ISS Indonesia: Digital transformation to Boost Customer Engagement

In an interview in SWA Magazine (print magazine, published in Indonesia) – June 2023 Edition : Top Corporate Digital Transformation- Muhammad Sofyan, CEO & President Director ISS Indonesia talks about how ISS Indonesia leading a transformation in Indonesia’s IFM industries.

Competition, business growth and regional conditions were the push factor for digital transformation in the IFM industry, as ISS Indonesia CEO & President Director Muhammad Sofyan said, "At the beginning, the salary in Indonesia might be lower than the average salary in European country. But as time goes by, the salary also tends to increase. This is where technology plays an important role in productivity".

For ISS Indonesia, which has 45,000 employees today, digital transformation is a must. Sofyan further explained, ISS's position as a leading company in the facility management industry is supported by technology and digitalisation, the goal is to maintain future business growth and provide sustainable profitability. the driving factors of digital transformation come from internal and external. the external side is influenced by client business development and changes in the business environment and market trends in the industry. While the internal side is driven by the need for improvement to achieve efficiency. Moreover, ISS core business involve a large number of human resources with quite complex processes.

Digital transformation at ISS Indonesia was realised during the covid-19 pandemic, fortunately ISS Indonesia had started this transformation step long before, even before the company officially set a digital transformation roadmap in 2018. one of the short-term impacts is immediately felt when digitalisation is applied in the recruitment process. with digitalisation, the recruitment process can be cut by 20-30% while the company can still recruit 1,000 - 1,500 people per month. Overall, digital transformation make sure execution of task can be done in more transparent, measured and it can be done in real-time.

Sofyan also dismissed the notion that digitalisation would lead to a reduction in the number of employees. According to him, ISS Indonesia's digitalisation will not reduce the number of human resources, instead it will open up more jobs as the client's business grows and demand continues to grow due to the quality that ISS provides, not even ruling out the need for new types of jobs with the application of digital and technology. "The purpose of this digital transformation is to make it easier for clients to experience the total value creation that ISS provides in managing client facility management."

Talking about the target achievement of ISS digital transformation until now has reached 65%. the biggest challenge of this application is adaptation and consistency in its use. because according to Sofyan, technology will not be able to work optimally without good change management that allows changes in work patterns. another thing that is no less important is the change in employee mindset to a learning mindset by also incorporating the company culture as a learning organization.

While talking about the results, firstly, Sofyan explained that some of them touched the processes that occurred within ISS and some also contributed to the transformation changes within the client. Secondly, it provides better transparency to clients on ISS operations in their work areas, making it easier for clients to retrieve the data and information they need. For ISS business, the impact is very good, ISS client retention rate slowly increased to 95% from the previous 90%. "positively impacted by client satisfaction, ISS's good compliance rate allows us to continue to open new business centres," he said.

To read the full interview in the June Edition of SWA Magazine: Top Corporate Digital Transformation, available in-app purchase at https://www.gramedia.com