Andaru Adi
IPMI International Business School
Amelia Naim Indrajaya
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In Indonesia, bringing and giving souvenir or gift to friends, relatives, and families are like a tradition and common things to do. When you travel to other places, visiting friend/families, marriage ceremony, office events, and other events, you need to bring/give something to the audience, attendees, invitees to the event. From these facts, you can imagine how many gifts/souvenirs are distributed.
Those are business opportunities.
How about giving souvenirs that are useful for the recipient? How about giving souvenirs that also help nature?
This is the story about a business model that is useful both, for the recipient and the earth.
Meet Astuti Rusmarawati (Astuti) and I.G.A Ngr. Novianti Suryakasih (Novi), two inspiring women who founded the business. Both previously worked as professionals on their own expertise, Astuti is an Engineer and Novi is an Accountant, but shared the same passion about gardening, plants, and flowers.
They met on the gardening training event more than a decade ago, and soon became connected. They decided to start a business, selling decorative plants such as anterium. However, after 6 months the business started to slowing down, as the decorative plants boom was over.
They then decided to change the business model, by selling small decorative plants as souvenirs. They saw opportunity in this market, as there were and always going to be plenty of demand for souvenirs in Indonesia. This business model also met Astuti and Novi passion, about earth and global warming.
The idea was to spread the goodness of planting more trees, which at the end will reduce pollution, floods and global warming - while at the same time creating economic value to the business.
What inspired Astuti and Novi was global warming issues which is becoming more concern to world citizen, especially in Indonesia. There are moral movements start by people and organisations around the world by reducing the green house effect through planting more trees.
The mission of the business is the long term. The overall impact of innovation can be seen 3-10 years from now. The impact is valuable for the environment, human being, and living creature, although it can not be monetized easily.
In a short period, the gift recipient will plant the seed and grow the plant in their surrounding neighborhood. This planting phase will train recipients to understand the method and the mission beyond their actions. Their neighborhood will have more trees, flowers and beautiful greenery to see.
Longer-term, more trees will reduce air pollution, preventing floods, and reducing climate change.
As soon as Astuti and Novi changed their business model, the demand for their unique and useful souvenir products started increasing. The combination between their mission (earth nature save, reduce global warming) and customer needs of useful/unique souvenir can be seen in their small plant/seeds product. The product represents the two.
Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir started to see the impact from this innovative action on their sales record. It was not easy to supply > 300 plants at once, and pack them in unique and beautiful packaging. Orders became vary, ranging from office events, birthday, retails, up to more larger scale such as weddings, and reunions.
Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir soon found themselves in need of new nursery, and more manpower to support the business. As the business was growing, more funding was injected to support the expansion and the operation. Due to the founders passion, ideas, and abilities to see the market opportunities, the return of their investment is realized after sometime.
The marketing strategy of the business was started by word of mouth, then changed to blogs, websites and now to social media. Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir inspiring business had been reported in several national media. This earth saving and global warming reducing business model can be sustained for years to come.
Since Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir innovated their products, the demand have been growing.
They had to look for help, more workers to support the business. They started to open new jobs, which were prioritized for the communities living close to the nursery. They even created an ecosystem, where Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir had workers maintaining the nursery, and working together with other nurseries to supply the seeds or plants.
The existence of Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir helped the society, not only opening for new jobs but also business opportunities. Their impact also can be seen in the environment, as Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir expanded their nursery and making their surrounding areas even greener.
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B. Andaru Brahmono Adi, Student
Rumah Teduh-Green Souvenir was founded by two inspiring women, Astuti Rusmarawati (Astuti) and I.G.A Ngr. Novianti Suryakasih (Novi), 11 years ago in Jakarta. They shared the same concern about the earth, the global warming issues, and then decided to do something. Their initial ideas were how to channel their hobbies, gardening, and beautiful flowers to a business model that can be sustainable for the earth and for their economic.