Kediri City Government Collaborates with Startup CrediBook

The Kediri City Government collaborates with a startup engaged in digitizing MSME operations, CrediBook, in conducting online training for MSMEs.

The training held by the Kediri City Government and CrediBook aims to improve MSME literacy in managing their business, by utilizing digital technology.

CrediBook reports that this training was attended by 200 Kediri SMEs, consisting of various business backgrounds such as food and beverages, fashion and crafts, services, to agriculture.

Mayor of Kediri Abdullah Abu Bakar in a press release on Wednesday (11/17/2021) said that one aspect that needs to be considered in economic recovery during the pandemic is to strengthen the readiness of MSME actors to go digital.

City Government Collaborates with Partners

Abdullah added that the Kediri City Government has tried as much as possible to continue to accompany and collaborate with partners, so that MSME actors there can become better and bigger.

“We are working with e-commerce platforms to accelerate onboarding SMEs in the digital ecosystem,” Abdullah said. Abdullah also said that they had collaborated with Bank Indonesia regarding the digitization of payments.

“The Kediri City Government is also collaborating with Bank Indonesia to continue to expand the use of QRIS among MSME players,” he said when opening the Go-Digital MSME training: More Credible and Cuan at the Command Center, Tuesday (16/11/2021).

According to Abdullah, many business actors have not been able to separate personal finance from business. He said financial records were still being carried out manually on paper.

Financial Management Challenge

This challenge prompted the Kediri City Government to collaborate with CrediBook, in order to overcome one of the challenges of developing MSMEs, which is related to financial management.

“When the business scale gets bigger and orders are getting bigger, I believe that manual recording like that will no longer be effective,” Abdullah said.

The CEO and Co-Founder of CrediBook Gabriel Frans welcomed and thanked the Kediri City Government for the cooperation in holding the training.

According to Gabriel, training in the field of financial literacy and the use of digital technology will help Indonesian MSMEs advance to class

“And also feel the benefits of the high value of Indonesia’s internet economy which is predicted to reach USD 70 billion in 2021,” he said.

Gabriel added that currently, MSMEs must be able to make appropriate and accurate business decisions. “Good financial management will make it easier for business actors to make decisions,” he said.

Kemenkop UKM Calls Digitalization of SMEs Needs Aggregators and Incubators

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are one of the sectors that have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic which has lasted for about 1.5 years. The restrictions on activities imposed by the government have actually triggered innovation in terms of accelerating the digitalization of the business world.

The digitalization efforts carried out by MSMEs initially to be able to survive during the pandemic were actually considered to be useful in the long term.

Even digitalization can encourage MSMEs to advance to class. However, efforts to digitize MSMEs require collaboration with aggregators and incubators.

Special Staff of the Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs for Creative Economy Empowerment Fiki Satari stated, since the beginning of the pandemic, data collection has been carried out to find out the real problems faced by MSMEs in the field.

The results of the data collection become a reference for the design of the national economic recovery program for the MSME cluster. It is undeniable that restrictions on activities and mobility are indeed a challenge for MSMEs during the pandemic.

One of the MSME aggregators in terms of digitization is Credibook. Credibook CEO Gabriel Frans explained that his party helps digital literacy of SMEs in terms of making digital financial records and supply chain procurement online.

Gabriel emphasized, for digital literacy, not everyone can directly enter the marketing or data analysis stage, but must step by step according to their respective abilities.

In this case, his party takes a technological literacy approach and financial literacy, by actively providing education and embracing MSME actors in various cities.