Florist grows business from small beginnings

By Sri Wahyuni

JAKARTA (JP): Growing flowers and plants is serious business for Iin Hasim, a successful florist in Jakarta. The 60-year-old now runs her own company, PT Inkarla, which employs more than 100 staff.

Her talent with plants has brought her to the Presidential Palace every Independence Day since 1985 to provide floral decorations for the ceremonies.

The Agricultural Ministry recognized her as one of the most successful agribusiness people last year for her management and marketing assistance to the farmer's group Srikandi in Meruya, West Jakarta.

"This convinced me that whatever profession you deal with, if you do it professionally you'll be successful," the mother of four and head of the Horticultural Agroindustry Department of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said at her home in Senayan.

The following are excerpts from The Jakarta Post's interview with Iin Hasim, who is also one of the founders of the Indonesian Flower Association and chairs the Association of Indonesian Agribusiness and Horticulture.

Question: How did you get started in the business?

Answer: I started it unintentionally in 1976, without any special fund allocation. As I said, I did it as a hobby at first. It turned into a business by accident because I had run out of space. This house and the surroundings were full of plants and flowers.

Some relatives and friends suggested that I rent those plants and start a business. Then I started to lend the plants to them. At first, I didn't collect money from them, but then they began to pay me of their own accord.

Eventually, more people came to rent my plants..and here I am in the business.

When did you start to run it professionally?

Not very long after I started. I began to enter offices, including the newly built high-rises, to promote my business in about 1978-1979. Bank Indonesia, Bank Bumi Daya, Hotel Indonesia, Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport were, and remain, some of our first big customers.

How do you see prospects for the business?

They're promising. As you can see, the effect of high-rise buildings in big cities has blocked people behind walls. They are trapped between their own cages. There is not much space left for natural elements.

Whereas human beings are born to be naturally close to nature. As a result, they bring natural elements to their rooms as a fulfillment of this need...One of the easiest elements to be placed in rooms is plants and flowers.

Such a need (to be close to nature) becomes even stronger when the level of prosperity rises.

What are you doing to face competition?

We try to do our best in preventing customers from complaining and moving to other companies. This is the key to success in this business. At a glance, it seems we are just selling floral arrangements and renting plants. It's not only that. What we sell is service through flowers and plants.

That's why every year we always try hard to provide customers with new species or kinds of plants, the exclusive ones if possible. As a consequence, we have to make ourselves prepared with stocks of new flowers and plants.

Every year, I take some of my employees to the Netherlands to visit the annual floral exhibition there. There are at least five to 10 flowers and plants of new kinds introduced in every exhibition. New technologies for plantations and nurseries are also introduced.

I can look for something new that can be grown in my nurseries as exclusive commodities, while giving my employees the opportunity to improve their knowledge. This will in turn be of great use for the company..I call it a mutual activity for us.

What was your most exciting experience in the business?

When I was appointed as the person fully in charge of preparation of the venue for the 50th Independence Day ceremony.

I had taken part in similar preparations since 1985. I usually did it with the Nusantara Flower Foundation and florist companies. But in 1995 I had to do it all by myself. I took that as a challenge, and a chance to prove that I could do what I was supposed to do. And I did.

I was very satisfied because what I did pleased the ceremony's national committee, as well as President Soeharto and the late Mrs. Tien Soeharto, who personally inspected the preparation.

Where did you gain your expertise?

I am a graduate of the Jakarta Academy of Gardening and the Faculty of Landscape Architecture of Atmajaya University in Jakarta. Nevertheless, I learned more from daily experience, mostly from the annual exhibitions in the Netherlands. Frankly speaking, I consider the Netherlands as my model of professionalism in the business.

How do you get the supply for your business?

I have two nursery farms in West Java, one in Cilember, the other in Cibodas. We grow hundreds of decorative plant varieties and flowers there.

The Cibodas farm is mostly used as a field for the acclimatization of new species of flowers and plants, which I buy or order from the Netherlands and other countries.

Once a species is seen to have acclimatized well to the local environment, it will be moved to Cilember for further cultivation. The Cilember farm is expanding, and currently occupies about four hectares.

The market for event arrangement packages, either for wedding parties or other occasions, is also good. We receive no less than 50 orders a year.

That does not include our fixed annual orders like the Exhibition of Indonesian Handicrafts in Interior (Kerajinan Indonesia Dalam Interior), state-owned television network TVRI's anniversary parties and Independence Day's ceremonies.