Thursday, September 8, 2011

Blackberry, Indonesia, Malaysia

Blackberry smart-phone producer RIM recently announced that it will set up a factory in Malaysia.

This decision has angered the Head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Gita Wirjawan who said that RIM should consider Blackberry's market in Indonesia as a factor, whereby every year RIM sold 4,000,000 smart-phones in Indonesia, compared to only 400,000 in Malaysia.

In this connection I would like to share with you an article (below) written by a PR Consultant in Jakarta, i.e. Unspun on his blog: http://theunspunblog.com.

Introspection, not revenge, needed over loss of RIM to Malaysia

Investment Coordinating Board Chairman Gita Wirjawan is right to ask why indeed would a company like RIM that has exponentially more consumers in Indonesia and Malaysia choose the latter for its production base. It makes little financial and political sense.

Gita is also right to speculate that it may be because Indonesia last year required RIM to set up a regional network aggregator, or data center, in the country, establish at least 40 authorized customer care centers, facilitate lawful interception of its encrypted BlackBerry Messenger services by officials and filter pornographic content.

But he does not ask and speculate on the important questions: Were there other factors behind RIM’s decision to locate its base in Malaysia? Is Indonesia’s corruption and lack of legal certainty a factor? What about the red tape in setting something like this up here, compared to Malaysia? And how much of a concern should IT and communications-related companies have over an Information Minister as mercurial as Tifatul?

But at least Gita did make an effort at asking. The Industry Minister just went straight for the revenge bit. Companies make business decisions based on what’s good for their business. Being close to their market and winning the goodwill of their largest markets are very important factors for businesses in their decision-making processes. Unspun is sure that RIM, and Bosch for that matter, considered the pros and cons of Indonesia and Malaysia carefully and the sad truth, for them, is that the cons in Indonesia outweigh the very strong pro of a huge consumer base in Indonesia.

Instead of acting with the fury of a woman scorned the Indonesian ministers would do well to do, as the late Suharto would have advised, some introspection on what Indonesia needs to change to make itself more attractive as an investment destination. Or at least to mitigate the cons that help outweigh its pros of a huge population and market, a stable and growing economy and vast store of resources.

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21 comments:

Unknown said...

dimanapun tempat. investor selalu mencari aman, apa bila dipandang kurang nyaman keputusan akhir untuk menyelamatkan usahanya harus diambil. mungkin karena pertimbangan tersebut

colson said...

Unspun, just like Multibrand :), as usual writes very sensible words. Some ministers ( and other officials)should take his words at heart, dedicate some time at detached analysis, do some introspection, draw the obvious conclusions and act upon them swiftly.

Unknown said...

@Wisata Murah,
Jelas semua orang kalau mau usaha harus pertimbangkan keamanan, kelancaran perizinan, situasi ekonomi, korupsi atau tidak dll.

@Colson,
As an Indonesian I wish that RIM and others want to invest in Indonesia.
However I can understand why they choose other countries.
Our government must learn how other countries can be more attractive.

Aang Gunaifi said...

everyone is now again going crazy blackberry products, many products that bm blackberries. what impact?
welcome to new Aang Gunaifi's Blog. (http://www.aanggunaifi26.blogspot.com)

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Unknown said...

@Aang Gunaifi,
Thank you for your visit and comment.

ASPeMusik said...

saya turut prihatin dengan kabar ini, semoga pihak berwenang cepat mengambil keputusan, menyadari kekurangan terkait,

karena saya perhatikan protek untuk hak cipta juga sangat minim,malah terkesan diabaikan. dalam hal ini khususnya hap cipta dalam karya musik, yang sudah membunuh 90% seniman musik indonesia dari kebebasan periuk ekonominya

saya pikir agak lari dari topik, tapi masih dalam relevansinya untuk para pengambil keputusan

r10 said...

di indonesia banyak pungli, iklim yang tidak disukai pebisnis

kelly said...

whatt...you really?
kok bisa sh?

Unknown said...

@SEO Services.
Thank you for the kind words.
I really appreciate it.

@AC Milan,
I am glad that you like my blog.
Thank you.

@ASPemusik,
Semoga pemerintah segera memperbaiki keadaan agar investor asing mau invest di Indonesia.
Untuk itu perlu dipelajari apa kekurangan kita dan apa kelebihan Malaysia.
Tentang Hak Cipta:
Sebenarnya perlindungan hukumnya sudah tersedia dengan baik.
UU Hak Cipta kita pertama kali lahir tahun 1982, diamandemen tahun 1987, tahun 1997 dan 2002.
Yang paling penting adalah adanya niat untuk menegakkan hukum yang sudah ada tsb.

@R10,
Masalahnya disitu. Walau pasar sangat besar tapi kalau iklim investasi tidak baik orang akan malas tanam modal kesini.

@Kelly,
Keadaan dinegara kita demikian adanya. Hukum ada tapi tidak ditegakkan sehingga korupsi, suap merajalela, tidak ada kepastian hukum. Investor asing tidak mau tanam modal disini.

Iskaruji dot com said...

Let me think, Found three sentences to describe this issue...
1. How Lucky Malaysia
2. How Pity we are
3. What a mother f**ker RIM
Sorry, no more opinion...

smp 3 lembang said...

nggak tahu kenapa Malaysia selalu dipandang lebih baik iklim investasinya dari Indonesia padahal kalau masalah penjualan jauh lebih banyak disini

TUKANG CoLoNG said...

jangankan pihak luar, rakyat sendiri aja gerah tinggal di indonesia..

sayang sekali ya..

Unknown said...

@Iskaruji,
I agree with you.

@Smp3Lembang,
Pemerintah harus mempelajari kelemahan2 kita dan memperbaiki kelemahan2 tsb.

@TUKANG CoLoNG,
Ketidak pastian yang disebabkan sangat lemahnya penegakkan hukum akibatnya memang sangat luas.

Muhammad-Dadan said...

I think the problem is about legal certainty n certainty of business.

Unknown said...

@Muhammad Dadan,
You are right.

gajah_pesing said...

bureaucracy in Indonesia that makes foreign investors become afraid to invest in Indonesia.

triesti said...

It takes one day to set up a firm in Spore, it takes at least 6 months to do the same in Indonesia.

CEO's always complain that Indonesian laws are overlapping and changing all the time. Then there is that corruption which companies listed in London/NYC cant get involved in.

We need to work on making our country more attractive to set up business.

Unknown said...

@Gajag Pesing,
Yes you are right, bureaucracy plus corruption and weak law enforcement.

@Triesti,
If there is no improvement, very difficult to expect more foreign investors to come here.

flights to manila said...

It seems Blackberry is selling well in Malaysia. I think that the Blackberry Social will be a hit.