Abstract
In Indonesia, the local market is dominated by unique farming organizations that are unlike any typical Japanese farming company and have superior paprika production areas. The purpose of this study was to survey the specific constitution of paprika production areas in Indonesia and to understand the factors affecting the dominance of such organizations. The results of the field survey were subjected to SWOT analysis to identify the prospects and problems in management of these organizations.
The study area was Desa Pasirlangu Kecamatan Cisarua, Kabupaten Bandung Barat, and the interviewee was the accountant/treasurer of a representative company in this area （Koperasi Mitra Sukamaju）. The first step was to clarify the organizational structure and marketing strategies and identify associations among similar companies using the interview data. The second step was to perform a SWOT analysis to evaluate the factors affecting success and the potential barriers to development.
The results were as follows. The interviews clearly revealed a company that produced and distributed paprika did not process it and domestic trading counterparts were not supermarkets but individual wholesalers. The company was careful about acquiring new trading counterparts for technical and business practice reasons. Technical reasons included limitations in the education system so employees had insufficient time to master the cultivation of high quality paprika that could achieve customer satisfaction. Business practice reasons were related to the importance of trading with old customers because the company empirically knew that these old customers selected suppliers on the basis of mutual trust. Therefore, the company did not increase the number of wholesalers even if a new wholesaler temporarily demanded a large amount of commodities. New wholesalers were approached only if supplies remained after commodities were delivered to the old wholesalers.
However, considering recent uncertainties in global markets, there is a risk of change in the wholesaler’s preferences because of factors such as price and safety. Therefore, the relationships between the strengths, weaknesses, business opportunities and threats for the present conditions under which Koperasi Mitra Sukamaju operate were examined. On the basis of the SWOT matrix used in this study, I conclude that such an Indonesian company should implement more flexible strategies to cope with possible risks and fluctuations in the market.
JEL Classification: Q13, Q18
