“By recognizing and understanding these changes, retailers and consumer-facing brands can anticipate future needs and shape their strategy to take advantage of the opportunities that will arise in the coming years,” said Regan Leggett, Nielsen executive director of growth and emerging markets, in a press release dated Friday (08/09).
Nielsen describes Southeast Asia as a “diverse region” with each emerging and mature markets. Markets dominated by a disconnected rural population, equivalent to Indonesia, will steadily change as infrastructure develops.
The first technological change that may transform businesses within the region is the sharing economy, by which technology will more closely connect buyers and sellers online.
Individual consumers can use online marketplaces to go looking for goods, rent accommodation, finance loans, crowdsourcing and automotive sharing. The report found that firms that were the primary to facilitate connections “are doing exceptionally well” while promoting entrepreneurship and reducing the role of intermediaries.
Indonesians, at the least in major cities equivalent to Jakarta, are already aware of the concept of the sharing economy, as they now repeatedly use online platforms equivalent to ride-hailing apps Grab, Go-Jek and Uber, and Airbnb to quickly find accommodation online.
According to a separate study conducted by Nielsen in 2014, 87 percent Indonesians are willing to make use of the services or products of others in a shared community. That’s in comparison with 66 percent of the world’s population.
The second change is the proliferation of existing technology and infrastructure. According to the information, Internet users in Indonesia constitute 132.7 million, or almost 52 percent of the whole population report of the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Associationor APJII last November.
As the federal government intensifies efforts to supply connectivity to probably the most distant parts of the country, connectivity will improve and supply opportunities for more banking and e-commerce services.
The third is big data and artificial intelligence, which involves technologies for collecting and processing “massive amounts of information” to enhance systems management.
Artificial intelligence could be utilized by authorities to supply information on traffic flows, in addition to by firms to higher understand consumer behavior, improve logistics and financial trading.
“Consumers with active lifestyles will appreciate the simplicity and time-saving benefits of programmatic consumption,” Leggett said.
The fourth vital change is cashless payment technology. Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, promotes the so-called cashless society since 2014, encouraging society to make use of a cashless payment instrument. For banks and retailers, more people making cashless transactions simply means more transactions.
“The convergence of secure payment technologies with often insecure currency systems in many developing countries is likely to result in enormous growth in the technology and use of cashless payment technologies,” the Nielsen report said.
