Supporting Indonesia's Digitalization, Telkom And Microsoft Strengthen Strategic Partnership

JAKARTA - PT Telkom Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (Telkom) cooperates with Microsoft to accelerate Indonesia's national digitalization, strengthen intelligent infrastructure, and accelerate TelkomGroup's digital transformation.

This collaboration was marked by the signing of a strategic partnership agreement, and was inaugurated at Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle, Washington last week where Deputy Minister of SOEs II Kartika Wirjoatmodjo and Telkom President Director Ririek Adriansyah met with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella.

This partnership is also a continuation of the memorandum of understanding signed by Telkom and Microsoft in August 2021.

Deputy Minister of BUMN II Kartika Wirjoatmodjo appreciated the strategic partnership initiative that was established between Telkom and Microsoft. According to him, Telkom with superior infrastructure and telecommunications services spread throughout Indonesia to remote areas. Meanwhile, Microsoft is a leading global technology company with its digital experience and capabilities.

"Hopefully it can be a very good combination. By combining the advantages of the two companies, it is hoped that this partnership will provide innovative services and have a big impact in accelerating Indonesia's digital transformation," he said in a written statement received by VOI, Friday, April 29.

This partnership also aims to support the realization of Telkom's vision as the digital telecommunications company of choice in order to advance society and empower Indonesia's digital economy, as well as support Microsoft's Empower Indonesia initiative.

Both of them will explore new opportunities in the market, and empower organizations in various industry segments by utilizing Telkom's infrastructure. Apart from developing intelligent infrastructure, another important element in this partnership is to support Telkom and its subsidiaries to carry out internal digital transformation with Microsoft.

Telkom President Director Ririek Adriansyah said in this aspect, Telkom will accelerate the company's adoption rate of cloud-based services and a secure cloud environment, as well as increase competence through training and Microsoft certification.

This will help TelkomGroup to increase employee productivity, simplify the collaboration process, automate work processes, increase customer engagement, create innovation, and increase the efficiency of operational activities safely.

"Building partnerships with tech giants is one of Telkom's strategic initiatives in order to strengthen the portfolio, accelerate the transformation process, and improve the company's digital capabilities," said Ririek.

Ririek hopes that the initiative to establish strategic partnerships with a number of global tech companies will have a positive impact on Telkom's business development, especially in the digital platform and digital services domain.

"We really welcome this collaboration with Microsoft with the hope that it will not only bring benefits to both parties, but more importantly, it can provide the maximum benefit to the digitization of Indonesia," he said.

In terms of intelligent infrastructure, Telkom and Microsoft will collaborate in developing national intelligent infrastructure. The cooperation being explored, for example, includes the use of Telkom's Hyperscale Data Center infrastructure assets to support Indonesia's digital transformation journey and several operational activities for Microsoft's upcoming data center region in Indonesia as announced in 2021.

On the same occasion, Microsoft Indonesia President Director Dharma Simorangkir said technology is the cornerstone of industrial digital transformation.

"Through strengthening collaboration with Telkom, we hope to be able to further assist Indonesia in every stage of the national digital transformation, and build personalized services that bring us closer to Digital Indonesia," said Dharma.

In order to realize this commitment, digital talent plays a very big role. Therefore, Telkom and Microsoft have previously worked hand in hand to improve digital talent skills which are the key to the company's and the country's sustainable progress. Going forward, the development of digital talent will remain one of the main parts of the partnership between Telkom and Microsoft.

Indonesia is projected to become the country with the largest digital economy in Southeast Asia by 2025. According to the We are Social report, the number of internet users in Indonesia has continued to increase in the last five years, where by the beginning of 2022, this number had reached 204.7 million.

This means that the internet penetration rate in Indonesia has reached 73.7 percent. Some of the main successes can be seen from Indonesia's success as a home for several Unicorns, which is also amazing is the number of startups, developers, and creators in Indonesia, who all work together to innovate in the cloud to reach more than 17,000 islands in Indonesia.