Li&Fung (IDS’ parent company) and its expertise in Supply Chain is well known internationally, but can you give us a brief overview over IDS Medical?

IDS Med was born 2011 with presence in Singapore and Malaysia, and a small Indonesian operation. Today we are present in 8 countries mainly through acquisitions.  When they bought my company, we had 200 employees and revenue of $30 million. Today revenue is $85 million and we have over 600 employees. Most of the growth was as a result of the government’s push for the e-catalogue system, which helped us to sell, allowing hospitals to simplify buying by changing from a tender system to a system only a click away.

You offer your products Indonesia-wide, with service?

We sell medical equipment, consumables, bio-med services and logistic services: what we call ‘the sales to operation cycle’. If a principal wants to sell his own products, we have no problem with this. We can still handle import, warehousing, delivery and billing for them.

You therefore have a lot of levels on which you can interact with your customers, is this more of a structured approach?

If the principal will only work with me on the servicing, we are ready for that. The old style of business, all or nothing, is becoming more and more unfeasible. We cannot tell the principal not to come in to Indonesia, which they will want to cover themselves. They require a presence but cannot hire a team with as many people, nor move as fast as we do. A lot of businesses come to us, even though they want to be in control: they don’t want the headache of importing, registration and billing.

Besides the client specifications, the equipment side requires interacting with all of the specified clients, correct?

Exactly, but we specialize throughout our business. We also see our job as improving the cost of healthcare. We are utilising our parent company’s supply chain when mapping our market. We see where the hospitals or clinics are, how to best route deliveries and shipments, and how to position our engineers for optimal service. The next thing what we want to offer to the hospitals is consumables, be it gloves or high ICU products.

What made you sell your company and what is it in this new company that still drives you today? Is it the size and reach of the Li&Fung?

Actually, it’s not the size, but the speed. After I joined Li&Fung, within 3 years I almost tripled their sales. Their way of thinking really resonated with us: their core values are loyalty and entrepreneurship, which told me this could be the company that can take us to the next level. And it has proven to be the right choice.

Only in 2014 did Indonesia’s healthcare spending reach 2.8% of GDP. How do you see the market developing?

I would say that today there are more projects and more money to be spent, but most of the money is not spent on high-end equipment but on equipment that is high spec but affordable. This will continue as a trend towards what I would call affordable healthcare.

How would you describe accessibility to healthcare?

Improving. We have the Indonesian Health Care Forum, which we sponsored to help the government advance health care. We can only play a certain role to push the Government to enact legislation, for instance launching emergency services, which they now have done. We are also pushing awareness of the service, and the government has finally realized that the majority of deaths are not caused by disease, but by accidents.

How would describe your philosophy for the company and what is your vision?

I want to aid efficient distribution, bringing down costs, helping hospitals minimize their working capital and waste. Beyond this, we want to become a local manufacturing partner for major brands, as the government is pushing local content. We can either be manufacturers ourselves or we appoint a manufacturer for us. We need to make ‘Made in Indonesia’ a quality brand.