When Utami Prasetiawati applied for MIT Sloan Executive Education’s Advanced Management Program, she knew exactly why she wanted to be part of the immersive five-week program that is designed to help executives learn how to approach and manage systemic change within their businesses and industries.
“As an entrepreneur, you face a lot of challenges. You have to keep learning,” says Prasetiawati, managing director of logistics firm Transcon Indonesia and co-founder of logistics startup Prahu-Hub. “My business is logistics, and the industry gets disrupted from time to time. I knew that if I didn’t disrupt myself, then I would eventually be disrupted.”
Prasetiawati traveled to Cambridge in May for the most recent installment of the program, which saw more than 40 executives from around the world gather to participate and learn from senior lecturer and program director Court Chilton, as well as a host of additional professors and industry leaders. Within a couple of weeks, she realized something crucial that would affect the entire structure of her and her co-founder’s burgeoning digital logistics platform, Prahu-Hub, which serves all of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands.
Changing Course
“The courses within the Advanced Management Program taught us that there is more than one way to approach innovation,” Prasetiawati notes. “There are actually many ways to look at innovation. And I had to think about that when it came to considering how our startup works. Logistic costs in Indonesia are some of the highest in the world because we are a country made up of 17,000 islands. So we are not just linking big cities for the delivery of cargo, but also very small islands. It’s a huge challenge.”
Prahu-Hub allows businesses and manufacturers across Indonesia to arrange for the delivery of cargo by sea via a digital logistics platform. However, those companies often find it expensive and nearly impossible to deliver to many of the smallest islands and villages across the region, which often don’t have Internet access or robust infrastructure. To make the delivery of products more efficient and affordable across a wider geographic area, Prasetiawati decided to look at innovation in a different way and realized that she and her business partner needed to pivot in terms of their business strategy.
"You won’t believe how difficult it is to change yourself and how you think, but being open-minded is really the key to success in the AMP. If you want to learn, you have to be ready to unlearn."
“We could not just be the marketplace ourselves,” she says. “We had to change our business model. So we changed to a bidding system, which is less demanding technically and more stable for the region.”
Within Prahu-Hub, business owners and manufacturers across Indonesia can now access PH Bid, an inter-island freight auction platform that allows them to source carrier services at competitive rates. The option puts the power in the hands of smaller players in the industry and ensures seamless deliveries to a wider range of locales throughout Indonesia. And while the option is still new, Prasetiawati is encouraged by the response so far.
Keep an Open Mind
When she began the Advanced Management Program, she did not intend to change the entire approach to her logistics startup. However, with the encouragement not only of the MIT professors leading the program but also of her peers, she expanded her vision in unexpected ways.
“If you come here looking for a particular answer to a question or a challenge that you have, then this is not the right place for you. You come in with experience and your own knowledge about your business, but you have to be open-minded and have a capacity to unlearn what you knew before you began the program,” Prasetiawati observes. “You won’t believe how difficult it is to change yourself and how you think, but being open-minded is really the key to success in the AMP. If you want to learn, you have to be ready to unlearn.”
In addition to being open to the impressive level of applicable knowledge she acquired during the program, Prasetiawati also walked away with something she did not expect: a mentor and a new advisor for Prahu-Hub. She began chatting often with fellow participant Kristen Helsel, who at the time served as chief revenue officer at Ideanomics—a company instrumental in the EV business. “She gave me so much wonderful direction and a lot of input, and now she is an advisor for my startup,” she says. “This program allowed me to surround myself with people who can really talk from experience, and I found a mentor in her.”
With everything she gained, Prasetiawati says she is much more confident moving forward with her business and willing to make changes as necessary while the company grows. And she plans to continue building upon the foundation she gained through the Advanced Management Program. “I know it’s important that I keep renewing myself and relearning all the time,” she concludes. “The AMP changed my business and also allowed me to change myself.”
Learn more about the Advanced Management Program.