An International Project
With nearly 8,000 convenience stores across Indonesia, AlfaMart is kind of like the Indonesian equivalent to our 7/11 chain. With so many locations come a myriad of storage needs. Convenience stores like AlfaMart stock and sell a lot of product and require extensive material handling solutions. As the Pickability people, UNEX can accommodate most any storage need that a convenience store chain like AlfaMart would come across. The challenge, however, is setting up a distributor network in Indonesia who can work with the company through the process of determining the right storage for their operation.
That is where Global Prima comes in. Global Prima is a distributor and full systems integrator in Indonesia. We met Andreas from Global Prima at a ProMat event in Chicago several years ago. He was very interested in some of the products that we were exhibiting at the show and made an effort to work with us to see if our product would work on an application that Global Prima was working on in Indonesia. It did, so we explored working with Global Prima on a more permanent basis. Today, Global Prima is our exclusive distributor into the Indonesia marketplace. AlfaMart is Global Prima’s customer and Global Prima designs and integrates their storage systems using UNEX Span-Track Roller Lane and Pallet Track products. This has been a very fruitful and successful partnership not only for UNEX and Global Prima but also for AlfaMart.
However, there is one more component required for UNEX to maintain its strong presence in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Cost of business can be a significant barrier to not only making the decision to do work internationally but to remaining competitive once you do. The freight costs, taxes and tariffs can be prohibitive. To cut down on those costs, we formed a partnership with Mystar, a full service pallet rack company headquartered. UNEX ships unassembled components to Malaysia for assembly, and those assembled solutions are shipped from Malaysia throughout southeast Asia.
Doing business internationally has its challenges. It takes planning and above all else partners that you know and trust. In our case, we found two partners whose businesses and cultures aligned closely with ours and we have been able to enjoy a very fruitful relationship in a market we might have otherwise not been able to penetrate.
