Building bridges: APRW’s expansion into Indonesia

This post is sponsored by APRW.

Our expansion to Indonesia was a logical step, but a challenging one nonetheless. What was a move to go where our clients were growing, has now become a second home for us.

Indonesia is the biggest economy in Southeast Asia, and Singaporean companies are eager to tap into this market. The economic ties between the two countries are strong, with investments from Singapore to Indonesia amounting to over S$74 billion cumulatively.

There have been several areas of bilateral co-operation between the two nations such as reinforcing the ongoing co-operation in preserving financial stability in both countries amid global macroeconomic uncertainties; defence; the enormous potential of the green economy for both countries; and positive momentum in facilitating cross-border electricity trading, including accelerating the development of power interconnectors between Indonesia and Singapore.

Over the decades, both nations have taken positive steps towards jointly harnessing the energy and ideas from the human capital in both our countries, and building up a future-ready and forward-looking workforce.

Established in 1996, we are uniquely led by a team of owners-directors who combine keen business acumen with a wealth of experience to design and deliver bespoke communications solutions for our clients across Asia Pacific.

We have worked with a diverse set of clients, covering industries such as education, insurance, government and public sector, philanthropy, consumer and lifestyle, e-gaming, hospitality, real estate, and lately, start-ups and venture capital firms.

Since 2017, our client base, especially in the areas of start-ups and tech companies, was aiming for regional expansion, particularly venturing into Indonesia first, and we were following suit to support its growth.

One of our clients, RedDoorz, was quick to take advantage of this opportunity. It recognised the potential for growth in the hospitality industry, which is expected to reach $3.25 billion by 2029, with a yearly growth rate of 12.07% from 2024 to 2029.

In Indonesia, RedDoorz is today in pole position as one of the largest and fastest-growing online hotel management and booking platforms catering to the different needs of travellers, be it economy budgets, economy lifestyles, extended-stay community living or the midscale hotel segment.

Our entry in Indonesia was organic and purely led by clients who sought a long-term partnership with us in entering the world's fourth largest country.

Adapting to unprecedented changes

We established APRW Indonesia in 2019, supported by Enterprise Singapore. Just as we were getting used to the local media cultures and adapting, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and everything quickly changed. When the lockdown started, we only had a team of three staff across Indonesia and we had to navigate the transition to virtual interaction.

As a new company in Indonesia, we had to adapt. The traditional approach to offline media engagements during the pandemic no longer worked. Previously, Jakarta's media dominance made it the go-to for nationwide reach. However, as everything shifted online, media in the Tier 2 and 3 cities gained prominence. These smaller cities became attractive for digital engagement with access to a vast consumer base, and even our clients began recognising their potential.

During the pandemic, Indonesia’s internet penetration rate rose significantly. Currently, it is at 79.5% or 221 million out of 278 million people, a significant increase from only 64.8% in 2018. With the power of the internet, the digital economy grew and this ever changing trend required us to be agile and adapt to new ways of communication. It was important for us to understand consumer behaviours and bring on a hyper local approach as we penetrated deeper into Indonesia.

Partnerships are key

As we set foot into a new market, we took on a collaborative approach from the onset. With the support of Enterprise Singapore and its local team based in Indonesia, we were able to find like-minded firms who ventured across borders and we learned from their expansion journeys.

We also worked closely with the Singapore Chamber of Commerce Indonesia (SCCI) as a corporate member and continue to serve as council member, contributing to the growth of SCCI. This gave us access to industry events, other Singaporean firms based in Indonesia, and became a platform for us to showcase our capabilities and forge new partnerships.

A skilled and resilient, cross-border team

One of the greatest challenges we faced was finding the right talent. At APRW, we want to find those who share our mission and values. Diverse opinions were valuable, especially since we focused on bridging the gap in the communications landscape between both countries.

Our aim has been to build a quality team that espouses our values, and possesses a deep knowledge and understanding of Indonesia. Our sole objective has been to maintain the quality built over close to three decades and deliver it consistently even outside Singapore.

We focused on building skilled and capable teams across Singapore and Indonesia. Our solutions to clients are tailor-made because we bring best practices from both countries by leveraging each team’s strengths to execute our deliverables well.

This unique capability gives us a deep understanding of not just the local Indonesian communications landscape, but also the challenges firms from Singapore face as they expand into a vast country like Indonesia, and vice versa.

Making Indonesia a second home

Today, as we look back upon our five-year journey into Indonesia, we see how we have amassed clients spanning industries such as education, hospitality, lifestyle, insurance and technology, among others, and we are happy that we can grow along with them.

We are bullish about the future of Indonesia. Aside from clients, the main motivators to continue our journey in Indonesia are the people, the digital revolution, and the strong bilateral relationship shared between Singapore and Indonesia, which we continue to ride on as one of Singapore’s locally owned largest integrated communications agencies.

The writer is Anu Gupta, director, APRW.