Able to offer everything from broadband and cloud to telco and e-health solutions, Lintasarta is playing a leading role in the country’s rapid digitalisation.
INDONESIA’S ONE-STOP ICT SOLUTION PROVIDER
Indonesia – the world’s fourth most populous nation, 10th largest economy in purchasing power terms and undoubted success story since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.
Consistently recording GDP growth of more than five percent a year, the archipelago of more than 17,500 islands is something of a regional powerhouse, its per capita income rising from $823 in 2000 to almost $4,000 in 2018, progress which has led to poverty rates being cut by more than half since the turn of the millenium.
A key driver of this ongoing development? Rapid digitalisation of consumers’ everyday lives and commercial endeavours across numerous industries.
“Technology in Indonesia has been enjoying an interesting and significant growth journey,” says Business Director at business information and communications solutions specialist Lintasarta Alfi Asman.
“For example, the IT services market is predicted to expand by around 19 percent in 2020, and we expect it will continue for the next couple of years,” he adds.
Asman is right to be excited about the nation’s digital prospects.
Research by Google-Temasek suggests that Indonesia’s digital economy will surpass $100 billion in 2025, accounting for nearly half of the entire Southeast Asian region’s market value, a trend which the Business Director has witnessed first-hand since he joined Lintasarta.
Asman identified the company as an early pioneer in the country’s digital development, a major factor in his decision to make the move in 1990.
“When I joined, Lintasarta was a transformative IT company also servicing banking applications and infrastructure, which not many others were doing,” he explains. “It was the only company that was given a datacomm license by the government and we were growing very fast.”
From major urban centres to remote areas scattered throughout the Indonesian islands, Lintasarta has been supporting companies in their IT-based endeavours since it was established as a subsidiary of PT Indosat Tbk in April 1988.
Today the firm has presence in more than 50 Indonesian cities, its services supported by over 1,000 experienced staff – some hold international certifications – who help to service 2,400 corporate customers across 35,000-plus networks.
Such services include fibre optic data communications, satellite networks, managed security and collaboration, data centres and DRCs, cloud computing, IT outsourcing, e-health, third party administrators (TPA), smart city solutions and total data communication solutions.
BUILDING A SMARTER NATION
Working with the Indonesian government, Lintasarta is giving its best efforts to help the country to gear up for the smart city era, a field of work that particularly excites Asman.
“Smart city projects represent one of the hottest initiatives among our city leaders, especially after President Megawati encouraged them to implement e-government in 2003,” he adds. “According to IDC, these initiatives will translate to $135 billion of technology investments worldwide by 2021.”
Lintasarta is providing end-to-end solutions to help the government realise such objectives.
It is doing so in several phases, the first of which is to develop a smart city masterplan to ensure the products and services recommended are relevant to each city’s needs.
The second stage involves the building of infrastructure, which covers data communication, data centres, cloud computing services, CCTV, IoT sensors and command centres, among others.
“The third phase is the most important and also challenging,” Asman says, “as we provide the smart city platform, a platform to integrate all kinds of data and systems within the city. This includes integration with IoT sensors.
“The fourth phase is the solution, and we focus on two categories here. First, to help the government increase and improve its level of public service, through citizen reports, social media analytics, IoT-powered water quality monitoring, IoT smart lighting, and more. The second focus is on growing regional revenue, for example with smart farmer applications, smart tourism, and e-tax solutions.”
Finally, and equally as critical, is the acclimatisation and knowledge sharing that will ensure both Indonesian authorities and citizens understand and make the most out
of their smart cities.
INDONESIA’S DIGITAL COMPANION
Provision of such a wide array of solutions (for smart cities or otherwise) requires constant innovation, experimentation and market research in order to remain relevant, meaning the company is always busy working on new projects across a range of specialisms.
Asman picks up on the issue of cybersecurity as a case in point.
“Indonesia’s internet user base is growing at a tremendous pace,” he says. “More and more services are connected and consumed through the internet. On the other hand, compared to other developed countries, the GDP to cybersecurity investment ratio is still on the low side.
“So, it’s very important that Indonesia catches up to meet industry standard, mainly for government and enterprise.”
Today, Lintasarta provides network security solutions to B2B companies in Indonesia for several years, either via its own premise or customer premise.
“Our new initiatives include a security incident response team that helps our clients to leverage our cybersecurity competences to handle and mitigate threats,” Asman adds.
Further, in Jakarta the company is in the process of expanding its data centre and building a new security operations hub, a development which will only enhance its cybersecurity credentials.
In the cloud arena, the Business Director highlights a new partnership with Google which will strengthen Lintasarta’s position in providing analytic/AI solutions to enterprises, one of many such collaborations with both international and local partners that combine to enhance Lintasarta’s value proposition to clients.
“Partners are important for us because we are in a hi-tech business,” Asman says. “We have to choose the right partners to work with.
“To ensure we choose the right partners, we carry out some international tenders in which we are not only looking for best price and support, but proof of concept and interoperability with our existing ecosystem. We also run simulations to see if the technology in question can work end-to-end.”
Constant evaluation and exploration of partnerships will be vital to Lintasarta’s bid to remain relevant in the digital growth journeys of existing and prospective customers.
Indeed, the ability to be agile and adaptable is central to Asman’s ambitions for 2020 and beyond, the Business Director concluding the conversation by stating a number of priorities for the year ahead.
He expresses: “Lintasarta will always be developing new technological solutions to help customers to grow their businesses. We will be able to do this by continuously developing the talent inside the organisation as well as deepening collaboration with strategic partners.
“This will all contribute to our ultimate tagline as a company: empowering your future.”
