Aruna and the Digital Revolution in the Indonesian Marine Industry

Aruna and MarketSea (part of Aruna) became one of the startups that made their debut in the marine economy sub-sector. On one occasion, DailySocial interviewed the Co-Founder of Aruna Farid Naufal discussing the potential in the maritime industry and how its business strategy is to deal with related industries in Indonesia with a digital approach.

Starting the conversation, Farid explained some data about the potential of marine resources in Indonesia that have not been optimized. He quoted the data from the presentation of Prof. Rokhim Dahuri, former Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries of Indonesia for the period 2001-2004. The value of the marine industry in Indonesia can reach more than $1 trillion.

Specifically for fisheries itself, data from the Worldfish Association and the Ministry stated that the value of fish trade in Indonesia reached $5,3 billion, with industrial growth of 8,91% per year, the largest of any other sector in Indonesia. Currently, it is still ranked first in Southeast Asia for the value and number of exports of marine commodities, competing with Thailand.

The marine economy has not yet provided an optimal impact on the perpetrators

Seeing this situation, the Co-Founder Aruna Farid Naufal Aslam, Indraka Fadhlillah, and Utari Octavianty think that this huge potential should be able to become the backbone of the national economy. At least the fishermen's standard of living is more prosperous and the coastal areas are classified as advanced regional arrangements. In fact, if you summarize from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data, the average income of fishermen per month is only Rp. 1,1 million.

The small amount of income to attract fans has also fallen drastically, in the last 10 years the number of fishermen has decreased by 50%, to only around 800 thousand throughout Indonesia. In addition, the level of national fish consumption when compared to other (developed) countries is still low, Indonesia is still in the range of 40 kg per capita per year.

"We see that this can happen, one of which is the problem of information connectivity between production points, in this case fishing centers, with markets and industries that are not optimal," said Farid.

The situation in the field, fishermen find it difficult to find buyers other than the collectors in the area. Impact bargaining power they are very weak, and prices are often controlled by collectors and middlemen. Vice versa, large-scale fish buyers (contractors) find it difficult to find the fish stocks they need, due to the lack of information to various Indonesian fishery production areas. So not infrequently they are also played by "middle man" who take advantage of having certain fish stock information.

Information technology and the internet are believed to be the answer

Aruna sees that information technology and the internet can help solve this problem. For this reason, there are two things that Aruna does as a realization of the solution to the problem. First, by digitizing the data on the fisherman side and making it accessible online real-time every day. And secondly, open access to the data to anyone, especially those with an interest in advancing the fishing industry (sea product wholesalers to ordinary consumers).

“For the first time, we created an application called eTPI, a digital version of the Fish Auction Place (TPI), a data management platform for TPI managers and fishermen cooperatives located on the Indonesian coast. This application has features in accordance with the business processes that occur at TPI and Fisherman Cooperatives such as recording catches (inventory), cashier app (point of sale), recording fisherman data, accounting etc,” explained Farid.

With this application, Aruna wants to help TPI managers and cooperatives manage their data more efficiently. The existence of digital data also allows for integration with online platforms so that it can be accessed by anyone.

Farid continued, “For the second time, we are currently creating the PasarLaut.com portal, to help connect the potential of fishermen in the area directly with industry and large-scale fish buying and selling actors. The data that we display on PasarLaut.com is data that we get directly from the eTPI application, so we can display potential data according to the real conditions that existed at that time.”

Aruna wants to be part of the revolution in the marine economy

The three founders of Aruna claimed to have different specialties. The three met because they studied at the same department and university, namely IT Business Management at Telkom University. Farid Naufal Aslam has a background in digital technology development and E-commerce, Indraka Fadhlillah understands operations because he comes from a coastal area so he knows exactly the situation in the area, and Utari Octavianty also comes from a coastal area in Balikpapan who is trusted to take care of various marketing and financial matters.

At first they got the idea to make a platform E-commerce for marine and fishery products to be included in various competitions, and won several times. And from there the third co-founder The company finally decided to continue to develop its idea until now, supported by the inclusion of several partners and additional team members. Currently, the Aruna team consists of 8 people.

In line with his vision, in 2017 there are several things that Aruna wants to achieve. Broadly speaking they are planning to launch a platform trading which is more complete for actors in the fishery trading industry, reflecting on the experience of transactions so far. In terms of area coverage, Aruna plans to expand (increase the number of cooperative partners/TPI) to other areas with large fishery potential. This is expected to be able to increase the number of existing transactions, so that it can increase revenue.

"From progress in Q4 2016 ago we got the total inquiry more than 3500 tons of fish orders in large quantities, but the capacity of our cooperative is only able to supply 100 tons per month. So it is hoped that with the addition of partners, there will be an increase in the number of transactions through our platform," said Farid.

Aruna's target market share is the B2B segment, a business that orders large quantities of fish. The minimum purchase amount that we serve is 100 kg for a single transaction through the PasarLaut.com portal.

“Aruna's position as a digital company is very close to the real business of fishery trade in Indonesia. Actually there are several models revenue streams what we can run at this time so that this business can sustainable in the future, but currently what we use is as an intermediary between the cooperative and the final buyer. We take transaction fees from every trading what happens on average fee by 10%," concluded Farid.