Bukalapak recruits a team in South Korea, helps analyze trends for adoption

Bukalapak expanded the team in South Korea, by appointing Kim Juhee as Country Manager. Kim and his team are tasked with assisting in the analysis of trends and innovations that the company can adopt going forward.

"Our main area is to support market development in Southeast Asia through acquisition of domestic brands and we plan to create new business opportunities through joint ventures," Kim wrote in a post on Twitter. LinkedIn. Kim has a strong background in technology, through his career in a number of companies, such as NAVER, Oracle, and Dell.

Quote from Deal Street Asia, Bukalapak did not expand its business to South Korea. According to Bukalapak's Head of Media and Communication Fairuza Ahmad Iqbal, Kim was mandated to study local trends and innovations to be adopted within the company. "Basically we always monitor trends and developments in the technology industry around the world as our guide in developing all of our services and products," he said.

Bukalapak's steps are in line with previously announced corporate actions in order to expand the business beyond Bukalapak Partners. Previously, the company and Sembrani Kiqani were involved in investment round in Yield Guild Games Southeast Asia (YGG SEA) for $15 million. YGG SEA is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) under YGG, a blockchain-based game development startup from the Philippines.

In order to strengthen its technology team, earlier this year the company opened R&D Hub in Melbourne, Victoria. The office became Bukalapak's first international base for a research and development center, as well as marking bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the digital technology and innovation sector.

The research and development center is expected to give Bukalapak access to the capabilities and pool of talents Victoria's field of technology and digital innovation, as well as opportunities for collaboration with various universities there.

Victoria is known as one of the centers of technology development and digital innovation in Australia. The state government allocates a budget to encourage technology development and digital innovation, including through international cooperation.

AlloFresh

Next, enter the realm of online grocery with CT Corp and Growtheum Capital Partners to founded AlloFresh. The joint venture company will utilize 138 outlets along with other ecosystems owned by CT Corp to serve orders for daily needs. Not only end consumers, Bukalapak Partners will be able to order their stock of merchandise through the platform, with more choices of up to 150 thousand SKUs.

President Director & CEO of PT Trans Retail Indonesia Bouzeneth Benaouda said, providing online and offline shopping facilities for consumers is the key in the future. Although the gap between online shopping and total national retail spending is still wide, it does not want to deny the choice of online or offline shopping. They chose to take both segments.

"We don't want to underestimate customers who still want their shopping experience to come directly to the outlet. Outside Jakarta, such shopping habits still exist and the portion is large. So in the future, the two must walk together. This is closely related to what we are doing with Bukalapak,” he said.

Bukalapak President Teddy Oetomo continued, AlloFresh was here because of the spirit of collaboration, which if done by one party alone would cost a lot more. "Maybe it could be more than Rp1 trillion to get to this point," he said.

The Rp1 trillion meant by Teddy is the initial investment that was made for the development of AlloFresh. The majority shareholders in AlloFresh are Trans Retail (55%), Bukalapak (35%), and Growtheum (10%).

Teddy continued, so far many online grocery players have built their infrastructure from scratch. They have the technology, but it costs money and time to replicate existing infrastructure. This condition is different from AlloFresh, because Trans Retail has been around for more than two decades to build a network of supermarket outlets throughout Indonesia.

This advantage is claimed to be the main strength of AlloFresh which has not been offered by most startups. "So we leapfrog over 20 years to accelerate the penetration of e-grocery which might take 20 years if done alone."