Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (“IOH” or “Indosat”) will celebrate its 56th anniversary this year. Since officially operating as a newly 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 invited to the Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2023 Ignite in Copenhagen to share how it unleashes infinite possibilities in empowering Indonesia.
President, Director, and CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Vikram Sinha, said, “Last year in DTW 2022, I shared the transformation journey of Indosat that begun in 2019 to set the context of our next journey. Entering the 2nd 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’ rating put Indosat on negative watch and labeled its merger as a high execution risk that introduces uncertainties over future financial policies. Back then, Indosat must have dealt with the adversity of people writing the Company off even before it got started.
Vikram explains 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 and for the nation as well. The goal is bigger, ensuring Indosat has the support of everyone, from its customers, partners, investors, employees, and most importantly, Indonesian people.”
With that stage set, Indosat is now ready as a company for the next stage. From integration to transformation. The difference between the telco and the techco are 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 a passion for collaboration to achieve common goals.
The success of Indosat’s transition to TechCo will be measured on these five attributes: differentiated experience provider, grow adjacencies to over 20% of revenue, reduce cost to serve by an order of magnitude, grow 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 would be: can it make that transition to being an experience 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, Indosat is now one of the top 10 global telcos with 100 million subscribers 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”, said Vikram.
