Batik Gerimis Mengundang

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INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC ECONOMIC SYSTEM CONFERENCE (I-iECONS 2021)

Agoos Munalis Tahir

Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Bandar Baru Nilai, 71800 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan Malaysia

E-mail: [email protected]

Che Ahmad Soliehien Che Mahadi

Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Bandar Baru Nilai, 71800 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan Malaysia

E-mail: [email protected]

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Abstract

Batik Gerimis was formed by Che Mahadi and wife in 1997 after lengthy and laborious work to learn skills in batik making as well as business operations. Batik Gerimis invested money and efforts to produce saleable and attractive batik to its customers.

Investment in new batik making process in terms of machine and manpower were very important to create success in Batik Gerimis. New process not only shorten the time taken to produce but also reduce overall product unit costs. This enable Batik Gerimis offered competitive price to its customers. Most its customers were from corporate, schools and individuals from all over Malaysia, who sometime came by bus and in group. Part of it because, Batik Gerimis was located in tourist attraction, Pantai Cahaya Bulan. Same as other batik producers, Batik Gerimis was in competition with neighbouring countries batik. In Malaysia there are more than 230 batik entrepreneurs registered with Malaysian Handicraft, with the highest concentrations of batik producers located in Kelantan and Terengganu (Akhir et al. 2017). Apart from machine and manpower, Batik Gerimis should invest on new online marketing and selling medias to reach more potential customers. The other challenge is to make batik attractive to the younger generation with improvement in designs, pricing and colours. It will make batik remain an outfit of choice for many especially younger generation and international markets.

Keywords: Case Study, Batik Malaysia, Entrepreneurship

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Background of Batik Gerimis

Che Mahadi bin Husin was a father of two daughters and five sons. He interested in making batik since He was a teenager. He started to learn batik at the age of 19, when he was working at one of the batik factory in Kelantan. His first duty was colouring batik and that was his starting point to learn more about batik. After a year, Che Mahadi was not only able to colour batik but also managed to draw many type of batik motives. After three years, he moved to another batik factory. In his new workplace, he learned more skills in batik making process in which he also involved in handling supplies of batik for the business. He was assigned as assistant manager right after his employment. He managed to know many suppliers ranging from fabric, colouring material and other suppliers.

Since then, he hopped in and out from one batik business to another, to learn more skills about batik. He aimed to master all the batik making skills which were ‘Hand Drawn Batik’, ‘Batik Block’, ‘Batik Screen’ and ‘Tie Dye Batik’. In 1997, after he got married to Siti Noor Azini, they started their own batik business, called Batik Gerimis Enterprise. Batik Gerimis was located near to Pantai Cahaya Bulan, Kota Bharu Kelantan. Pantai Cahaya Bulan was a scenic beach area that inspired batik making processes. Its location, weather and wind were suitable for batik production. Its factory was in Kampung Tok Panjang which could not be accessed by bus, customers who came by bus had to walk about 200 meter. There were other batik factories operated nearby. The location as shown in the maps below (Figure 1):

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Fig. 1. Maps of Batik Gerimis (6.181209,102.251850).

Batik Gerimis main product at that time was ‘batik canting’ (or hand-drawn batik). In the first two years, the business was barely surviving as the financial crisis hit the country. People were more cautious to spend their money especially in non-essential things like batik, which made batik demand low. He strategized the business by producing cheaper batik such as ‘Batik Kelawar’ (nightdress) made from fuji cotton material. The strategy was able to sustain the business survivability where they had received many orders from customers. Besides that, the newly formed business offered service to draw pictures for home decoration using batik method and motive. It was also become one of the most highly demanded service. Figure 2 shows the setting of Batik Gerimis factory.

Fig. 2. Batik Gerimis factory.

After three years, Batik Gerimis became well known in its area and received many orders from customers. The business managed to get new customers and started to gain loyalty from existing customers. The business started to expand, he employed two new staff for batik drawing and another two for painting. In 2000, he invested RM10,000 capitals to produce premium batik that was made from materials such as Silk Jackquard and Silk Satin. The new premium batik was priced between RM200-RM400. He invested his money and creativity on the premium batik, so that customers could saw the different of his premium product from the normal batik kelawar. He paid attention to details in terms of design, pattern drawing, accuracy, and colouring. Figure 3 shows one of the process in batik making, which is canting (drawing).

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171 Fig. 3. Batik canting.

After his success with premium batik, Che Mahadi tried to explore new batik production, called batik stencil. He invested money on machine and labour skills to produce batik stencil. He employed another ten employees to work in the factory. The role of each employee was about the same but the skilled and ability were very different. Two workers, Jali and Pak Do, were to draw batik motive and pattern, another four workers, Amin, Black, Roy, and Asrol, produce batik using stencil (silkscreen method). And the other four employees work on colouring the batik and removing wax to reveal the original fabric colour along with the new layer design. Figure 4 shows machine used in batik stencil.

Fig. 4. Batik stencil technique.

Operations and costs

The factory was daily opened from 9.00 am to 4.00 pm except on Friday. Most of the employees were villagers.

Male workers worked in canting process while female workers mostly worked in the colouring section. The whole process was manually operated and there was no automated machine used. It was important to operate manually because batik was valued based on its creative aesthetics, handmade and experience. Che Mahadi said that every pieces of batik had its own soul and value that will not be the same as the others and that was the reason why batik was sold at high price tag compared to the normal machine-made dresses.

There were 21 employees. Salary of the employees was on unit-basis, where they were paid on weekly basis, every Thursday. The operations for full capacity were seventy pieces of batik produced daily. But normally, the

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factory could only produce about 55 to 65 pieces of batik daily due to inconsistency of workers’ attendance. The factory was unable to achieve its full capacity because mostly the female workers were single mothers and housewives. They needed to take a long break during afternoon to pick up their children from school and cooked lunch for their family. During December, production was very slow due to monsoon season and flood, customers and retailers unable to come to buy batik. In order to solve the problem, Che Mahadi opened pre-order batik especially for schools’ uniform, office uniform and club uniform. This ensure for a steady flow of cash to the business. On the average, the factory managed to produce 400 pieces of batik in a month.

Costs of production mostly came from variables cost incurred in the factory. Direct materials used were Cotton Viscose and Silk Crepe, purchased from his friends, who imported the materials from Italy and China. Direct labours were paid on per-unit basis from RM6 per unit to RM20 per unit, based on type of batik. The type of batik includes ‘kain pasang kurung’, ‘kain pasang jubah’, ‘kain pasang maxi’ and ‘kain pasang kemeja’. Besides type of batik, labour costs were also differentiated by the level of details and hardness to make the batik. Overhead cost such as colouring substance, drawing supplies, sodium silicate, repair, maintenance and utilities made up portion of batik costs. Table 1 shows product prices and costs for each product.

Table 1. Products prices and cost

Technique Material Price (RM) Cost

Kain pasang – kurung Canting Crepe 350 200

Cotton 180 60

Stensil Crepe 350 180

Cotton 180 50

Jubah Canting Crepe 330 170

Cotton 120 50

Cotton 120 40

Maxi Canting Crepe 220 100

Cotton 60 35

Kemeja lelaki Canting Crepe 220 120

Cotton 120 60

Cotton 130 50

Batik making process

Batik canting and batik stencil processes were almost the same except that batik canting’s pattern were directly drawn on the fabrics using batik wax that had been boiled for about 10-15 minutes before canting process. While batik stencil patterns were first drawn on the stencil film, and then the pattern were printed on the silkscreen using stencil film.

Batik canting Process 1: Drawing

Batik canting process started with the wax will be boiled for about 10-15 minutes to ensure the wax were melted.

The drawer must ensure the wax will always boil or in liquid form during the drawing process. By using special instrument called canting that are made from a small copper reservoir with a spout on a wooden handle, the drawer dipped in the canting in the hot wax and the canting reservoir will hold the hot wax. The hot wax flowed through the spout, creating dots and lines as it moves on the fabrics. For a larger pattern, the drawer must use a larger canting

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with larger spout. The wax drawn on the fabrics would acted as resistance in colouring process that separated the pattern from getting mixed with desired colour.

Process 2: Colouring

After the pattern were fully drawn, the second process was colouring. Colour ink were made by premium colour powder that are varied according on the colour. The colour powders were just the basic colour which were green,

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red, blue and yellow. These basic colours were combined to show motive in different colour such as mint green, turquoise, dark red and etc. This process required imaginative skill and technical skill because the accuracy of mixing the powder will determine the accuracy of the color such as the level of vibrant and the level of light of the colour. The next process was colouring the fabrics. The painters used a brush to colour the fabrics. After finish colouring the batik, the painters must ensure batik was fully dried before it proceed to the next process.

Process 3: Fixing

The final process was fixing process which was the process of fixing the color of the batik. This fixing process started by dip in batik in the sodium silicate for about 8 hours to protect the cloth from fading easily. Next, batik will be boiled in a big hot pot to remove sodium silicate from it.

Batik stencil

The process of making batik using stencil was similar to batik canting except for the first process. Batik stencil became popular techniques as the pattern can be produced with much more details, high abstraction, and the costs were cheaper than batik canting. It was because the pattern drawn could easily be reproduced multiple times. The same stencil can be used to replicate design repetitively. The process started with drawing design onto a transparent acetate film. The sketched film then used to create the stencil. Next, the pattern on the silk screen was transferred onto mesh screen that were coated with a layer of light-reactive emulsion, it then hardens under bright light. After

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getting the desired design or pattern on the mesh screen that had been exposed into the bright light, the mesh screen was then placed on the fabrics so the pattern could be produced on the fabrics, underneath the screen.

Special batik wax was added to the top end of the screen, and a squeegee was used to pull the wax along the full length of the screen. This pressed the wax through the open areas of the screen, imprinting the design on the product underneath. If the printer was creating multiple items, then the screen was raised and placed on another fabric. The process was then repeated.

Customers

Most of Batik Gerimis customers were individuals and organizational from corporate, government and schools.

Batik Gerimis supplied batik for formal corporate shirts which were worn every Thursday by government staff.

Sometimes, customers bought batik for special occasions such as weddings, retirement, and conferences. Some customers provided Batik Gerimis with their own design for bulk orders as corporate attire. Batik Gerimis developed customers’ loyalty by gave them freedom to choose or create their own design.

Promotion

Che Mahadi was not only focusing on sales based on market price, he always offered promotions to attract new customers and build close relationship with his regular customers. Normally, Batik Gerimis offered promotion for festive seasons such as Aidil Fitri, Chinese New Year and Year End Sales. During Chinese New Year promotion, Batik Gerimis focused on promoting red colour batik as Chinese now keen to wear batik on their special occasions.

The promotion could be up to twenty percent discount. The promotion made had increased revenue of Batik Gerimis by up to thirty percent.

Competition

Batik Industry in Malaysia had faced many competitions not only from within the same batik producers, but from different kind of garments in terms of style, design and fabrics. This competition was also come from neighbouring country especially Indonesia and China. They were imitating design and local motives for their production of batik. There were a lot of batik made from Indonesia and China entered in Malaysia and endangered Malaysian batik industry. Batik Gerimis had to face its competitors from surrounding in Pantai Cahaya Bulan. There were at least fifteen other small and medium entrepreneurs producing batik. Batik Gerimis competed through price, and attractive motive, pattern and design.

Beside competitors in Pantai Cahaya Bulan, there were other competitors from Terengganu. Batik Terengganu was a local batik which mean the quality and material were mostly the same as Batik Gerimis. Che Mahadi tried to differentiate its batik through batik making techniques, materials and creative designs.

Batik Indonesia were the biggest challenge in Malaysian batik industry. Local batik need to compete with imported batik because it offers lower price than local batik. Sometimes, the material used were not in good quality but the design, pattern and motive were similar to local batik. Customers were also attracted with its cheaper price tag. Furthermore, Batik Gerimis had to concern with new marketing and selling channel, online and social media marketing. This new channel offered cheaper product prices, varieties of designs and good customer relations.

References

Akhir et. al., 2017. Intersectoral Linkages of Malaysia Batik Industry: An Application of Input-Output Analysis. Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia 51, 1, 55-66.