Exporters urged to improve design

Rita A. Widiadana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

Japanese women are among the world's most discerning females when it comes to fashion.

For those who want to be up-to-date, the prevailing trend in Japan is for simple yet chic household furniture and appliances, mostly inspired by the confines of small living spaces.

As for accessories, women, regardless of their age, have developed a penchant for unique gold and silver jewelry that can be worn with flair.

With high spending power and an eagerness for quality products, the Japanese market is wide open to insightful producers.

Every day, producers from across the globe flock to Japan to market their top lines. Haute Couture from Paris, Milan and New York makes its way to Japan, as do ready-to-wear casual clothes and jeans made in neighboring Asian countries.

The country is also an ideal market for products from emerging Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

It is also fortunate that Japan has not yet imposed any restrictions on imports, such as quotas. Therefore, any country can market its products without restriction, as long as they are competitive in price and quality.

"We regret to say that Indonesian suppliers, including those from Bali, have yet to penetrate the Japanese market for several reasons," explained Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) expert on local industry promotion, Chisui Kurokawa.

One of the major reasons is that Indonesians do not quite understand the Japanese market, nor the preferences of Japanese end-users.

"Since the Japanese are design-oriented, it is very difficult for any sales promotion activity to achieve success unless it offers attractively designed products," he added.

Numerous talented artists, craftsmen and designers on Bali have been producing handicrafts, fashion products, wooden furniture and many other items, with the aim of selling them on both the domestic and international markets.

A few producers have successfully managed to penetrate overseas markets, especially Japan, Australia, European countries and the United States, but many have failed to do so because of a lack of information on actual market demands.

Bali Design Development Organization (DDO) director I made Raka Metra commented that the majority of local exporters had already produced good merchandise, but that did not mean that the market would necessarily respond positively.

"Each market has its own specifications and demands. Japanese customers, for instance, prefer to buy simple, yet elegant furniture, whereas other countries may require similar products of different designs, styles and ornamentation.

"The problem lies in our inability to identify this specific requirement," Metra said after the opening of a recent workshop on marketable designs for the Japanese market.

Workshop uses high technology

To provide local producers with critical knowledge and information on Japanese market trends, JICA, in cooperation with the International Finance Cooperation Program for Eastern Indonesia Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Assistance (IFC- PENSA), and DDO, organized a one-day workshop featuring three distinguished designers -- business practitioners from Japan.

IFC-PENSA, with support from the World Bank, has been active in supporting the island's small and medium enterprises since it was established in 2003.

Thanks to advances in technology, the seminar was made possible with the use of JICA's Net System.

JICA-Net is a distance-learning lecture and seminar system that enables busy speakers and experts from anywhere in the world to participate in an event without the need to travel there.

The Bali workshop touched upon three important areas for local exporters: garments and textiles, wooden furniture and handicrafts.

The three distinguished experts that participated included Sansuri Co. president Nobu Tanigawa, who discussed textile and garment products; Atelier-Yuh president Yujiro Sugiyama, on furniture and wooden products; and online shop Asian Field president Shigeru Uekaji, who gave a lecture on handicrafts.

Lectures and commentary on the samples of each displayed item were given in real time from the JICA Headquarters in Tokyo and transmitted to the Indosat building in Tuban, Bali, via JICA's Net System.

"We have provided Balinese producers, exporters and the design community with market intelligence and information on Japan through JICA-Net," Kurosawa added.

IFC-PENSA program manager Carl Dagenhart stated that such a workshop was important to bridge the wide gulf between Balinese producers and the market.

"We were fortunate in that our speakers are both designers and business practitioners, who know exactly what the market wants," Dagenhart said.

Participants in the workshop included people from small and medium enterprises, currently receiving assistance from IFC- PENSA. The gathering also targeted professional fashion and industrial designers as well as art students, to enable them to have ready access to marketable designs.

Japanese experts assess samples

Prior to the workshop, the organizers sent a number of samples of fashion, furniture and jewelry to the speakers to enable them to analyze and provide comments on them -- whether they were acceptable to the Japanese market, and so on.

Nobu Tanigawa said that the Balinese fashion and garment products were well-designed.

"However, a number of important points must be noted by Balinese designers. It is important for designers to attract the younger generation as they are the fashion leaders in Japan, she maintained.

"Casual wear is now in vogue, with bright and cheerful patterns like polka-dots, fruit and floral motifs. Denim and T- shirts are also popular among young people," said Tanigawa, a noted importer and agent of designer clothes and accessories.

It is also important to take into consideration the body size of Japanese women when producing designs. Western women have different proportions.

In the furniture sector, Yujiro Sugiyama, a producer of wooden furniture and products who is well-known in Japan, commented on a number of samples of furniture made in Bali.

"As in Bali, wood is a common and popular material for Japanese people for making furniture as well as tools used in everyday life," Sugiyama stated.

Japanese people acknowledge the value of good wooden furniture. He identified four key adjectives that were the essence of popular furniture in Japan: simple, modern, natural, comfortable.

"Most Balinese furniture is too complicated and fussy in terms of design; it is not bad but is unsuitable for the Japanese market, which cherishes clean and simple lines with no unnecessary elaboration, carving or ornamentation," he noted.

The size and quality of furniture is of the utmost importance. In this case, Balinese craftsmen tend to create handmade products.

Sometimes, on the international market, the demand is for a combination of handmade and machine-made products, which results in high-quality items," he added, while pointing out samples of wooden chairs and tables with flawed designs.

"The use of machinery can improve processing accuracy and product quality, as well as productivity," he said.

Participants in the workshop said that they found it valuable and informative.

"We hope that we can get a lot more information and access to the market. We often lose our 'feel' for the market and produce what we think is good: We rarely think about market impact," said a participant.

Feraldi W. Loeis, of the IFC-PENSA program Access to Business Services, added that it was hoped that the workshop would improve the quality and business access of local producers.

"Bali has a lot of potential; we plan to hold a variety of workshops and training sessions to widen the horizons of local producers, and to open wide to them the opportunity to gain market acceptability."