Alibaba Cloud Indonesia's Main Strategy to Build up Partnership and Local Talents

Alibaba Cloud has planted 21 data centers in various countries worldwide. Two of those located in Indonesia launched in 2018 and 2019. Alibaba Cloud Indonesia Country Manager Leon Chen said, the company is currently in the process of making its third data center in Indonesia, it is to launch in early 2021.

"We see great potential, and Indonesia alone is a strategic market for Alibaba Cloud. That is also the reason why Alibaba Cloud is the first global cloud provider to deliver data centers in Indonesia," he said.

Partnership strategy

In addition to Alibaba Cloud, DailySocial reported several other large companies have planned investments for the development of local data centers. There are Microsoft to pour funds up to US$1 billion, Amazon with US$2.5 billion, and Google with an undisclosed value (they recently launched the cloud region).

While local providers play an important role in the market share - such as Biznet Gio, Telkom Sigma, and others. In addition to technology solutions, the two brands mentioned are affiliated with other companies engaged in telecommunications and digital.

In his business strategy narrative, Leon said his team has a synergy approach in terms of market penetration. They collaborate with local partners to deliver expertise and technology to strengthen local companies. Also, various training and certification programs to become a 'talent pool' strategy, in order to increase the availability of local experts.

"To date, Alibaba Cloud has partnered up with around 100 locals in our ecosystem [...] Earlier this year, we also announced training programs initiated with universities, incubators, and training institutions in Indonesia."

Believe in local talents

In the interview, Max Meiden Dasuki also participated as Alibaba Cloud's Lead Solutions Architect. The man who graduated from Surabaya Technical College took a role as a consultant for customers from startups and corporations.

"We educate customers on cloud adoption. We work with local partners to provide customized solutions to improve the efficiency of their business operations and overcome their challenges more cost-effectively," Max said.

Furthermore, he also mentioned an example. One of the customers has a need for a relational database management system solution, they find many challenges using traditional databases. After in-depth discussion and analysis, Max and the team usually provide technical advice, in that case maybe he would suggest implementing a cloud-native database like PolarDB.

"We help them to migrate from traditional databases to PolarDB. So they can manage databases without having to worry about performance since they can measure computing resources quickly and efficiently," Max explained.

In addition, Max also said that 80% of Alibaba Cloud in Indonesia are local staff. While 20% are female.

Target in 2020

Alibaba Cloud Indonesia has planned to launch 200 training programs this year. Targeting 20 thousand participants, it is expected that 50% of them can continue to the certification stage. In addition, the company plans to recruit 5 thousand new employees globally by the end of the year, including its business units in Indonesia.

"We have achieved three-digit business growth for three years in a row [...] supporting customers from various sectors, especially e-commerce, finance, media, education; for example Adira Finance, MNC, JNE, Kopi Kenangan, Investree, Akulaku, and others," Leon said.

Along with the construction of its third data center, Alibaba Cloud is about to set up its first 'data scrubbing center' in Indonesia. The need for data intelligence services is a company consideration in the release of the system - in addition to complying with regulations that require the management of strategic data in local data centers.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian