The Niagara team from ITS doing an online presentation at Semarang State University Student Cooperative Fiesta 2020

ITS Campus, ITS News – Covid-19 Pandemic impacts the economy sector in Indonesia, such as micro, Small and medium enterprises (SME) directly impacted. Understanding the problem, three students of  ITS initiated a business idea named Niagara and won the second champion at the Semarang State University Student Cooperative Fiesta 2020.

They are the Fajrur Rido Ataubakumarwa, Muhammad Ainul Yaqin, and Intan Firdaus of the Department of Industrial Engineering ITS. Increasingly declining sales trends from SME around their home inspire them to brainstorm this Niagara. “In addition to the effect of the pandemic, we think this SME needs to be digitalized to follow the era,” said Fajrur Rido Ataubakumarwa which is commonly called Rido.

According to Rido, Niagara itself is a business platform that provides services for SMEs affected by Covid-19 with the process of digitalization through an application consisting of marketplace services and an integrated cashier. The advantages of this application are the financial bookkeeping and the recording of existing stock items. “The Cashier service if you reach a certain target will also get a voucher to enjoy other services for the user,” added this student from 2017 class.

In addition to these flagship features, he added, there are several packages that can support services from the Niagara applications later. Some of these packages are such as Bundling package to serve the purchase of a superior product package and intercompany package to serve product delivery to the buyer’s location. “This service will then certainly work with some parties such as a trusted logistics company,” explained the students who have won the title in some business idea competition.

In addition to the two packages, Rido added, there are still other superior packages such as take package to serve the pick up of goods directly, pay early package to serve the balance for customers at the beginning of the month, and there is an installment package to serve the payment in advance. “Some of these services are considered enough to anticipate purchases outside the application,” he said.

Fajrur Rido Ataubakumarwa shows presentation slides of the business idea of Team Niagara

The process of drafting this business plan started from late May 2020. The discussion process using online videoconferencing services is often done until mid-June 2020. Pandemic conditions also require them to research by asking for responses from several SMES around the home environment. “And the average they are interested in and feel the need for this application,” said the student from Kediri.

It is said that Rido, the name of Niagara itself is inspired by waterfalls in the United States. In addition, Niagara is a combination of two words, “Niaga” in Bahasa Indonesia meaning to trade or sell and “Ra” in Javanese which means questions followed by orders or calls. Therefore, the meaning of Niagara in terms of color and its constituent word is a call to trade digitally to form a national economy based on SMEs.

For this business idea, according to Rido again, it is still very necessary for further development to be applied to the community. The interview samples were still not representative of many SMEs in Indonesia. “Of course the expectation after this event (competition), we still develop the idea of this business as well as try it directly,” he concluded. (sep/Anjani/ITS Public Relation Officer)