TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde was involved in an exciting discussion with the founder of Bukalapak, Achmad Zaky in an event held at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta on Thursday, March 1.
In the discussion titled '2018 Youth Town Hall: The Future of Work', for about an hour, both Zaky and Lagarde asking questions about each other’s experience and background, witnessed by hundreds of college students.
“How do you maintain your business for now and 20 years later?” Lagarde asked. “The ability to adapt (with changing era) is absolutely necessary to be done,” said Zaky.
The IMF managing director has previously briefed that a resource business which used to be a trend and was at the top now faded away and is replaced by tech-based businesses.
Read: IMF`s Christine Lagarde Applauds Indonesia`s GoJek
Zaky said that to have an ability to adapt to a change is a must. In running a startup, he continued, one must always be ready with new innovations to compete.
In his startup company, Zaki said that every employee is given the freedom to do and execute the new ideas for business development.
“Everyone needs to position themselves like a CEO (Chief Executive Officer), how to find the new ideas and then execute them,” he said.
Dissatisfied with the answer, Lagarde asked again about how Zaky filtered out the new ideas that come in; which one that can run and which one is not.
“We have a kind of matrix to measure and evaluate how innovative developments have been done, usually the results are seen within six months," Zaky said.
Lagarde also asked how much money does Zaky has to invest to realize the innovations for his company's development. Zaky said that innovations come from the people who run the company. Therefore, the biggest investment will be given to those people, he concluded.
“Like what? Let's say for the people whose innovations are finally applied, is it a big bonus?” The IMF chief asked.
“Correct, [they] even get paid higher than an employee at an oil company,” said the Bukalapak founder while laughing.
PRIBADI WICAKSONO