Picking up the crumbs, learning along the way

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.