Digital kiosks enabler Kudo reveals that it has transformed into GrabKios, confirming tighter integration with Grab, who acquired Kudo back in 2017. GrabKios establishes a partnership with the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises and supported by Grab’s business partners, such as State Logistics Agency (BULOG), and Bank Mandiri.

The involved partners also jointly announced that from this year onwards November 7 will be established as Hari Warung Nasional, with the goal to celebrate warungs’ contribution to Indonesia’s economy and drive mass empowerment for warungs through technology and partnerships.

Indonesia is home to over 4.5 million warungs -Indonesian for kiosks- even in its most rural areas, bringing the everyday needs to Indonesians.

Teten Masduki, Indonesian Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises said, “Grab’s effort to connect 2.6 million agents in 505 cities/regencies in Indonesia into the digital economy ecosystem is an innovation to empower SMEs to digitise their business. Through the use of technology and digitalisation, warungs will be more competitive in facing the competition with modern retail and also giving added value to their consumers.”

Also Read: How does it feel to be acquired by Grab? Kudo Co-Founder spills the beans

Budi Karya Sumadi, Indonesian Minister of Transportation said, “Logistics is an industry that is much needed in Indonesia as it involved various industries, from FMCG food products to heavy industries. Today’s warungs already contribute to Indonesia’s economic development as a center for paying digital bills, provide remittances, as well as be a logistics endpoint at the RT/RW level for its partnership with Bulog to distribute basic food items”

In the years to come, GrabKios and Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises said that it will partner with more industries and companies to grow Hari Warung Nasional and catalyse greater support for warungs.

GrabKios is the integration of Kudo’s network of over 2.6 million partners in more than 500 cities and regencies in Indonesia, and Grab’s ecosystem of services and partnerships.
GrabKios unveiled plans to help digitize more warungs through technology, providing solutions that help them remain relevant as the digital economy grows, at the same time better compete with convenience stores by implementing three ways:

1. Expand the range of services warungs can offer and help them grow new revenue streams: In addition to existing services such as airtime, bill payments, travel tickets, remittance, and registration of Grab driver partners, GrabKios is introducing new business opportunities such as:

  • Package delivery supported by Porter, where customers can deliver packages through GrabKios. This service is now available in Jakarta, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi, Bandung, and Surabaya.
  • Gold savings feature supported by Tamasia where GrabKios warungs can offer their customers a safe, reliable, and sharia-compliant gold savings plan that starts from as low as IDR 10.000. This feature was recently rolled out in Medan and all cities in Java.
  • Microinsurance, where customers can purchase health, life, education, accident and other micro-insurance plans through GrabKios partners. This will be rolled out from early December 2019.

2. Provide access to capital and financial services to help warungs scale their business: Grab has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bank Mandiri, one of Indonesia’s largest state-owned banks, to provide loans from Bank Mandiri through products offered to GrabKios partners and also Grab driver-partners.

3. Reducing their cost of business: GrabKios offers warungs access to a wider and more reliable range of wholesale inventory which they can order through the application. The goods are delivered to warungs with free delivery and cash on delivery options.

Also Read: Agung Nugroho on Kudo’s latest innovation, and keeping tabs on financial inclusion for all

Agung Nugroho, who previously served as Kudo’s CEO and Co-Founder, remains at the helm as Head of GrabKios. “Our mission at GrabKios is to ensure that no warungs are left behind. Our goal is to empower 1 million more GrabKios partners in Indonesia by 2021 through technology and help them to thrive and be able to continue serving the communities around them.”

GrabKios also announced a collaboration with its logistics partner, Porter, the digital logistics company in Indonesia that participates in promoting traditional stores. Through this partnership with Porter, GrabKios stores can operate as micro post offices where customers can send packages to anywhere in Indonesia from any GrabKios stores; GrabKios store owners also get up to 25 per cent commission from each transaction.

Porter established Porter Agent program in mid-2019, partnering with Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses across Indonesia. Porter Agent’s license is free of charge and store owners can easily sign up on the application that is available on Google Playstore.

Store owners use the application to book a package for delivery option and schedule package pick up – making the delivery process that was formerly complex and manual become seamless and digitalised.

“We believe helping traditional stores could lift Indonesia’s economy as well as promoting the welfare of the business owners as we scale and grow together,” said Richard Cahyanto, CEO and Co-Founder Porter.

By leveraging the GrabKios nationwide network, Grab also aims to bring more benefits to other micro-entrepreneurs on the Grab platform. Working in partnership with State Logistics Agency (Bulog), Grab driver-partners will be able to purchase rice at an exclusive, affordable price at GrabKios warungs, as part of the GrabBenefits programme.
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