Bukalapak Confirms "Streamlining" Number of Employees

Marketplace valued at over $1 billion Bukalapak confirms that there is indeed a business downsizing, which has an impact on staff reductions, to support sustainability. This answers the information swirling in the media today, including from our separately confirmed sources. However, the company did not provide detailed information on how many employees were affected and what sections were affected by downsizing.

To DailySocial, Head of Corporate Communications Bukalapak Intan Wibisono said, "Bukalapak has grown this big and fast in a short period of time. At a company like this scale, of course we need to organize yourself and started operating like an adult company, or we can call it a grown-up company, especially to guarantee our vision to continue to grow as sustainable e-commerce in the long run.

"Of course, it is common for any company to carry out strategic internal arrangements to support the implementation of its business strategy. The same goes for Bukalapak," he continued.

Menurut a number of source medium, there are hundreds of employees affected by this downsizing, including news of the closure of R&D centers in Medan and Surabaya. Bukalapak currently has around 2000 employees with 1100 of them, per July 2019, is engineer.

The concept of downsizing or refocusing business is not new to Indonesian startups. Gojek previously closed the R&D center in Yogyakarta, while Sorabel (formerly called Sale Stock) and Berrybenka in 2016 had same step. So far these companies appear to be doing well, even getting new funding as a testament to investor confidence.

Bukalapak this year predict get annualized GMV up to $5 billion (approximately 70 trillion Rupiah) and claiming a monthly gross profit that is double the December 2018 figure.

The largest ownership of Bukalapak is said to be held by Emtek, Ant Financial, and Singapore's GIC.

"Being a sustainable e-commerce company is important to us, because while GMV growth is an important metric in the e-commerce sector, our company has taken it to the next stage and has successfully achieved an increase in revenue towards profitability, which was in line with expectations and even more so. faster than our expectations," Intan claims.