Ramayana Lestari Sentosa “THIS TIME IT’S REAL”

IS IT SUSTAINABLE ?….

After went to a lot of Ramayana stores, interviewed many customers and staff, then time to meet the company again !. I made appointment meeting with Mr. Aloysius Santosa. He is Ramayana’s Investor Relation.

I headed to Wahid Hasyim street around Tanah Abang market to meet him. It was a fun and quality meeting at the same time. Mr. Aloysius believe that it’s just the beginning of Ramayana’s major change and transformation.

According to him, Jane bring many positive changes since her greater involvement in Ramayana business late 2015. (Actually, she already involved in Ramayana business for more than 10 years ago)

The most obvious positive change is Ramayana marketing and promotion strategy which turn out to be very successful and created a hype around Indonesia people.

Jane always uses valid data and conducted a survey before doing or deciding anything. She also believe in principle “right people at right place”. She “placed” new young faces on her merchandising & promotion team to replace older generation.

Her father (Mr. Paulus Tumewu) is now giving more space and control to Jane, especially on marketing / promotion strategy and merchandising.

Sure, Jane is always and still learning but the direction is clear and she is moving in a right direction.

Jane will not stop yet and there’s more bright ideas, strategy that Jane will bring to Ramayana, and me who once not so optimistic about Ramayana, is now believe that Ramayana transformation under Jane would be sustainable going forward.” said Mr. Aloysius.

Mr. Aloysius noticed that lately there are SSSG improvement in Ex-Java island. He think it could be because of rising commodity prices which already happened since early 2016.

He believe the next story / catalyst for Ramayana is if SSSG in ex-Java keep improving since it contributed around 40% of Ramayana sales. Some of region in ex Java also has 1-2% higher gross margin than stores in Java.

On Supermarket business, Ramayana plans to convert 25 supermarket to SPAR next year. So far, supermarket gross margin has improved even with only 17 SPAR (10 more SPAR in 2H 2016). So we can expect much more better margin going forward in supermarket

business. Better supermarket performance will surely boost Ramayana earning.

Asked about Jakarta Governor’s plan to issued Jakarta Smart Card too for university students next year (IDR 18 mio/year/student), Mr. Aloysius tell me that he is confident that most university students will use that card to spend at Ramayana, because with cheaper price, they can get more goods and items at Ramayana.

For example, outright merchandise price at Matahari Department store is 50-60% higher than Ramayana outright merchandise. So with same amount of money, you can get 3 merchandise at Ramayana vs 2 merchandise at Matahari.

Sounds a good deal for university students pocket ! especially since Ramayana already improving their merchandise quality and customer image.

Like I said previously which is reaffirmed by Mr. Aloysius, customers from B- economy class is now started shopping at Ramayana (previously only C and D class customer).

Asked how he know that ? ( I also noticed it since I already interviewed many Ramayana customers )

Mr Aloysius answered they are now receiving many calls, message, twitter mention, instagram comment filled with question asking where’s Ramayana store location that near their house.

It means people who usually don’t care about Ramayana, is now started paying attention !