• Empowers employees to innovate with out-of-box tools

• Enables seamless collaboration with virtual meetings in and out of the office

• Fosters a culture of innovation with a flexible working environment

From retail, food and beverage, to manufacturing and engineering, chances are that every Indonesian has been a customer of Kawan Lama Group. The family-owned business that was founded in 1955 has been serving Indonesians for decades, with a mission to advance the country’s economy and improve lives through business development and continuous growth.

What started as a humble family venture by founder Wong Jin, is now an organization of more than 35,000 employees, across six different industries. "Retail is now our biggest line of business, with the food and beverage sector being our fastest-growing sector," says David Lesmana, Risk and Facility Management Director at Kawan Lama Group.

To keep up with the times, the group’s top-level management knew it had to undergo a digital transformation from the inside. However, push came to shove for Kawan Lama Group when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and people were forced to work remotely. "The pandemic forced us to break away from routine, and figure out how to do things differently," says Lesmana.

Having explored some different point solutions, the group found that having different platforms that worked in silos became rather counterintuitive, and made the decision to implement Google Workspace in December 2022. "With Google Workspace, everything is under one unified platform, easily go from one application to another, making collaboration across the organization truly seamless," says Lesmana.

For a seamless transition, Kawan Lama Group worked with Google Cloud partner Datalabs.id to ensure a smooth migration for all of its applications and data to Google Workspace. Being a large organization with a longstanding history, security was of utmost priority for Kawan Lama Group, and the Datalabs.id team ensured that this remained a priority throughout the migration process.

Pre-pandemic, it was common for employees at Kawan Lama Group to meet daily in the office, where face-to-face meetings were the only way employees knew how to collaborate and share ideas. Today, Lesmana says that meetings are commonly conducted over Meet, even when employees are in the office, they can attend a call from their seats without booking a meeting room or even do a hybrid setup if space is limited.

"Our office can be quite big, and sometimes, when there are many people involved, it can be easier to just get on Meet and join a meeting from different locations," he says, explaining that a hybrid work environment is no longer limited to the home and office, as employees today expect to be able to work from anywhere.

As for day-to-day operations, Gmail remains to be the most commonly used tool across the Google Workspace suite. This is followed by document-sharing tools like Docs and Sheets, where team members can work on ongoing projects simultaneously, and tag colleagues who would then be notified in their Gmail inbox. The organization is also increasingly encouraging the use of Calendar to schedule meetings, integrating the tool with its existing software for booking meeting rooms.

"Despite being so easy to use, we are confident that our information is safe with Google Workspace because of the two-step verification process and Cloud Data Loss Prevention," explains Lesmana, adding that the high level of security was a key factor in the organization’s decision to implement Google Workspace. "With so many employees across the organization, a lot of confidential information is shared daily from people working in various locations, which is why security is a non-compromise."

Change is never easy, and as an organization with a long history and culture, implementing new technologies in the workplace is only one part of the solution to workplace transformation. "Our employees are of many different ages, and as such, it can be challenging to get everyone on board the first time. For that reason, we formed a task force dedicated to providing support for employees new to the technology," explains Lesmana.

The task force is made up of Google Champions from different business units who are trained to help their fellow employees with any issues they may have. They support other employees by sharing tips and suggesting Workspace features that can help them do the work faster and become more productive. Fully committed to digital transformation across the organization, the group organizes competitions to motivate employees, such as competitions that encourage employees to come up with solutions using the out-of-box applications available to them to simplify existing processes.

Alongside the Google Workspace implementation, Kawan Lama Group is also redesigning their headquarters to make it a ‘smart office’ that’s built to accommodate a hybrid working environment.

"We already have our digital infrastructure set up, and this new workplace will be built with different types of environments that people can work from that will encourage innovation," says Lesmana.

For example, to accommodate the use of Meet for meetings, there are rooms within the office building that are already equipped with Google Meet hardware where employees can simply log in to take calls and attend meetings, even without their personal laptops. "With tools like Meet integrated into our workplace, the working environment, and the way we collaborate just becomes a lot more seamless. We don’t even have to think about the technology because it is so easy to use."

As a company that takes pride in becoming a sustainable workplace, Lesmana says that they drew a few important lessons from the pandemic, in particular knowing that the most unpredictable circumstances can happen anytime. "After going through what we did during the pandemic to ensure minimal disruption to the business, we want to equip ourselves now to be resilient and adaptable, no matter what disruption happens in the future."

Furthermore, to attract new talent, and be labeled as one of Indonesia’s best places to work, the company needs to fully transform and move away from traditional ways of working. "We are inspired by the culture at Google and want to give our employees more flexibility and opportunities. I believe that with Google Workspace, we are able to bring this vision to life, and continue to innovate as a company," says Lesmana.