UNAIR NEWS 鈥撀聽At the end of 2022, Prof Dr Sri SE Msi Hartini was officially inaugurated as a Professor in Marketing Strategy, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB)聽东京热聽聽(UNAIR) on Wednesday, December 28.聽In her scientific oration, Prof. Sri Hartini presented her research entitled聽Digitalization in Business Development for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs).
Starting her scientific oration, Sri Hartini mentioned data from the Ministry of Finance that MSMEs account for 90 percent of business activities and create more than 50 percent of jobs worldwide. But unfortunately, only 20 percent of MSMEs are digitally savvy. Thus, Prof. Sri emphasized that MSMEs must receive full support to increase competitiveness. One way is to perform digitalization.
鈥淎 simple way to digitalize MSMEs is, for example, by using the Point of Sales (PoS) application. This application can make it easier to record income, expenses, and profits automatically, including recording incoming and outgoing goods in the warehouse,鈥 said the 31st active FEB Professor.
MSME digitalization
Furthermore, she said AR and VR create customer experiences to minimize the risk of cancellation because VR can create 3D environment interactions. Meanwhile, AR can incorporate elements of the virtual world into the real world through computer-generated objects.
鈥淔or example, if you want to buy a car, you can聽try聽it in the virtual space and adjust the space in the real world.聽It means that you can estimate the size of the car for access to the house,鈥 said the professor born in Cepu, Blora Regency.
She believes AR and VR can strengthen digital聽marketing聽capabilities in persuading consumers.
Online reviews
Prof Sri suggested that MSMEs use聽online reviews聽on all aspects of customer services.聽In her research, Prof. Sri showed that聽online reviews聽determine consumer purchasing decisions for both products and services.聽However, according to her, service聽reviews聽have a higher determining value than product聽reviews.
鈥淏ecause it turns out that potential customers need more聽experiential聽service聽reviews.聽For a聽product review, potential consumers can evaluate it themselves through product specifications, so they ignore聽online reviews,鈥 she explained.
Adjusting business strategy
Sri also said that when the pandemic was over, not everyone would adopt old habits, such as聽offline聽shopping, because consumers tend to continue to love聽online聽shopping as a new habit during a pandemic.聽On the other hand, several聽start-ups聽have begun to fall, seen from mass layoffs at聽GoTo,聽Ruangguru, and聽Shopee.聽Apart from that,聽Sayurbox聽also closed its service.
Thus, MSMEs must adapt their business strategy to environmental changes in the era of聽Society聽5.0 by means of understanding digital聽marketing.聽鈥There must be a new balance between online聽and offline聽purchases, so MSMEs need to prepare聽,听鈥聽said Prof Sri.
Omnichannel means providing unlimited access to customers when shopping聽online聽and聽offline聽through communication channels into one universal interface.聽In this case, for example, purchasing products from Instagram can be interconnected with various platforms in the store.
Prof. Sri also emotionally expressed her gratitude to her parents, family, UNAIR academic community, and everyone who provided support. She is also committed to making FEB the front guard in preparing the digitalization of MSMEs so they can compete in the global market. (*)
Author: Viradyah Lulut Santosa
Editor : Binti Q. Masruroh
