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Djunadi Satrio: The only constant is change
Courtesy of Zomato IndonesiaStaying relevant in the contemporary Internet business environment means thinking on your feet
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Courtesy of Zomato Indonesia
Staying relevant in the contemporary Internet business environment means thinking on your feet.
This is even more important if most of your users are composed of that restless generation known as millennials, or people born from the late 1980s to early 2000s.
This has been a lesson learned by Zomato Indonesia's newly-picked country manager, Djunadi Putra Satrio, while working on the job.
Zomato, an India-based online restaurant search and discovery service company, entered the local market in November 2013.
Since then, Zomato Indonesia has incorporated reviews of more than 18,000 food establishments in Jakarta into its online food database, as well as 3,000 in Bali. The firm reports more than 4 million views a month.
The 44-year-old says that more than 50 percent of the firm's user base comprises millennials aged between 18 and 24 ' and that his strategies to connect with this demographic are similar to his approach in dealing with his staff, who are mostly the same age.
Building trust and maintaining loyalty are key, he says.
Djunadi brings to Zomato extensive experience working for some of the biggest firms in Indonesia, such as Garuda Indonesia and Sony Ericsson, where he specialized in marketing.
The consumer-oriented aspect of his career has been a driving force, he says. 'The art of understanding consumers is something you can never master - but I wake up every morning wanting to do this.'
This desire to understand consumers has given Djunadi a sensitivity to the different needs of the people around him, including his employees.
Djunadi said that his previous firms evinced a more traditional management structure, with a bureaucratic hierarchy, a traditionally Indonesian culture of seniority and direction coming from the top down.
It was not the atmosphere he wanted to create for Zomato Indonesia, he said.
Djunadi said that he worked for almost 10 years in the US, where people don't use honorifics like pak or bu to talk to each other.
'You don't have to lower your head around me, like at Garuda. That sort of culture can't survive at Zomato. It's more casual here. No stratas. We prioritize relations and respect between people,' Djunadi said.
Understanding employees is important for Djunadi, who says that he takes the idea of flex time seriously. If an employee wants to take extended leave, the company will not say no. Djunadi also provides cash incentives for his firm's data collectors with high performance rates.
This is important considering the stressful nature of database management at Zomato Indonesia, where a staff of 15, none older than their 30s, keeps the firms database up to date.
Djunadi says that he does these things to make his staff feel like they're working with a family. When people identify the company as part of who they are, they gain a sense of pride. The job becomes more than monetary compensation.
It's the same philosophy he applies toward Zomato Indonesia's user base, making people feel as if they're part of a community, as opposed to consumers of a product.
Djunadi says that Zomato Indonesia encourages users to build communities. They hold regular foodie meet-ups and have writers, reviewers and bloggers come together to test new foods and new restaurants.
'From these meet-ups, word of mouth passes. They'll tell others that if they do well at Zomato, they'll get recognition, free food and so on,' Djunadi said. 'They'll feel valued.'
He continues. 'Zomato is good if there's engagement and interaction between users. My job is not to just make listing complete. That's easy. The hard part is building a community. At the end of day, Zomato is a community, a social networking site,' Djunadi said.
The military strategist Carl von Clausewitz spoke of the 'fog of war' ' which talks how information available to a general grows unclear once the battle starts - and that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. It's a lesson that Djunadi has internalized.
'We constantly renew data and make sure it stays accurate. The only constant is change,' Djunadi says. 'We always renew data. New restaurants. Closed restaurant. Listings are never stagnant.'
He continues. 'I have a presentation with footnotes. I write on it that the information on this slide is incorrect at the time of preparation. Usually, people write that the information is correct, but we purposefully write 'incorrect'. Because by the time I present that info, the world has already changed.
He gives an example of how he adjusts to the fluid nature of the food and beverage industry.
'I write that we have 19,000 listings on the presentation. But this night ' nine restaurants close. We didn't know that yet as of the presentation, but the next day I got that news. Then 10 restaurants opened. And 3 kiosks opened.
'So the info is never correct. The only constant thing at Zomato is change itself,' he says.
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ON BREAKING IN
Dotcoms are a risky business. Lots of sacrifices need to be made, one of which is time. You have to be focused - no half-hearted commitments. Our two founders worked for a big management consulting company. They quit their jobs and made many sacrifices, both in time and financially, just to develop this business.
Don't give up easily. Facebook wasn't Mark Zuckerberg's first project - it was his first to actually catch on and become big. Bill Gates is the same. Microsoft wasn't his first project. AirBnB was launched three times. Only on the third time was it successful.
If we tell ourselves, 'I'm going to try once, and if I fail, I'll go back to school or work for someone and forget all my bright-new ideas,' then nothing will happen.
You need to be ready to be the 'CEO' - the 'Chief Everything Officer'. You're the marketer. You're the developer. You're the sales person. It's a lot of effort. You need to be committed.
ON THE BOOKSHELF
Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
'It has opened my mind. It challenges us to think differently about what we take for granted.'
Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System by Bill Gates and Collins Hemingway
'It's on the early days of the Internet boom and shifting to web-based companies. It's a reference source for me.'
AT EASE
- Hobbies
'I love to eat, read books, travel ' and to eat some more.'
- Home
'Single and happy.'
- Health
'I like swimming. I try to swim as often as possible within a week. I try to eat a balanced diet. Eating out usually means eating junk food. Once I eat that, I balance that with vegetables.'
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
British American Tobacco -- Management Trainee
American Express TRS -- Service Strategy Manager
Pfizer, Inc. -- Senior Global Marketing Manager
Alkermes, Inc. -- Marketing Director
Titan Group -- Director, Marketing and Business Development
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications -- Head of Marketing, Business Management and Operator Relations
HTC Corp Indonesia -- Country Director of Marketing
Garuda Indonesia -- Vice President, Marketing
Zomato -- Country Manager
Education:
Trisakti University, BS in Structural Engineering
University of Virginia, Colgate-Darden School of Business, MBA in General Management
