Established in 1985 as a part of the household industry, at present Paragon transforms into the biggest cosmetic business in Indonesia after 37 years. Paragon was founded not long after Nurhayati submitted a resignation letter to her former workplace at a cosmetics factory. Equipped with knowledge and experience, she discovered cosmetic formulations with comparable quality to existing products in the market, yet with cheaper prices to pay. From there on, the brand “Putri” became available in local beauty salons around Tangerang.

In 1995, Paragon launched Wardah as a pioneer of halal cosmetics in Indonesia. Responding to the market dynamics, the company also released Make Over in 2010 and Emina in 2014. In 2018, there exist 10 major brands bearing the production name of Nurhayati’s business, who is also an alumnus of ITB’s School of Pharmacy.

“The keyword here is to always innovate, release improved brands and products, and voila, now Paragon survived the pandemic as well,” she remarked. Accordingly, the cosmetics industry is very promising, being an industry with the highest growth rate. Nurhayati stated that in the cosmetics category, PTI dominated many other companies, owning around 29.7% of all shares among other local and multinational firms in Indonesia.

In achieving sustainable business such as PTI, certainly there exist many challenges, such as synchronizing needs with available resources, the dynamic market demand, and the emergence of new, aggressive competitors. These are responded with the 5 characters (core value Paragon), consisting of faith in God, care, humility, grit, and innovation. “The 5 core values nurture PTI into a company that is valuable, flourishing, and sustainable.”

Nurhayati added that she added one more important marketing mix formula (4+1P), which is ‘Protection from God’ aside of Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. She believed that PTI’s success is never exempt from the grace of God. Therefore, PTI is determined to spread value and contribution to national development based on the 4 pillars: education, health, environment, and female empowerment,

“It’s not that we grow so we can create value, rather it’s how our goal is to create value, and that drives us to grow. This is the spirit that we preserve until now,” she concluded.

Reporter: Hanifa Juliana (Regional and District Planning, 2020)
Translator: Firzana Aisya (School of Life Sciences and Technology, 2021)