Andreas Ananto Kagawa: On a rising cloud

By November 2011 Andreas Ananto Kagawa had held the position of Country Manager of VMWare Indonesia for exactly one year. In his hands, the company which is a pioneer in virtualization and cloud computing, has shown significant improvement. “The significant improvement is visible in all indicators: number of customers, partners, increased awareness as well as communities,” said Andreas.

Joining VMWare was a positive coincidence for Andreas, because in his last year at PT Microsoft Indonesia he was interested in virtualization and cloud computing. “It was like a dream come true when the offer from VMWare came,” he said adding that he did not think twice about joining VMWare.

Andreas, a graduate of Electrical Engineering faculty of Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Central Java, had at least three reasons for joining VMWare. The first was that he believed VMWare, a trend setter in infrastructure, data center and cloud computing, hasa great potential in Indonesia. The second one was that he was personally very interested in virtualization and cloud computing. The last was his passion for developing a new business. “When I joined VMWare I was number three in the company, so my duty is not only to develop its business, but also its organization,” he said.

 According to Andreas, who was formerly an account manager at Computer Associate and SAP Indonesia, developing a new organization holds more interesting challenges compared to running an existing one. “When I joined VMWare I was the third person to be recruited. Previously the operations of VMWare in Indonesia were controlled more by the regional office,” he said.

Andreas also recruited a team to match his requirements. For Andreas, who started his career at Philips Indonesia, teams that complement one another are important for the progress of an organization. Besides he is not a micro-managing leader. That’s why his criteria in recruiting team members was that each should be skilled, independent and able to fully cooperate in a team.

It is not a must for a leader to know everything, he asserts. “A leader’s duty is more in the coordination of separate divisions in the organization,” he explained. Andreas added that delegation of responsibility and the development of good team work is the key to a leader’s success. “That is also part of the efforts to mold future leaders,” said Andreas while mentioning that he also has the responsibility to create future candidates to replace him.

He commented that a leader can be deemed successful if the organization he leaves behind keeps running well. “If the organization experiences degradation after he leaves then he has not been a good leader,” he said. So, Andreas feels he needs to know each team member well so that he can make a good evaluation and find out what each member needs.

Andreas has proven his work principle. When PT Microsoft Indonesia assigned him to form a new division he applied the same principle. The result was the division responsible for enterprise application product Microsoft Dynamics which was launched at the time achieved huge success in the market. In 2005 he was given the Microsoft Worldwide Award as Outstanding Contributor Award for his achievement in heading the division. The award was presented directly by CEO of Microsoft Inc, Steve Ballmer to Andreas.

With this experience under his belt he now wants VMWare Indonesia to grow better and faster. He believes the way forward is through active marketing development. “I don’t want VMWare to have only a supporting role,” he said. Although VMWare does not sell directly to customers he wants VMWare to have a more active role in assisting its partners to develop the market.

VMware’s business in Indonesia has enjoyed rapid growth. And, Andreas believes that his experience and understanding of the IT market locally will be an added value in leading, improving the sales strategy as well as developing the ecosystem of virtualization and cloud computing in Indonesia.

Andreas has every reason to believe that VMWare has huge potential to grow in Indonesia, because it has plus points that its competitors do not have and also has a strong image as the pioneer in virtualization and cloud computing.

Four reasons make Andreas confident about VMWare’s future in Indonesia. VMWare has the lightest, simplest and most secure architecture. It also has a number of superior features that other players don’t have. Its total cost of ownership (TCO) is the most efficient. And, equally important is its established ecosystem. “Customers feel more secure because our ecosystem is already set and established, so they can share their experiences,” he said.

Based on all these reasons Andreas keeps striving to drive his team to become more aggressive in their marketing efforts. He added that the technology of virtualzation and cloud computing are developing fast in Indonesia and VMWare can grab a larger portion of the growing market.

According to him it is precisely during these moments that the role of a leader in setting the rhythm and the strategy of the organization is extremely important. Andreas acknowledges that he has learned a lot from the experiences and success stories of the world’s leaders of organizations. However, he commented, that there is no fixed pattern for leading an organization. “It does not mean that what I did at Microsoft will run smoothly here at VMWare. There must be certain adjustments to match the character of each organization and specific market,” he concluded.

Background

Name: Andreas Ananto Kagawa
Place and date of birth: Bandung, July 27, 1970
Status: Married with two children

Education:

Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Electrical Engineering graduated in 1994

Experience:

Nov 2010 – present: Country Manager, VMWare Inc
September 2009 – November 2010: Enterprise Marketing Lead, PT. Microsoft Indonesia
April 2003 – September 2009: Dynamics Lead, PT. Microsoft Indonesia
May 2000 – April 2003: Account Manager, PT. SAP Indonesia
June 1998 – May 2000: Account Manager, Computer Associates
March 1997 – May 2000: Account Manager PT. Omnes Services Indonesia
January 1995 – March 1997: Account Manager, Philips Indonesia (PT Daeng Brothers)