Millennials Optimistic About MEA

The era of the ASEAN Economic Community (AA) which has begun since the end of 2015 is a challenge for millennials to continue to be able to develop themselves in order to be able to compete with human resources from other countries. This is the main highlight of the implementation of CIMB Niaga Academy Goes to Campus at UMN which began on Monday (5/9). A series of events conducted also provide provisions for UMN students to want to improve and develop their potential.

In collaboration with the Faculty of Business and the UMN Accounting Student Association (HIMTARA), CIMB Niaga organized Career Days with various activities such as Talkshow, Career Class, Campus Hiring and Festival Bazaar in the UMN lobby.

CIMB Niaga started the career week with a talkshow that invited a successful entrepreneur at a young age, Yasa Singgih, and Muhammad Shodiq as Vice President of the Sharia and MSME Academy CIMB Niaga Indonesia to share about challenges and opportunities both as entrepreneurs and professionals in wading through AD.

Never too young to become a billionaire, Yasa Singgih started her business at the age of 15 with the determination that she would become independent and not ask her parents for more money. Yasa’s first business was to sell his own T-shirts, then switched by reselling the items he bought in Tanah Abang. From his merchandise, he was able to reap turnover of up to 40 million rupiah at the age of 17 years. After that, he had expanded his business into the culinary realm by opening a café but only lasted for 10 months and Yasa had to suffer losses of 150 million at the age of 19 years.

“The company can lose materially, but it must not lose experience,” he said. Bitter experience is not used as a stumbling block but a driver for the better. In 2014, Yasa got the idea to create a self-produced shoe business. After acquiring suppliers in the Bandung area, he produced his first 4 dozen shoes under the Men’s Republic brand. His hard work paid off. To date, Men’s Republic has produced 1,500 pairs of shoes / month and shipped to 8 countries.

His achievements made Yasa a successful young entrepreneur. He received an award from MarkPlus, became the first champion in the Self-Employment event and entered Forbes Asia magazine as a young entrepreneur under 30 years old in the retail and e-commerce category at the age of 20.

“The most important thing is attitude, motivation and strategy. If we don’t prepare ourselves, we will lose. But if the preparation then we will win,” explained this Bina Nusantara student. However, Yasa does not advise everyone to become an entrepreneur in order to be successful. “Getting old is for sure, adulthood is a choice, entrepreneur is a decision. A professional or entrepreneur is just a vehicle to get to the destination. Follow your passion and find the opportunity,” yasa said.

Meanwhile, from the professional side, Muhammad Shodiq revealed the challenges faced by the younger generation in facing AEC, one of which is related to human resources. According to him, the biggest challenge for the Indonesian government is the quality of basic education. Statistics show the highest number of unemployed is in the age range of 15-24 years. Middle school to university graduates have difficulty in finding a job.

“There are three challenges in human resource development in this AEC era such as the development of leaders, employees and students to reach the standards of the global economy at the national and regional levels, how they can effectively work in the ASEAN sphere and make them leaders in the ASEAN sphere,” shodiq explained.

Some companies such as CIMB Niaga already have initiatives to transform their business strategies and models to address this, such as increasing the mobility of employees and students throughout the ASEAN region and setting targets for it, increasing the number of experts, professionals and managers by earning master’s degrees in business and technology, creating internship opportunities in other countries, create a global business leader and fluent in English and other foreign languages.

CIMB Niaga has programs to train young human resources as assets, namely not only as employees but also as leaders. These programs include: Global Employee Mobility, CIMB ASEAN Scholarship, Regional Line Trainer Convention and CIMB Fusion. All four programs were also introduced in the session. (*)

by Debora Thea – Universitas Multimedia Nusantara News Service

Kuliah di Jakarta untuk jurusan program studi Teknik Informatika | Sistem Informasi | Sistem Komputer |Akuntansi|Manajemen|Ilmu Komunikasi | Desain Komunikasi Visual, di Universitas Multimedia