Killtwobirdswithonestone.

Bakries Investment on Path:

Killing Two Birds with One Stone Strategy?

The $25 million investment of Bakrie group in Path has led to controversial responses in Indonesia.
Being notorious for its history of prolonged unfinished Lapindo case, Bakrie group has made a decision that
the public opinion in Indonesia does not seem to favor. Indonesias netizens vigorously share their thoughts
on the investment with negative comments like would uninstall Path (Recode, January 2014) or they
shouldve paid the victims of Lapindo first. (Solopos, January 2014) In addition to that, the participation of
Bakrie Global Groups front-man, Aburizal Bakrie (ARB) on Indonesias 2014 Presidential election, makes
the investment vaguely seen as part of a presidential succession campaign strategy rather than as a
business strategy.
Ignoring the fact that ARB is running for presidential election, Bakrie groups decision on the
investment is actually appropriate for business expansion. Although Path went through an up and down
moment in 2013 due to internal problems, (Technocrunch, 2013) the social media company is looking at
expanding their market in Southeast Asia thus searching the strongest partner to fulfill this mission. From
the total of 24 million users around the world, Indonesia serves Path 4 million of users and domination on
30% of the social media traffic. (Solopos, January 2014) Just as Twitter remarks that the biggest number of
users comes from Indonesia, Path is very keen on experiencing the same accomplishment. The initial
number of Paths users in Indonesia and in addition to other users from different countries in Southeast
Asia will contribute huge revenues for Bakrie if the development and management plan goes well.
Now, if we add the political aspect of ARB running for presidential election to the discussion then,
the investment can serve as the English idiom kill two birds with one stone though at a high risk. The
involvement of social media as part of communication campaign is not a new approach in business and is
now used widely for political movements to gain supports and favors. (Day, 2000) If, within the investment,
Bakrie group would like to extend Paths function as to gain supports and favors for its front-man in the
presidential election, then a risk management plan should come along within the campaign strategy since
Bakrie has been harvesting the notorious popularity in Indonesia.
The existing outraged and sentiment towards Bakrie due to Lapindo case could jeopardize the
political career of ARB in the next presidential election and also the companys revenue in the long run if
they dont start to fix their image; and if the company fails to bring innovation to distinguish Path from other
social media. Ever since the Lapindo case was brought to public, the company has never been covered
with good media exposure because of the companys failures to meet their responsibility towards the
victims. The failure in debts of Bakrie Telecom and the failure to explain financial discrepancies of Bumi
Resource Minerals add up the flaws of Bakrie in the eyes of Indonesian public.

Back in 2010, CNN called Indonesia as the Twitter Nation for its massive use of social media in
exchanging information and making changes. It has this power of gathering supports, favors and resources
through movement such as Save Jakarta or A Coin for Prita. If Bakrie intends to get a benefit from this
Twitter Nation, then it should start settling their long abandoned responsibility in Lapindo very soon to get
the social media sympathy of the nation quickly as the presidential election is just around the corner of
2014. This will help to take out the biggest flaw of Bakrie in the eyes of the public in Indonesia thus raising
ARBs popularity and electability in 2014 election.

A.A.I. Diah Tricesaria

Awardee of Bakrie Graduate Fellow
at the Master Program of International Relations
of Universitas Gadjah Mada