This company started in 1984 having been established by my father as a joint venture in partnership with several of his friends from Taiwan. When I joined the company in 1999, we were only producing air compressors for the traditional distribution channel; we had not reached out to the industrial market. It was only four years later that Sharprindo began to develop industrial air compressors. Subsequently, we also redesigned our business strategy. We discovered a new bearing and uncovered the vast opportunities that were available through our existing network. At the time, Sharprindo had been around for 20 years and we were already in possession of an extensive marketing network which we could further take advantage of by broadening our product portfolio. As we have more than 1,000 shops as our partners, when a product is ready to be launched, we can ship them overnight and make them available for our customers by the time the shops open.

In the following years, we also took upon the idea of opening a factory in China as a move to ward off the threat posed by the influx of cut-price air compressor products from that country. We protected our market by having concurrent productions in Indonesia and China; this went on until 2014. An interesting development, of course, took place in the past several years when manufacturing in China became increasingly expensive. Along with it, our calculations tipped in favour of carrying out production in Indonesia.

In terms of specific strategies, we are developing new product lines – gasoline engines, diesel engines and industrial air solutions – rather than our small compressors. We see these as the products that will help us achieve growth in the years to come. We have also pumped in a substantial amount of investment during the present economic downturn so that we will be ready when the market picks up.

Our sector’s growth generally mirrors the economy. With regards to businesses, a country with 250 million consumers is by itself an enormous prospect in that opportunities will always be available. Having said that, the sluggish economy we are currently experiencing has been difficult to predict, though I would continue to say that we have touched the lowest point. Going forward, in spite of the government supposedly stepping up the country’s infrastructure development, the extent of an economic rebound remains to be seen. With regards to our own company, we predict 15-20% growth in 2016, still lower than our peak which occurred in 2013.

If the situation improves, however, we may be able to repeat our 2013 sales achievement by 2017.

Given the nature of our products, the emerging markets are the most prospective, including countries in Asia and Africa. For that reason, we recently participated in an international exhibition in Johannesburg, South Africa. Taking part in exhibitions constitutes one of our efforts to further expand our market abroad. As for future schedules, Sharprindo will be joining the Canton Fair in China in April 2016, while a hardware exhibition in Vietnam is also within our plans though we cannot offer any confirmation yet. From our participation in Johannesburg, we discovered that our products demonstrated better quality consistency and cost-competitiveness compared to similar products.

We are open to this kind of opportunity. In fact, we were already in negotiations with some international partners two years ago about making an investment in our company. There are two forms of cooperation with foreign firms we are keen on exploring; the first is technology transfer. In obtaining the necessary technology within the context of developing our product portfolio, we have engaged with several Chinese companies to provide us with their technical assistance. This serves to save time and resources as opposed to relying on our own research and development efforts to build everything from scratch.

The second form of cooperation is more towards the synergistic quality of a partnership. Sharprindo has been approached by several investment companies. We are, however, searching for a strategic partner. We cannot deny that having funds is advantageous, but even more important is to have a partner who can provide us with a certain quality benchmark.

Indonesia offers many prospects. That said, as every country has its own unique characteristics, foreign companies operating in Indonesia should utilise the knowledge of their local partners to better handle their affairs.