First After Pandemic, UI Provides Digital Entrepreneurship Assistance to Sembalun MSMEs, East Lombok
DEPOK – (22/8/2022) It has been two years since global citizens, including Indonesia experienced the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The pandemic has harmed micro businesses and the lives of farmers and triggered by the decline in public demand due to the implementation of the PSBB / PKM. Such is the condition of Sembalun Sub-district, East Lombok, especially when recovering from the big earthquake disaster in 2018. Sembalun has long been known as a tourist destination for Mount Rinjani Geopark and a producer of agricultural and plantation commodities, including vegetables, nuts, strawberries, coffee, and garlic. However, sadly, farmers’ harvests sometimes do not provide profits because prices often fall at harvest time.
UI continues to make efforts so farmers do not lose money with falling prices, including increasing the added value of agricultural commodities into processed micro-enterprise products by further processing, such as black garlic, packaged coffee, chips, rengginang, and others.
The UI community service team has been in Sembalun since 2017 to encourage farm women’s groups (KWT) and MSMEs to increase the added value of their products. In 2022, the UI Team went directly to mentoring activities to restore micro businesses affected by the pandemic. No less than 20 micro businesses with various businesses such as black onions, coffee, carrot rengginang, potato chips, and others. This time in the form of digital entrepreneurship assistance, specifically helps how Sembalun MSMEs can adopt ICT / digital advances to support business progress.
Berlokasi di aula kantor Kecataman Sembalun, Tim Pengabdian dan Pembergayaan UI yang dipimpin Dr. Rambat Lupiyoadi (Dosen FEB UI dan Trainer Digital Entrepreneurship Academy Kementerian Komunikasi dan Informatika atau Kominfo) pada 20-21 Agustus memberikan pelatihan dan pendmpingan kewirausahaan Digital. Kegiatan ini menjawab berbagai permasalahan UMKM Sembalun, seperti ‘Sudah punya produk tapi masih bingung cara pemasarannya?, Ingin memasarkan produk secara online tapi gaptek? Punya sosmed tapi belum bisa cara menggunakannya untuk pemasaran? Dicari konsumen di internet tapi produk tidak muncul di google? Mau jualan online tapi tidak punya lapaknya? Mau promosi produk tapi bingung cara membuat konten yang menarik?’.
Located in the Sembalun sub-district office hall, the UI Service and Empowerment Team led by Dr. Rambat Lupiyoadi (Lecturer FEB UI and Trainer Digital Entrepreneurship Academy Ministry of Communication and Information or Kominfo) on August 20-21 provided training and assistance in digital entrepreneurship. This activity answers various problems of Sembalun MSMEs, such as ‘Already have a product but still confused about how to market it, want to market products online but are clueless? Have social media but cannot use it for marketing? Wanted consumers on the internet, but the product does not appear on Google? Want to sell online but do not have a stall? Want to promote your product but don’t know how to create exciting content?
The UI Community Service Team provides solutions and direct practice using a laptop or smartphone in this activity. In this training, participants learn the mindset of digital entrepreneurs and practice making a digital marketing canvas, attractive promotional techniques with copywriting, designing creative content (photo and video editing), social media marketing, google business, and online stores. It is expected that after this training, participants / SMEs can immediately go online and expand their marketing reach.
On this occasion, besides being directly guided by Dr. Rambat Lupiyoadi, there were also practitioner/entrepreneur mentors, namely Akso Diana, Spt, Hasan Asari (Entrepreneur of Hasanah Honey Barn Lombok), and Nasrullah (Owner of Kebalen Café Mataram). The entrepreneurs shared their stories of applying digital entrepreneurship to advance their businesses so that the participants could directly discuss and practice together.
One of the participants, Mrs. Yanti, a Rengginang Wortel MSME entrepreneur, expressed her gratitude and happiness with this training. “We thank the UI team for being willing to go directly to foster us in this digital marketing access problem; previously, we only sold in shops and on the side of the road. Through this training, we have been able to sell online through social media and google business,” said Yanti.
After participating in this program, MSMEs are expected to understand the importance of ICT and apply digital marketing to their businesses to expand markets and increase turnover.
Contributor:
Dr. Rambat Lupiyoadi
08129782613