Conclusion

To conclude, this industrial visit was definitely interesting because it was my first time to do this dairy products industrial visit even though I had visited Cimory several times before. I finally knew why the products are premium, and it was really fun to see the company has improved their branches to so many new products I had never seen before; Chocomory, soy milk. Five years ago, Cimory has only two main business, milk and Kenzler.

I learned that they manage to deliver the highest quality of their product, to maximize the customer satisfaction by doing a very long manufacturing process with so many quality checks. At first, I really did not realize that Cimory sell this good products. I did not know that the quality checks have to be done so many times.

Cimory has also done good expansion in their milk business to sell soy milk as well for people who can not enjoy milk like me because of lactose intolerant. They also come in so many different flavors which are amazing.

For me, the products they sell are affordable and they are worth the price I pay, especially from the manufacturing processes they do to make the highest quality of their products.

Here are some pictures inside Chocomory store which is amazing!

4 P(s) International Market - Cimory

Cimory still has not done any international market at the interim.

International Trading - Cimory

Currently, Cimory is still a nation-wide dairy product company because it is still impossible to deliver their products outside of Indonesia. They have to keep their products at 4 degree Celcius, which is impossible to deliver the products outside of Indonesia.

Distribution

Currently, Cimory does its distribution by using their own intermediaries, as I have explained that Cimory has some companies that can manage the transportation and everything.

Actually, this definitely gives more profit for the company because using outside intermediaries costs a lot of money. Freight cost is actually really expensive, and if companies manage to cut it down, it is amazing.

Marketing Department

Cimory has several companies and they have their marketing department from all of the companies.
This is actually the most interesting part. They do the marketing process by word of mouth, from people like us who visited Cimory factory in Cisarua. Absolutely low cost, and we even had to pay them the factory tour fees. Intead of spending lots of money on marketing processes, just like most of the companies do, they can spend more money on the production cost, to make sure their products are great.

Usually, companies spend lots of money, thousands of dollars on marketing processes. Companies may use expensive advertising while using TV media, radio, billboards, etc. I have seen so many drinks advertising on TV, and I just realized that I have never seen any Cimory advertising on TV before.

Word of mouth marketing strategy is absolutely low cost for the company and it enhances companies' product quality, which is amazing. Therefore, their stores and restaurants in Cisarua are pretty good places to visit and very chill. They have to create good impression for the visitors, so the visitors can tell their families and friends about how good Cimory's places in Cisarua are.

Cimory Manufacturing Process

During the Q&A session, the EO described how they manufacture the milk, and it was really itneresting. I was first confused why the price of their products are pretty high and I wanted to know if the product quality meets its price! It was interesting to hear that they do their production based on order because dairy products are easily expired and it is impossible to sell fresh milk, with preservative added.

The great thing to hear was they get their milk from village cooperation, so all the products are all from our country's resources. However, they sellect their milk carefully and there are some requirements for the milk to have, such as 80% water. After the first quality control, they do filtration, aeration to kill the excesive smell, and finally, pasterurization done at 90 degree celcius for the milk to not boil. After this long process, they do another quality check before the packaging processes. It was interesting for me to see that they do so many quality control so the products are definitely premium. For people like me who have lactose intolerant, they also produce soy milk product which I think is really great to consume.

The greatest thing on Cimory's manufacturing process is the amount of the quality control to make sure their products are good. It is important for the companies to make sure to deliver the highest quality product to make the highly satisfied customers. Recently, I just learned that retaining existing customers is really important and I just saw this application in real life.

Obviously, there are things to improve as well to be done by Cimory. I think they need to create some more factories all around Indonesia because they tell us that it is impossible to do deliveries far away from the factory because they have to keep the temprature cold, so the milk is in the best condition for selling. It is definitely a big investment, but I think that this will create bigger market for them.

Cimory - The Trip

Me and my friends had to be at school earlier because the trip was quite far. We started the trip around 7 in the morning, and it took us around 2 hours to be there. It was great because we went there during weekdays when people do not go to Puncak or Cisarua on that day/hours.

When we first arrived there, we had our introduction with one of Cimory EO, and it was actually my first time to hear what Cimory stands for, I thought Cimory was just a name given by the owner in the past. After a short introduction, we went to see some clips made by Cimory for the visitors about the company, and it was quite surprising that Cimory actually has pretty big expansion since tha last five years period. I did not know that Cimory now has so many branches, such as Chocomory. 

After the introduction session, we had our welcome drink real quick, strawberry milk and I really did not like it. We went to a little cattle pen inside Cimory's property and we got to see some huge ass cows right there. It was a really hot day, I did not expect Puncak would be that hot during that time. The EO introduced how do they cross their cows, which was really disturbing, and I had heard of it when I was still in high school. After some talks about the milk quality and stuff, we finally got some little time to learn how to milk a cow. It was really gross so I decided to wait and see the process in a distance because I had seen this process several times in the past.

We were all hungry and finally, the lunch time that we have waited for hours come. Sadly the food was not good and we decided to get some additional orders because why not? After we had our lunch done, the Q&A session finally came. I had waited for this session to begin because the explaination and the introduction information were not enough for me. In this session, the EO described us how the process of the sterilization process, shipping, etc. It was really good to know this processes as a guarantee their products are amazing because the price of their products are pretty high. 

Before we went back home, they showed us how to make some milkshake and how cheap it actually is to create them. 

Cimory Trip - My Expectation

I had visited Cimory several times in the past with my family to chill when I was still in high school almost four years ago. This visit was not my first industrial visit, since me and my friends in Raffles College did an industrial visit to Indomie factory around two months ago. During this trip, I expected to see how dairy product industries go, how do they manage to be this big right now, and if they expanded their business. Learning new business strategies done by industrial visit has always been interesting to me because I want to be a businessman in the near future !

What factors should you consider when deriving an estimate of your lifetime value to a retailer? How can a retailer increase your lifetime value?

Personall, I purchase Starbucks Coffee twice a week. Let's say that I spend Rp 50,000.- every time I buy the coffee. In a year, I spend Rp 52,000,000.0-, so if I live 50 years from now, I will spend approximately 2.5 Billion Rupiah during my life time.

OBVIOUSLY, companies have to keep customer satisfaction as high as they can. Service businesses is definitely challenging. Communication between the employees and the customers have to be improved too. Promotion is definitely imporant here too. For example, sales discount, or promotion like buy one get one free or something is definitely attractive and interesting.

Explain the difference between the share of customers and customer equity. Why are these concepts important to marketers?

Share of customer is the share marketers get of the customer's purchasing in their produc categories.
For example my own consumption on coffee. 50% of the time I purchase coffee at starbucks, 10% on white coffee luwak, 10% on Kapal Api, and the rest on random coffee shops. This percentage always differs from one to another because it depends on the preference, and we understand that we people are all different in preferences.
To increase share of customers, firm can leverage relationships by offering greater variety to current customers. For example, Starbucks can add multiple new flavors to the coffee shop. Obviously, the advertising of the new flavors are going to be attractive to Starbucks customer.

Talking about customer equity, customer equity is the total lifetime values of your current and future customer.A company with high customer equity will be valued at higher price than a company with low customer equity.

Define marketing and discuss how it is more than just "telling and selling".

Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and organisations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others. Value is the benefits to the customer in exchange of what they pay. The marketing process does not stuck only on the advertising. Marketing mix consists of 4P(s), which is Price, Place, Product, and Promotion. Telling and selling is only a small part of the promotion mix. Marketers observe, or research the trend that is happening at the interim, and deliver the product, or services to the customers. Understanding the needs of the customer is the hardest part here because trend changes everytime and marketers have to follow, so definitely, marketing is a deep word to talk about.
For example, Apple keeps on publishing their new product every year, while we can see the changes in features available.

INDOMIE FACTORY TRIP - 7

My Recommendation?

This whole trip was definitely fun and interesting for me because I got a chance to learn about Indomie further. I learned about the process of making the noodles from the beginning until the packaging process, how they promote their products, and how many new flavours that Indomie launched in the last few years. 

The most interesting part was when someone asked about the wax that the noodles made on the process of making the noodles that makes the water yellow. I was always scared of eating this noodles because people say that Indomie can cause cancer because of the wax and the MSG. However, I finally found out that what makes the water yellow is all the vitamins and the oil that comes from the noodles, not the wax that we people have been paranoid of. 

In my opinion, Indomie is one of the greatest product invented in Indonesia that has been really famous worldwide. The price is always affordable and the taste is always been good. However, I still believe that one day that Indomie can find out a new kind of seasoning without MSG that is way healthier for the consumers. 

INDOMIE FACTORY TRIP - 6

How Keen is Indomie to Social Media? 

Prior to these this era of technology, social media websites have been used by so many companies for advertising because the costs are relatively cheap and most of the people open their social media accounts multiple times a day. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Path are the most used social media websites that people use, but actually there are more social media websites that companies can use in their promotion, such as YouTube, DailyMotion, etc. 

Indomie uses all of the most used media to promote their products online. From their Facebook page, we can see their activities in posting pictures or quotes in their timeline. https://www.facebook.com/Indomie . Currently, there are 1.2 million likes on Facebook which is quite interesting because it is really effective in promoting their noodles. From their Instagram, they currently have around 6000 followers and 59 posts (@indomieid). 

The most interesting part is that the consumers even make videos that they posted on YouTube about Indomie, which are quite famous around the world. Free advertising done by the consumers are definitely interesting. 

Personally, I think that using the social media for the promotion is definitely one of the best way that companies can do because it is free, fast, and effective instead of paying so much money on the advertising on the newspaper and magazines. Additionally, most of the people nowadays are really into the social media websites/ applications, that they tend to open their accounts multiple times every single day. 

INDOMIE FACTORY VISIT - 5

Promotional Mix? 

Obviously, advertising has been the most used promotional mix that Indomie uses for its products. We have seen so many Indomie advertising in television, internet, newspaper, and magazines. To create awareness, especially when Indomie launches new products, Indomie must some big portion of their budget on the advertising because it is really important for them to make people aware of their new products. Additionally, Indomie also has to fight on the advertising with its competitors as well. People may already know about how good this Indomie brand is, but if Indomie does not keep on promoting its products to the market, Indomie will lose the fight in the market in the long run. 

During this great technology development, online advertising has also been really famous because most people are always online all the time, meaning that people use smartphone and use social media websites. For youngsters, it does not even cost Indomie any fees to create their own page on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the other social media websites. On certain websites, it may cost the a little, but not as expensive as television advertising, billboards, and magazines. 

The second promotional mix that Indomie uses is the public relations. In school events, we have seen so many Indomie/Indofood brochures because Indomie has become a great sponsor for some events, not only school events, but even big musical event as well. Additionally, Indofood/Indomie also does donation to orphanage/reformatory. For example, Indofood donated some amount of money in the making of an orphan house in Semarang. This obviously created a great brand image for Indomie/Indofood at the same time. In 2010, Indomie donated $100,000.00 for the study research done by the bachelor and master students on the IRN program studying about the diversification of food. 

INDOMIE FACTORY TRIP - 4

How Many People in Marketing Department? 

EXAMPLE OF THE STRUCTURE

They said that they employ currently around 300 people at the moment, but however we did not have the chance to learn about how they divide the marketing department into certain divisions, the structures, etc. 

Even we did not have time to discuss it to details, I believe that the marketing department has some sub divisions inside this big company too because it is impossible to focus on this huge brand. There must be a division that works on the online advertising because Indomie has their own Facebook account for their promotion. 

I believe they must also have R&D team to work on the flavours working very hard because in the last few years, Indomie has launched so many new flavours in Indonesia, and I believe Indofood has also launched new flavours as well in the other countries. 

INDOMIE FACTORY TRIP - 3

How I Think about The Manufacturing Process? 

Looking at the process from the beginning to the end of the packaging processes, I personally believe that Indomie has been doing really well on the manufacturing process. We can see that the factory is obviously sterile and the workers inside the factory wear their special clothings to protect themselves as well. 

Personally, I really like all of the packaging that Indomie create because of the great and attractive colours of the packagings they designed. I love how every different flavours have different packaging, not only the labels, but also the design as well. The best Indomie packaging I think is Indomie Taste of Asia design because the materials used for the packaging is really good and they present it very nicely. On the market, I really think that the design of the packaging is really good comparing to the other brands. When I first saw Taste of Asia packaging, I did not recognize that it was an Indomie branch because the materials used are completely amazing. 

Taste-wise, Indomie has been really famous and everyone loves Indomie, even people in America, Europe, and Africa love Indomie. They have so many flavours, so they can fit to everyone's preference and really adjustable to all nations. Sadly, we did not have a chance to see the process on how they make their seasoning. 

However, a well established brand like Indomie may still fail on their quality control, for example: some packs may not have the seasoning pack so it is impossible for the customer to eat, or the oil and the sauce packaging may leak its contents, so the customers can not consume the noodle. The other problem is when I find Indomie packaging that is not 100% air tight. I can not tell the difference on the taste of the noodle, but I find that even one hole on the pack may contaminate virus. Quality control and delivering good customer services have always been the biggest issues in real world because human can do mistakes / negligence. For Indomie, my suggestion is doing double quality control, or even more because Indomie has been sold very largely in the whole world. 

INDOMIE FACTORY TRIP - 2

Intro

On Thursday, July 30th 2015, me and the other BSP students had a chance to do an industrial visit to one big company, Indofood, and we had a chance to visit their best selling product's factory, which is Indomie factory. We met up early at school at 7.00 AM because the factory is quite far from our college, located in Cibitung, Bekasi. We went together to the factory by bus at 10.00 AM and we quickly started our activities.

The first thing that we did was obviously the presentation of their product, they showed us how many flavours they have on the market at the interim, which was quite surprising because there were so many flavours that I had not seen before, such as Indomie Cabe Hijau, Indomie Taste of Asia, etc. Previously I did not notice on how many Indomie flavours that exist in the market right now, but finally I recognized so many different flavours added in the last few years because I was not in Indonesia for the last four years.

After we had the introduction done, we had a tour on the process of making the noodles from wet to dry, how they fry it, how they dry it, and lastly on how they put it in the packaging. I knew that the production process was all done by the machines because I think it is impossible for Indomie to produce noodle with so many human powers. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures on the machineries.

After we had the tour, we finally came up with the Q&A session which was really interesting because I thought the tour was too short. We had so many questions on the marketing strategy because personally, this is the most important part on the industrial visits, knowing the company strategy further and learn from these big companies on how to do the business !

INDOMIE FACTORY TRIP - 1

Expectation and Background

Previously, I have visited some factories in the last few years during high school. I have visited food supplements factory that my parents build, Astra motor factories in Kerawang, etc. For me, factory visit has always been an interesting time for me because it allows me to see the company further to the inside, their policies and strategies, how they manage their employees, how to handle the competitors, etc. 

During this Indomie factory visit, I hoped that I could see the process of how they make their noodles, how they dry them and how they manage to package so many noodles at a time, and learn this big company's marketing strategy.