Seeing Synergies and Startup Innovations during the Pandemic Masa

The increasing positive number of the corona virus in Indonesia has made every element of society continue to work hand in hand to jointly suppress the spread of the virus, including local startups. For startups themselves, they can contribute through product innovation and synergies created to assist community activities and needs during the pandemic. On the other hand, this contribution itself can show whether the products you have are still needed by the community even during difficult times.

This is also the discussion of the third series of the webinar “Behind The Wheel” which was held on Wednesday (13/5). Entering its third week, this webinar has the theme “Tech Startups Role During the COVID-19 Pandemic”. This third series brought quite a number of speakers from diverse backgrounds, including Suci Arumsari (Co Founder & Director of Alodokter), dr. Alni Magdalena (Head of Medical Community-Operations Alodokter), Edward Jusuf (CEOOptiongo), Achmad Sugiarto (CSO Telkom Group), Fajar Eri Dianto (Chairman of ICT Volunteers), Tomy Hendrajati (President of Human Initiative), and moderated by Aldi Adrian (VP of Investment MDI Ventures). Through this week's discussion, each speaker gave his opinion on the role of startup innovation in helping the community during this pandemic and the increase in digital adoption in society.

Improving the Quality of Digital Health Services

One of the startup business verticals that may come into direct contact in the face of this pandemic is healthtech. Community needs for health services can still be served even though they have limited direct interaction through digital health service platforms. Alodokter's Co Founder & Director, Suci Arumsari, said that the need for information about health has increased. This makes the platform healthtech itself also continues to be driven to improve the quality of digital services after increasing demand from the public.

“There is a positive impact for the community, namely they become more aware regarding health," added Suci.

This increasing need for information can also be seen from the declining data on hospital visits but an increase in the use of tele-consultation services by the public during this pandemic. Not only the public, doctors and hospitals are now also starting to look for digital platforms so that they can still serve patients despite various limitations.

"Approximately 50-70% of visits to hospitals are down," explained Alodokter's Head of Medical Community-Operations, dr. Alni Magdalene.

For Alodokter themselves, one of their ways to maintain and improve the quality of digital health services, which are increasingly needed by the community, is to apply strict SOPs to doctors and help provide precise and accurate information so that people avoid hoax regarding health information.

Creating Synergy and Innovation during a Pandemic

One of the things that continues to be discussed in this webinar is how startups in Indonesia can continue to create product innovations and create synergies to answer community needs during the pandemic. This situation is also referred to as the right moment for startups to find the niche that is most needed by the community and then start adding features based on those needs even though the startup has to pivot.

One of the startups that is also pivoting during this pandemic is Optiongo. The sluggish tourism industry due to the travel ban during this pandemic has madeOptiongo look for new opportunities in providing benefits to the community through its platform. This is done by pivoting from a hotel room reservation service provider to booking and checking the availability of hospital rooms, especially for COVID-19 patients.

“At one point we also get one challenges It's new, during this pandemic we haven't heard that the government has a platform to detect the availability of hospitals," said the CEO ofOptions, Edward Jusuf.

We made a few changes from the system that we have developed before, now we are doing a little pivot

Business adaptation in the form of a pivot like this is important for startups in any vertical to continue to survive and have a positive impact on society during this pandemic.

"Disruption in every industrial vertical, it is very possible,” explained CSO Telkom Group, Achmad Sugiarto.

In addition to presenting new product innovations, one of the roles that startups can play is to create synergies in the form of collaboration between startups to provide benefits to the community. This collaboration can be started by doing a small sharing but it can still have an impact.

"We think that this year we can't actually do it partially, individually, what's good is that we are synergizing," added Achmad.

Collaborations like this are also not only carried out by startups, but also by companies Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) such as the Human Initiative which is also raising donations during this pandemic on its own platform and through activities partnerships with others to expand its reach.

"Collaboration is a fixed price for us to face the current pandemic situation," said Tomy Hendrajati as President of the Human Initiative.

Leveraging Community Digital Adoption Increase

This pandemic situation is also considered to still be able to bring out the potentials of new habits in using digital platforms adopted by the community. According to the CEO ofOptions, Edward Jusuf, one of the positive things that can be taken from this pandemic situation is the new potential that is present in facilitating product sales in the future. One of the reasons is because people are now starting to realize the importance of digital platforms in supporting their activities. Even so, Edward himself did not deny that there are still new threats, especially for the tourism or travel industry, which must be addressed strategically.

“There is more or less a new threat that people are getting used to online meeting said Edwards.

The same thing was conveyed by the General Chairperson of ICT Volunteers, Fajar Eri Dianto. Fajar revealed that digital adoption is increasing rapidly due to the current pandemic. The community is also encouraged to use digital platforms ranging from learning activities to buying daily necessities. This also raises the question of whether the currently available startup products can meet all the needs of society during this pandemic. In addition, what is noteworthy as a side effect of this increased use of technology is the awareness of privacy. There are still many people who need digital literacy about this, one of which is because of the sudden digital adoption.

"We are starting to emphasize to the public that privacy is like this, not just because you want to be online, you have to be online, all data must be stored.share"added Dawn.

Through the discussion of this webinar, we can see that startups must continue to be able to see the potential for synergies and innovations in providing a positive impact on society through their products. Of course, there are still many applications of technology products that can be discussed in helping the community during the pandemic, one of which is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

These two products will also be discussed in the final series of the Behind The Wheel webinars next week. With the theme "Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning to Fight COVID-19", this webinar will bring together several speakers such as Irzan Raditya (CEO Kata.ai), Bachtiar Rifai (CEO Volantis), and several other speakers who can provide insight interesting about using AI and machine learning in helping the community during this pandemic. For those of you who are interested in joining next week's webinar series, please register for free via the link the following.

Disclosure: This article is part of the publication of the Behind The Wheel webinar series hosted by MDI Ventures.