Managing Creativity for Business Sustainability: Case Study of Distro in Bandung

Abstract

Distro is one of the fashion industry sub-sectors that develops in Bandung and the most prominent creative industry sector in Indonesia. Many researches have been done around creative industry including fashion, which emphasizes mostly economic aspects such as profitability and its impact on economic growth. However, researches on sub-sectors of creative industry that focus on creative creation and process which is the major factor in the industry's sustainability are still few. This study focuses on that creativity process. This research was conducted using qualitative method through document study and in-depth interview during 2014-2015. The framework of Seidel and Rosemann (2008) concerning six factors needed for creativity oriented – business process model was used as a reference, in addition to other factors namely the creative process that became the main question of this research. Based on document studies, there are more than ten distinguished brands of distro in Bandung that emerged in 1990s, but not all distros survived. Only five brands survive to date, three of which have been successfully contacted and willing to be surveyed and interviewed. The results showed that managing creativity becomes the key factor of success and sustainability of distro in Bandung. In addition, the findings from the interviews show some obstacles such as lack of knowledge about creativity management in production and marketing, as well as risk-taking reluctance, which impacted the failure of the sustainability for the distro business in Bandung.