Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison will celebrate its 56th anniversary this year. Officially launching as a new-merged entity on January 4, 2022, Indosat was born with the larger purpose of connecting and empowering the people of Indonesia by accelerating the nation's digital transformation. During this period, Indosat continues to prove itself to be the main driver of the telecommunications industry and the GDP growth of Indonesia, ASEAN’s biggest digital economy leader.
As one of the largest telcos in Indonesia, Indosat was once again invited to the Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2023 Ignite in Copenhagen to share how it unleashes infinite possibilities for empowering the nation.
President Director and CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Vikram Sinha, said, "Last year in DTW 2022, I shared the transformation journey of Indosat that began in 2019 to set the context of our next journey. Entering the second year after the merger, many initiatives have been carried out in Indosat's efforts to meet our larger purpose. We express our gratitude for the support and trust of all parties so that Indosat can be the main part of increasing industry and Indonesia's economic growth."
Mergers have had a poor track record, and it is not just limited to telecoms. Agencies’ ratings put Indosat on negative watch and labeled its merger as a high execution risk that introduces uncertainties over future financial policies. Back then, Indosat had to deal with the adversity of people writing the Company off even before it got started.
Vikram explained further, “Indosat started this monumental mission with the fundamental premise that the Company was not only serving its shareholders. Success is about serving all stakeholders. It is good for everyone — for the nation as well. The goal is bigger: to ensure Indosat has the support of everyone, from its customers, partners, investors, employees and, most importantly, the Indonesian people.”
With that stage set, Indosat is now ready as a company for the next stage — from integration to transformation. The differences between the telco and the techco are the pace of innovation, high growth opportunities, and agility to address opportunities in adjacencies. Indosat’s journey to techco is built on five pillars: Empowering Indonesia, Marvelous Experience, Innovation Engine, Digital Leadership, and Gotong Royong, an authentic Indonesia spirit that translates to the passion of collaboration to achieve common goals.
The success of Indosat’s transition to techco will be measured by these five attributes: being a differentiated experience provider, growing adjacencies to over 20% of revenue, reducing cost to serve by an order of magnitude, growing enterprise business to 20% of total revenue, and generating 15-20% of revenues from services launched less than 5 years ago.
The challenge faced by Indosat is whether or not it can make that transition to being an experienced provider. Can Indosat take the conversation away from competing on price to selling on value?
“Serving a larger purpose — serving Indonesia — is our infinite journey to TechCo. We humbly thank all our stakeholders for their support so that we managed to deliver on the promise. Seen as one of the largest telecom mergers in 2022, now Indosat is one of Global 10 telcos who have 100 million subs in the 4th most populous country. The merger proved to be a great start to our journey ahead, and we will continue to focus on delivering marvelous customer experiences,” concluded Vikram.
