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Suryo Suwignjo: Exploring technology for management advancement
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As president director of PT IBM Indonesia, Suryo Suwignjo is responsible for IBM Indonesia's operations, from sales and distribution, procurement, global delivery to support functions.
Thus, in order to accomplish the company's overall success, Suryo's main duties consist of delivering the business financially, increasing the market share by constantly growing the business ahead of the current market, sustaining great customer satisfaction, keeping a solid and producing workforce as well as maintaining and improving the positive image of IBM in Indonesia.
'IBM is a matrix organization with a management system that is divided based upon geographic regions, products portfolio such as hardware and software, and clients, which are split according to their type of industry ' for instance, banking or telecommunications,' says Suryo, who has been working at IBM for more than two decades.
Although the three-matrix structure is quite complex, he explains, 'We're able to segregate ourselves neatly in terms of who's doing what, which consequently reduces the possibility of overlap among employees.'
According to him, the important thing in managing a matrix organization such as IBM is 'the ability to be able to communicate extremely well with everyone in the company. Otherwise, there will be chaos everywhere due to our multilayered management system.'
Active communication
Suryo routinely conducts a weekly business review with all the directors and general managers. 'The IT industry is a very volatile and highly competitive business. So it's in our DNA to keep track of our business performance at least on the weekly basis,' he says. 'Then, once every quarter, we do a more comprehensive business review and we have budgeting review at least once every six months.'
In general, he communicates with all his staff through many different channels as often as possible, including cunningly utilizing the social media as an effective interaction tool. 'We need to be aware that 30 to 40 percent of our workforce is below 30 years old,' he says. 'And these youngsters demand different ways of communication.'
Just recently, the company launched a social stand and deliver program. In this particular platform, each sales employee is asked to create a video of a pretend conversation with a client about a certain IBM product-related topic that he or she chooses. The video is later posted on the company's community website for other colleagues to see and review.
'The employees' response to this program is amazing. It turns out it's very easy to encourage them to create their own videos,' he admits. 'Moreover, this exercise has also created strong emotional bonding between the management and the staff as well as among the employees themselves because they're able to exchange constructive feedback with their peers.'
Developing a smarter workforce
Since five years ago, several departments at IBM worldwide have operated mobile workstations. As part of the smart office practice, the concept was also designed for the sales and marketing staff ' which accounted for 70 percent of IBM Indonesia's workforce, who mostly work outside the office.
'Employees can use the vacant mobile workstations by simply logging into the company's IT system when they're in the office. Once they're in, all of the staff's lines of communication, such as office e-mail and telephone line, will be directed securely to the particular workstation,' he says.
'Then when the staff logs out, all of his or her work-related stuff will be stored back safely into the IT system. Each employee also has a personal protected drawer to keep their work documents or papers in the office.'
Today, 30 employees are using 10 mobile workstations at IBM Indonesia.
Innovation is certainly the heart and soul of IBM as one of the IT giants in the world. 'Thus, everyone in the company knows our workforce culture ' that is every employee is expected to have a high ability and commitment to constantly innovate.'
This notion further ties to how the company emphasizes progress as an impetus for success,' Suryo explains. 'Our staff can work on a project anywhere outside the office, but we always expect real progress from time to time.'
Progress also leads to career opportunities, where Suryo normally tells employees on their first day in the office that, 'at IBM, we're not giving you a job, but we're offering you a career.' In other words, personal development is something employees can look forward to when joining IBM.
There are many kinds of personal development offered by the company, ranging from self-initiated e-learning programs, in which employees can study subjects they prefer anytime at their own pace, to virtual learning classes, where staff attend online courses taught by a tutor or lecturer.
'Moreover, we encourage employees to develop their skills through job trainings as a chance to increase their performance,' says Suryo. 'We also invest by allowing a highly potential employee in his or her spare time to 'shadow' a particular top-level executive,' he adds.
'So, wherever the executive is going or whatever he or she is doing, the 'shadow' employee is allowed to see the executive in action closely. If necessary, the executive can also delegate some work to the 'shadow' employee.'
Cultivating strong IT leaders
Suryo, 47, is constantly on the lookout for somebody who is self-driven, a team player, innovative and eager to foster a career at IBM. Thus, in his effort to cultivate resilient IT leaders within the company, he has carefully identified several potential talents since the early stage of the management trainee program.
'Over a period of time, we also closely observe their performance. We later place these best talents into a specific program that will prepare them to be good future leaders,' he says. 'This program is designed to accelerate their progress through various special trainings that will enable them to reach higher positions in a faster period of time.'
Every business unit in the company must submit the names of its best employees as part of searching for the next generation of leaders. 'To avoid any subjective assessment, the candidates are chosen based on a discussion between me and each unit head.'
Another way of nurturing potential leaders is to execute a well-thought-out succession plan, which is applied to every vital executive position at IBM worldwide.
'For instance, every year I have to submit one to two candidates who can substitute my role at any time to the IBM headquarters. Then, the headquarters would review my selections and decides whoever is best to be my immediate successor.'
Preserving customer satisfaction
IBM measures its customer satisfaction with a specific survey conducted by an independent third party. This particular client satisfaction survey is processed through an automatic system approximately a month after a transaction or project is completed.
'There are several questions that would accurately identify whether the client is truly satisfied or not with our service,' explains Suryo. 'Therefore, this survey clearly becomes an important part of the company's performance indicator. It's deeply embedded within our performance evaluation.'
Another essential measurement is by asking the client to become IBM's reference for future customers.
'If the client is really happy with our service, then they will gladly promote IBM to other people. In contrary, if they're unsatisfied, they will hesitate instantly.'
In order to keep his professional and personal life balanced, Suryo believes in giving equal attention and focus to both of them, although, according to him, the word 'balance' has a different definition from one person to the other.
'I want to have a sustainable career life where I can perform well for the long run. So, it's not how much time I spend on my personal life, but how much I deeply enjoy the quality time that I have with my family and hobbies,' confesses Suryo who loves traveling, playing golf and attending music concerts with his family.
Suryo Suwignjo
Place/ Date of Birth: Semarang, Central Java, Nov. 30, 1966.
Experience
President Director of PT IBM Indonesia since Jan. 8, 2008. Previously, assigned to IBM ASEAN in Singapore as business unit executive for system in 2006. In over 20 years with IBM, has taken various leadership roles, including systems and technology group and business partner country manager (2001-2006), personal system group country manager (1998-2000) and manufacturing and process industry manager handling Indonesia strategic industries (1994-1997).
Education
Holds a bachelor's of finance from Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (1989).
