusses the two types of transactions, namely the use of e-money for daily transactions in physical outlets and transactions in public transportation.

At the beginning, the e-money player is very eager to communicate with prospects and customers in its own way, but this has not been an effective way of communication. Consumers do not gain a full understanding and therefore cannot view as a whole the advantages of e-money as a payment instrument that is easy and practical.

The use of e-money for transportation was more successful than for transactions at the outlet. The reason is because consumers are forced to switch to this payment instrument en masse, and it is filled with government regulations. However, in practice, there are many consumer complaints that are perceived, not because of technical problems with the operation of e-money cards but rather due to a lack of understanding, which has an impact on the interest of consumers in continuing to use this payment tool.