Lazada’s plan to crack online payments in Indonesia, according to new country CEO

Duri Granziol (l) and Florian Holm, the new leadership duo at Lazada Indoensia. Photo credit: Lazada.

Leadership reshuffles at Lazada Indonesia are nothing new. Magnus Ekbom stepped in and out of the CEO role several times.

Presently, Magnus is out again. Now that Lazada is part of Alibaba, the Indonesian division’s fate is in the hands of a fresh CEO duo: Florian Holm and Duri Granziol.

There’s no plan whatsoever to push customer acquisition costs down.

When I meet Florian – tall, friendly, and soft-spoken – he hasn’t had lunch and we settle in Lazada’s canteen. He and Duri both carry the CEO title, but it’s Florian who handles the media.

Florian started working for Lazada in Thailand just one and a half years ago. He moved on to the Philippines and then became CMO of the Lazada Group. His focus shifted toward the largest market, Indonesia. He worked closely with Duri this entire time, which is why they chose to share the CEO role.

The spending must go on

They’re in the spotlight now. How Lazada performs in Indonesia concerns the entire group.

The archipelago is its most important, but also most difficult market. When Lazada launched in 2012, it faced strong local competitors like Tokopedia. Infrastructure deficits are a constant challenge.

Group CEO Max Bittner’s promise that the company would be profitable by 2015 never materialized. It was later acquired by Alibaba.

Florian shrugs off what Max said about becoming profitable. “I never made such promises, so I don’t know what basis they were made on. We are very happy with the customer acquisition costs we have now. There’s no plan whatsoever to push that further down.”

Alipay on the move

Lazada will also continue investing in tech, he promises. In this department, Lazada’s alliance with Alibaba will pay off handsomely. Specifically one feature could lead to a quantum leap: Alipay.

Lazada dabbled with its own payment system, HelloPay. It’s doing okay, Florian says, but customers still prefer to pay in cash when the package arrives.

At the Lazada office in Jakarta.

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