RECENT FUTURE RESEARCH IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF BATIK AS INDONESIAN HERITAGE

ABSTRACTMicro, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the national economy. Batik Pekalongan, Solo and Lasem are examples of successful SMEs to stimulate local economy while creating products that are competitive in the national and international level. The purpose of this article is to identify the leading factors, as well as the barriers to doing batik business. In addition, this study also wanted to know the anticipation of future events done by batik entrepreneurs in creating customer value. The method is to use a qualitative approach to understand the problems that occur in SMEs batik Pekalongan , Solo and Lasem. The results show that there is great potential for doing batik business , that is because batik is a cultural product, batik has been rooted for generations, it has tacit knowledge, the availability of infrastructure and the good market. As for the obstacles is the lack of massive government support, the business is still run individually, as well as the lack of promotion. In addition, there is an absence of extra effort made by batik entrepreneurs in marketing and in anticipating future competition. Further research may emphasize on the role of associations and government, the role of the cluster, the patterns of anticipation on future strategy and how to develop human resources in batik industry.Keywords: Batik, new models, future anticipation.INTRODUCTION:Batik has become the icon of Indonesia and a world heritage by the UNESCO in the enactment date of October 2, 2009. This determination is done in the final session agenda number 25 in Abu Dabhi (http://arkeologi.web.id/articles/berita-arkeologi/84-penetapan-batik-sebagai-warisan-dunia-oleh-unesco). In this regard, the day was declared as the National Batik Day . This milestone has not been responded well by the industry and batik consumers in Indonesia. This is shown from the following statement:"The endorsement of batik by UNESCO associated with the famous batik techniques with lines and dots as an understanding of batik itself. It is ironic when what we wear is batik printing (manufacturer) which is very detrimental to hand-made batik or stamped batik. Most people simply do not realize that by buying and wearing batik printing, they already denied batik as world heritage " (http://arkeologi.web.id/articles/berita-arkeologi/84-penetapan-batik- sebagai-warisan-dunia-oleh-unesco)Besides the fact that consumers do not appreciate batik, the batik entrepreneurs themselves do not take advantage of this momentum as they have not gained a "benefit" of this designation. In fact there are many batik entrepreneurs have not yet increased their turnover today. Sad, because actually this is a very good opportunity for batik entrepreneurs.Based on preliminary literature study conducted, it was found that there was a downturn in batik market , especially its market share on writing/hand-made and stamped batik. Some of the reasons are less technological innovation applied, difficulty to anticipate and to know the needs of the market, difficulty to find buyers and the difficulty to develop business.Along with the increasingly fierce competition among batik entrepreneurs, such as competition from both domestic and abroad (eg Malaysian batik), batik entrepreneurs then need to anticipate the future in all areas, for example in the field of manpower, raw materials, models and design, technology, etc. Nevertheless, research on the future anticipation- especially for SMEs - is still very limited (De Roo, 2009; Adam, 2008). Therefore, this article tries to fill the gap by looking at the extra efforts made by the SMEs entrepreneurs to anticipate the future.Related to this problem, there are several research issues that need to be answered in this study, such as batik entrepreneurs strategies in anticipating the future, the barriers experienced by entrepreneurs in anticipating the future, how batik entrepreneurs overcome these obstacles. …