With an ecommerce joint venture in the oven, Trikomsel wants to beat disruptors to the punch

Sugiono Wiyono, president director and CEO of Trikomsel

Sugiono Wiyono, president director and CEO of Indonesia’s largest mobile device retailer Trikomsel, is a warm and energetic guy. A 52-year-old Surabaya native, Wiyono points out of his window and makes small talk for a while before taking a seat in a comfy lounge chair to chat about tech.

“We have to be the ones to disrupt our own business. If we don’t do it, then surely someone else will,” says Wiyono. “I am a tech lover, and building an ecommerce company is no different than building a normal company.”

Last month, Trikomsel announced a mysterious joint venture ecommerce project with Singapore’s SingPost. Through its subsidiary SP eCommerce, SingPost is set to take a 33 percent stake for an initial investment of US$1.1 million, and Trikomsel will have the remaining 67 percent. At the time, Tech in Asia thought it was a straightforward ecommerce venture.

Kung fu ecommerce

Details remained scarce, however, until early April when Japan’s SoftBank threw its hat in the ring and purchased 19.9 percent of Trikomsel’s shares on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. Around the same time, we learned the joint venture is not just going to be a typical ecommerce site, but in fact is also entering the “ecommerce enabler” space, a sector which until recently was only occupied by two other sizeable players in Indonesia, aCommerce and new kid on the block Paraplou Group (also known as Vela Asia).

Wiyono says SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son is a good friend of his. “He’s more than just a friend actually, he’s also somewhat of a guru,” says Wiyono. “He’s like the kung fu master who has a library full of moves that we can learn. […] With SoftBank as a partner, we will have access to these moves if we need them.”

Wiyono says Trikomsel’s ecommerce initiative will follow a two-pronged strategy. Apart from ecommerce services, the firm also will open a “curated mall,” meaning it will have a website that offers only the brands that Trikomsel and SingPost select. This is likely to include tech and gadgets from under Trikomsel’s umbrella, but may also include other brands which SingPost already serves, like Adidas and Uniqlo.

“With SingPost, we want to create a seamless hybrid channel,” explains Wiyono. “Logistics is in their blood, and I know that together we can do great things.” Wiyono did not disclose the name of the curated mall, but he did say that Indonesian techies should stay tuned as it will launch in a couple of weeks’ time.

See: SingPost puts $145M into developing Ecommerce Logistics Hub

Even if it ain’t broke, fix it anyway

Since 1996, Trikomsel has long been the go-to name when people go shopping for mobile devices. In Indonesia, this makes it somewhat of a dinosaur. So it would stand to reason that it might have an old school mindset – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, Wiyono has already given Trikomsel’s gadget shops – branded OkeShop and Global Teleshop – ecommerce functionality.

Wiyono explains that the mobile device retail market in Indonesia is relatively consolidated, meaning there are just a few players who essentially control the market. With Trikomsel’s roughly 900 physical shops, along with its many other “mom and pop” partner dealers spread across the archipelago, Wiyono’s firm is in a unique position of power in terms of infrastructure.

Trikomsel is one of the few firms that can potentially execute an online-to-offline purchasing scheme on a large scale in Indonesia, and Wiyono says his company will do exactly that. This means that shoppers will be able to purchase products online from Trikomsel, then go into one of the physical stores to pick up the goods. Wiyono didn’t comment on how its competitor Lippo Group plans to use a similar strategy with MatahariMall, but he did say that an online-to-offline strategy is a natural progression for a company like his with a well-defined brick-and-mortar presence in Indonesia.