{"id":92281,"date":"2025-08-14T16:16:42","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T10:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bizom.com\/?p=92281"},"modified":"2026-09-08T14:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:32:10","slug":"ri-tour-indonesia-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bizom.com\/id\/blog\/ri-tour-indonesia-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"RI Tour Indonesia Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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RI Tour Indonesia Highlights<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby Aftab Sheikh\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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August 14, 2025 | 06<\/strong>\u00a0min read<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Share:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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When I stepped off the plane in Jakarta for Bizom\u2019s RI Tour, the air wrapped around me – thick with humidity, richer still with opportunity. Below, Indonesia stretched out like a captain\u2019s chart of scattered emeralds on a restless sea, each island glinting with its own tides, its own tempers, its own rules of trade.<\/span><\/p>

Seventeen. Thousand. Islands.<\/span>
<\/span>Three time zones.<\/span>
<\/span>A sprawl wider than the United States.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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RIO\u2019s Day Out<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Before the panels began, I took a day to let Jakarta introduce herself to me.<\/span><\/p>

The city greets you with a thousand sounds at once: the chatter of street vendors, the hum of motorbikes, the distant rattle of a commuter train.<\/span><\/p>

I wandered past towering glass skyscrapers that would rival Singapore\u2019s skyline, only to turn a corner into a narrow lane lined with <\/span>tocos <\/span><\/i>(kiranas) selling everything from instant noodles to fresh-cut jackfruit. Overhead, 3D billboards lit up the night, some so lifelike they felt like they\u2019d stepped right out of Tokyo\u2019s Shibuya or Times Square.<\/span><\/p>

Lunch was a plate of <\/span>nasi goreng<\/b> so fragrant I could smell the fried shallots before it even reached my table. The <\/span>ibu<\/span><\/i> (auntie) serving it laughed when I tried out my freshly learned <\/span>terima kasih banyak<\/span><\/i> ( \u201cthank you very much\u201d in Bahasa), her warmth making up for my terrible pronunciation.<\/span><\/p>

And it wasn\u2019t just her. From <\/span>ojek<\/span><\/i> riders helping me find my way to shopkeepers who insisted I try <\/span>kue lapis<\/span><\/i> for dessert, there was a generosity in the way people offered both food and time. Even the city\u2019s infrastructure felt generous, smooth highways, a web of flyovers, and the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) slicing clean lines through the chaos.<\/span><\/p>

Jakarta, I realised, is a city that doesn\u2019t just move goods. It moves people, and it does it with heart.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Panel Begins<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This was the 7th edition of Bizom\u2019s RI Tour – a special one, hosted at the immaculate St. Regis Jakarta. Inside its marble halls, industry leaders gathered to talk about transforming retail with AI. But outside those walls, the reality of Indonesia\u2019s retail network looked very different.<\/span>
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<\/span>Picture this: in Medan, a <\/span>toco <\/span><\/i>owner scribbles inventory on a ledger. In Surabaya, a <\/span>principal (Brand)<\/span><\/i> in a glass-walled office stares at a dashboard stuck at 70% data completeness. Meanwhile in Kalimantan, a distributor is sending a product photo over WhatsApp because that\u2019s the fastest \u201csystem\u201d they have.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIndonesia\u2019s RTM is still primitive\u2026 regulatory challenges are high, cross-island transport is expensive, and the systems are not fully online.\u201d \u2013 Panelist<\/span><\/p>

And yet\u2026 the markets are alive. The wet markets alone account for <\/span>75% of FMCG sales<\/b>, and each <\/span>route (Beat)<\/span><\/i> is a lifeline. But in that chaos lies a truth I\u2019ve seen across Asia: the market doesn\u2019t wait for your systems to catch up.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Cracks in the System<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I\u2019ve seen this play out before.<\/span>
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<\/span>Faxed daily sales sheets in the 90s, Excel spreadsheets in the 2000s, ERPs and SFA tools in the 2010s.<\/span><\/p>

Every decade promises \u201cthe leap forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

But here? Many <\/span>principals<\/span><\/i> are still making million-dollar decisions on data that\u2019s 30 days old. One brand discovered their claimed outlet reach was <\/span>40% inflated<\/b> due to duplicate entries.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cBy the time you see the real numbers, your window for iteration is gone.\u201d \u2013 Panelist<\/span><\/p>

And attrition? Try <\/span>160% annual churn<\/b> for frontline sales reps in Southeast Asia (ADO & Questcore).<\/span>
<\/span>Imagine building a sales culture when your team turns over every 7 months.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Here\u2019s the kicker – it\u2019s not just a tech problem. It\u2019s a <\/span>behavioral problem<\/b>. As Wendy from Nestl\u00e9 said:<\/span><\/p>

\u201cHuman behavior and habit are the biggest problems in B2B. Convincing customers to use new applications is not easy at all.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>

I\u2019ll ask you: <\/span>In your team, is the barrier the tool\u2026 or the will to use it?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The AI Awakening<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Then the conversation shifted. You could feel the room lean forward.<\/span><\/p>

Martin from Juve lit up the room talking about image recognition:<\/span><\/p>

\u201cAll merchandisers have to do now is click a picture – no manual input.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>

In a market where compliance checks used to take hours, AI now spots missing SKUs, flags wrong pricing, and verifies promotions in seconds.<\/span><\/p>

Rohit showed how <\/span>Generative AI<\/b> is cleaning master data: spotting duplicate <\/span>tocos<\/span><\/i>, even identifying fraud-prone regions by comparing store photos and geolocation.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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And here\u2019s where it gets interesting: AI is learning the <\/span>rhythm of the route<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>