Picking up the crumbs, learning along the way

Text and photos by Kastorius Sinaga

GARUT, West Java (JP): With a degree in education and training as a phys ed teacher, Asep Syaefulloh, 29, would obviously be happiest teaching. However, he couldn't say no to his mother, Hajjah Aisyah, 72, when she asked him to help handle the family dodol cake business. He also had had three teaching applications rejected.

Handling the family business while waiting for a chance to work in one's profession has become a tradition in the late Haji Toha's family, who died in 1992 at the age of 72. The tradition began with Asep's older brother Dadang Djamalsari, 45, when he took over his parents' small shop, Aneka Sari, in 1981. As the oldest son of Haji Toha's thirteen children, nine of whom are still living, Dadang couldn't refuse. Job openings fitting his education in fisheries were also limited at that time.

With the benefit of modern management training from the Fisheries Academy in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, Dadang learned the family business a step at a time. He carefully studied the market opportunities of the family's shop which sold rice, kerosene, cooking oil, kitchen supplies and snacks, some made at home. Talks with friends and employees at Garut's largest dodol factories, such as Picnic, gave birth to a new idea.

Abandon

Dadang suggested that his parent's abandon the shop and concentrate on a specific product. He felt it would be more efficient and simplify administration, which was also in keeping with their advancing age. Dadang believed that, of the many businesses developed by his parents since 1950, making different kinds of sticky cakes (specifically wajid, dodol, angleng) which had been sold so far at his family's shop on Desa Suci Kaler St. in Wanaraja, Garut since 1979, had the most market potential.

Dadang recognized that he couldn't hope to compete with the traditional Garut sticky rice dodol. This industry had existed for many years and many large companies dominated the industry. Even though these companies would have seen his efforts as of little consequence, Dadang was still very much aware of them when he began his small dodol-making business in 1986 with six workers. Picnic, the largest dodol cake maker in Garut at that time, employed 100 workers.

Market competition made Dadang decide to aim at a specific market segment with his sticky cakes. He decided to make dodol from beans, instead of the traditional sticky rice, and eventually also added a soursop fruit variety. Dadang's careful analysis of the market encouraged a local branch of state bank BNI 1946 to grant him a Rp 12 million loan in 1982. After pledging his family's land and shop, he got a larger loan of Rp 22 million in 1985.

"The large factories are usually reluctant to produce bean or soursop cakes. They prefer the sticky rice kind because it has a guaranteed market and is also easier to produce," explained Asep, who replaced Dadang as Aneka Sari's manager when his older brother got a job as a fisheries manager in Cirata.

With modern thinking and business skills developed within the family circle, Asep continued to reorganize the family firm. There are now 20 workers at Aneka Sari, not including those family members involved. Asep has diversified into strawberry essence. Product quality has also been improved.

Although the business survives on the crumbs left over from larger companies, it has become a success in its own right. Aneka Sari is now producing 100 kilograms of dodol and other cakes every day, with their sticky rice cake selling for Rp 2,600 and their bean and soursop varieties for Rp 2,700. The workers earn between Rp 3,000 and Rp 3,500 for packers and Rp 6,000 and Rp 9,000 for makers. These figures don't include the Rp 500 given to cover food and the one meal a day provided by the company.

Education

This small industry, which now uses four large cooking pots, has obviously been able to increase the financial well-being of Haji Toha's family. Six of his nine children have now been able to afford higher education. Asep himself already operates three lucrative minibuses on the side, set up from dodol business profits. Problems and complaints which have come their way have not caused the family to falter but have been used as a source of inspiration and a means to navigate the choppy waters of business competition.

The success of the family business has also stimulated other businesses in Garut, particularly banks. The local BNI 1946 bank which watched the small family-based business grow into a larger one, offered them a loan of Rp. 100 million in 1993.

Refusal

"But we refused the offer because our mother didn't want to take on new debts. She said she was afraid we wouldn't be able to repay it," explains Asep.

Although Hajjah Aisyah's refusal to take on more credit shows the relative caution of small businesses and their tendency towards honesty in their dealings with others, her youngest son was not of the same opinion. Asep's younger brother, Enang Jaleani, 25, who saw the bank's offer as a chance to enlarge the business, decided to go off on his own. He set up his own dodol factory, called Utama, in 1993.

Although Asep generally agreed with Enang, he respected his mother's opinion, and, as the son entrusted by his mother with the running of Aneka Sari, he was more careful in his actions. As a result, he was able to get another loan, but at a more reasonable rate of interest, from a geothermal utility plant in West Java -- a subsidiary of a state bank. The utility plant granted him Rp 6 million for three years at an annual interest rate of 4 percent. This financial assistance, which also required regular quarterly reports on the development of the business, was granted in September 1994.

Asep recognizes that the growing maturity of the family in handling its business has come about with the help of training and guidance from a number of governmental and private agencies, both domestic and foreign. A German supported Small-scale Agroindustry Development Project, for example, provided help in conducting a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats analysis for the business. It now provides cost analysis assistance, both for Aneka Sari and other small businesses in Garut. The German project has several other programs related to cottage industries in Sumedang, Sukabumi and other parts of West Java.

Aneka Sari has been helped a great deal by this project. Asep believes that it has helped them be more efficient, which has helped them grow and seek out new opportunities. One example is that Asep is now involved in setting up tanks to keep and cultivate freshwater fish. This effort can be integrated into the dodol business because the leftovers from the coconut used in the making of the cakes can be turned into food for the fish.

Another use of the program, according to Asep, has been in seeking out the most appropriate technology for preserving the raw ingredients for soursop dodol. Without this kind of technology, efforts to improve efficiency and quality control will fail.

"We're trying to preserve this soursop by adapting some simple technological principles developed in Europe," says Frank Poll from the German project while watching over the production process.

Another problem that Asep feels must be solved soon is how to surmount the difficulties posed by uneven quality of corn husks they use to wrap angleng, one of the other types of sticky cakes they produce.

"Our main problem in making angleng is that we have to use corn husks even though finding the right kind is not always easy," says Asep.