Palm oil is one of the world’s most produced and consumed oils. This cheap, production-efficient and highly stable oil is used in a wide variety of food, cosmetic and hygiene products, and can be used as a source for biofuel or biodiesel. Most palm oil is produced in Asia, Africa and South America because the trees require warm temperatures, sunshine and plenty of rain in order to maximize production. In Indonesia, PT Perkebunan Nusantara as one of the companies owned by Government who specialized operating the palm oil production was challenged by the controversial cases in Sumatra. The case arises after the land clearing activities for the palm oil plantation that caused haze spread throughout several countries in Southeast Asia.

 

The land clearing cases in Sumatra island causes multiple adverse impacts to the environment, surrounding society, and to the business, itself. The 2015 Southeast Asian haze was an air pollution crisis affecting several countries in Southeast Asia. It was caused by PTPN from illegal slash-and-burn practices to open new palm oil plantation due to land clearing, principally on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, which then spread quickly in the dry season. This case has been the worst disaster not only for Indonesia but also other countries surrounded.

It was one bright afternoon in the month of April 2019. It was just one week ago that Franciscus Xaverius Laksana Kesuma was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of PT United Tractors Tbk. The bright afternoon, did not seem to be quite bright just yet, as the price of coal continues to fall and the dream of making a comeback for one of the leading company in heavy equipment in Indonesia might only be just a dream. The eerily look on the future of Indonesia mining industry which heavily related to the main business of PT United Tractors who delve in heavy equipment business somehow painted a bit darker grey of the bright afternoon. As Franciscus gazed in the afternoon shades and wonder if the storm would pass?

Tea is the second favorite beverage after water globally (Exhibit 1) due to the fact that it gives health benefits, such as increasing the function of blood vessel, battling the fatigue, decreasing the cholesterol ratio and keeping our body fit. Such benefits can be obtained by drinking tea routinely for about four to six times a day. People are consuming tea on daily basis for these benefits and the growing population has created a big market for worldwide tea producers including Indonesian market. Indonesia as a country itself has been a major tea producer and ranks as the seventh on the world’s largest tea producers list supported by large consumer increase. Sariwangi, a domestic brand, was introduced back in 1973 with a ‘tea bag’ concept. This was a fresh and modern concept comparing to old concept tea which was the brewed tea. This concept made Sariwangi able to crawl to the top of tea market easily and became the biggest tea bag brand in Indonesia. In 1989, Unilever Indonesia, a consumer goods company has acquitted brand Sariwangi and started to act as the distributor of Sariwangi. For over 40 years, the brand Sariwangi has committed to give the best quality of tea for Indonesian tea consumer with lot of campaigns and innovations in between. The founder company has wished to increase the tea production and invested a large sum of money in drainage system. However the outcome didn’t go as expected and left them in a big debt. Big debt as well as the decreasing tea export volume resulted in bankruptcy of the founder company of Sariwangi in 2018 as the tea bag of the brand Sariwangi will still be produced by Unilever Indonesia.

Once known as Bakmi Gajah Mada and started as a humble street hawker stand, Bakmi GM has successfully built its reputation as Jakarta’s most iconic noodle restaurant brand over the last 60 years. By 2018, Bakmi GM has grown to serve 30,000 customers per day throughout more than 50 restaurants located not only in the Greater Jakarta area, but also in Bandung and Surabaya. Nonetheless during that journey, they were not without their own major historical events, notably the notorious negative issue that been thrown at them that marked Bakmi GM’s turning point. With many competitors emerging, changing customer generations, Indonesian fast-paced trend-based market, and changes in Jakarta’s food market landscape with more online assisted restaurants, how can Bakmi GM keep up with these challenges?  

The film industry in Indonesia began around 1950 marked by the production of the first film in Indonesia entitled Darah & Doa on March 30, 1950, and now celebrated as National Film Day. In the 1950s and 1960s cinemas began to appear in big cities like Jakarta, and the Indonesian cinema business community was formed, called the Indonesian Cinema Association (GABSI). From 1965 to 1970, the film industry experienced a difficult period due to the G30SPKI incident, which caused massive inflation and a decline in consumer purchasing power. In the 1980s videotape piracy began to emerge due to the limited number of cinemas. After going through difficult times, the Indonesian film industry began to rise with the emergence of the extensive Studio 21 cinema network in 1987 and began taking the small cinema market. In the 1990s, the film industry experienced a decline due to the irregular regulation of film registration in Indonesia so that the data on films produced became unclear. The emergence of VCD and DVD technology also caused interest in watching in the cinema decreased. Entering the 2000s, the film industry in Indonesia rose again with the emergence of several best-selling films in the market such as Petualangan Sherina, Ada Apa dengan Cinta, Eiffel I'm in Love, and Gie, which attracted the attention of various groups of people to watch in theatres.

 

The owner of Artotel group comes from the family who own the Marriott Surabaya. Wishing to expand to another market, Artotel was established with the idea of making art available to everyone. The hotel was aimed at marrying the concept of a boutique hotel decorated with art works produced by local artists, resulting in a comfortable and memorable place to stay. Artotel has undergone several changes in its strategic direction. Being an entrepreneurial company, it sees expansion to other businesses and types of accommodation as a way to survive in the turbulent environment. Artotel realizes that its main strength is its ability to have a ‘breathing brand DNA’, i. e. a brand that keeps on evolving depending on its market environment. This case will discuss the different methods that Arotel has employed to gain more market share and maintain its brand DNA.

Fintech’s business in Indonesia is growing rapidly nowadays, proven by the existence of many Fintech-based startup companies in the last few years. Fintech startup itself is starting to occupy a large part of the Indonesian startup industries. Fintech helps people to access financial products, facilitate transactions and improve their financial literacy easier. Fintech became highlight in September 2015 when Indonesia’s Fintech Association established. The goal is to set a trusted and reliable partner to build up Indonesia’s Fintech ecosystem. It come up from Indonesia enterprises and for Indonesians. Up to now, there are at least 140 Fintech players in Indonesia, with 55 of them joining the organization as full members.

 

In 2016, the Indonesia Financial Service Institution (POJK) issued new regulations and policies about fintech on off balance sheet (marketplace) lending and by Central Bank (BI) on Payment Transaction Processing. The growth of Fintech players has been skyrocketing, from only 7% in 2006/2007 to 78% a decade later. The number of the players are recorded around 135-140 companies. 43% of them play in the payment sector, such as mobile payment as well as payment gateway startups from various sectors, ranging from payment startups, lending, financial planning (personal finance), retail investment, crowdfunding, remittances, financial research, and others. Fintech reaches the younger generation who are more familiar with the internet and make use of the internet for all their needs. Fintech can also make things simpler and more efficient. Fintech uses technology, software and big data, it also uses social media data from its users that Fintech uses in conducting risk analysis.

This case discusses Garuda Indonesia’s 2018 financial report which is deemed to be misstated with respect to its revenue account. Despite this, the auditor issued an unqualified opinion. As a public company and national flag carrier of Indonesia, this case attracted a lot of attention from and was scrutinized by many stakeholders. A financial report should contain certain characteristics to it (usually referred to as qualitative characteristics of financial information), so that users can rely on it to help them make business decisions. Two commissioners of Garuda decided that Garuda’s 2018 report did not satisfy the accounting standards, and hence they refused to sign the report.

After receiving high publicity and conducting a thorough investigation, in June 2019, regulators finally announced that Garuda had manipulated its 2018 report and required Garuda to publish a restated financial report. In addition, Garuda was also required to pay a fine. The regulator also imposed sanctions to the auditor for failing to perform the audit process according to the auditing standards. In a sense, this case is yet another example of an accounting scandal and audit failure. Nevertheless, there is always another side of the story, which is expected to be discussed during the class discussion.

The case is hypothetical events of an Australian based company operated in Indonesia with background of 1998 financial crisis. The case demonstrated cultural differences amongst Indonesian staffs with Australian expatriates in business context, ignited by major financial crisis that hit Indonesia in 1998 when its currency plunged from 2500 to 15000 against USD. The case demonstrated the dynamics in business decision where different leadership styles was encountered amongst multiple stake holders in a cross-culture management set up.

As almost all activities can be executed with just a smartphone and internet connection these days, companies should consider to provide online services unless they do not wish to stay in the market any longer. That does not exclude tourism industry which involves airlines, hotels, trains and other types of accommodation and transportation. People, including Indonesian, prefer to sit and relax while planning their trip rather than waiting in a long queue just to book their plane tickets. This gives Traveloka the ability to stay on the top of the as number one solution for all kind of travel needs. Traveloka itself was established as the founder, Ferry Unardi, often had difficulty in plane reservations, especially when he wanted to return to Padang, Indonesia, from the United States. Even though it began as a search engine to compare the price of airline tickets from various other sites, Traveloka succeeded in becoming a ticket reservation website, where users can place an order on its official website. A while later, hotel booking services are also available on the Traveloka website.

Traveloka started on early e-commerce era which made Traveloka encountered several obstacles as other e-commerce companies had to deal with at that time. One of them was to gain customer trust. People were not feeling comfortable about giving their money without seeing the products with their own eyes yet. Especially in Traveloka case, where people actually had to hand a big sum of money for it is a plane or hotel reservation. But Traveloka has proved themselves as trustworthy to the market with their security guarantees such as a secure payment gateway (Exhibit 1) and customers’ personal data protection. Traveloka also managed to expand its business in Southeast Asia, namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. However as time passes by, customer trust is no longer the only obstacle they have to face in this e-commerce industry.