How is working together with the bank normally enhance your reach?

In the past, we have worked closely with CIMB Sunlife in a joint venture. After acquisition by Sunlife Financial Indonesia to comply with the one entity policy we also extended collaboration with the bank to 17 years. And the business has accelerated after the takeover because the way of thinking has changed, the direction is more focused and we have 100% flexibility as full owners of the company.

You have been in the business for almost 24 years now. Is this why you receive the trust from the Canadian company to be CEO? 

I think Sunlife always had the belief that a local understands the market better; I am not the first local CEO for Sunlife. If you want to understand Indonesia you cannot only visit Jakarta. You have to travel and only then will you understand the country and its diversity.

The potential in the different areas is equally diverse, so that if you are not a local, you will never understand how to manage and grow the business in each area. One might naturally focus business on Jakarta, but the real potential does not lie in Jakarta. When I joined Sunlife as a CDO, I applied this understanding and during my 3 years I was able to triple the size of the company.

What has been your strategy for Sunlife Financial Indonesia therefore?

One thing that quickly became apparent was the fierce competition. To compete in Jakarta would be a drain on resources due to expensive costs, so our strategy was to go to the 2nd and 3rd tier cities in each province of Indonesia. We focused on Sumatra Island: Sumatra was then contributing 4% to our business, now it is contributing 15%, in Medan we had 3 offices when I started and today we have more than 20. The concept is to position ourselves as experts in financial planning and to do so, we have to be close to the client.

You are known to be a good team builder; how do you keep your people loyal?

People are the biggest asset of our company. Team building and corporate culture are therefore important, especially in Asia where people work for people and not for companies.

We have been building this culture for the last 3 years striving to make people feel important and share our vision for success. We have team building activities twice a year where we all share our achievements. It is important to involve everyone in the progress so they can feel invested in the success of the company.

Another major area is fin-tech. Some embrace it completely, whereas others say is less important or not important at all. What approach do you have to this?

Fin-tech is important to us, we have borrowed digital expertise from sectors like telecom and banking since finding digital life insurance professionals is challenging.

We want to increase the awareness of our products and life insurance in general. Acting as an online advisor, people can ask everything about life insurance and we answer their queries even if they are not our clients. We want to increase awareness of the insurance products in order to increase market penetration.

Secondly, we built client & advisor apps, so our customers can check policies, prices and information online. Stage 2 will be the ability to do transactions online and change customer data. The last step will be processing claims online. We will still maintain our physical presence but we do believe it is important to have these capabilities online.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, but still with a low Syariah penetration of 15%, what can you tell us about Sunlife’s Syariah products?

3 years ago, we built a dedicated Syariah unit and we are now a modern life insurance Syariah expert. We have 2000 agents, 58 offices all over Indonesia and the Syariah contribution to the overall business is already 30%, up from12% when we started. The challenge is how to build the dedicated Syariah unit without it being linked to religion?

“Our strategy is that our Syariah agency is to be seen as a business not a religion and that Syariah is a universal product that is not only for Muslims but for all.”

How do you see Indonesia’s development at the moment, how do you rate government policy?

I consider the macroeconomic landscape to be strong: our year on year GDP growth is 5% or more, and the current administration knows what to do. They focus on infrastructure which is the most pressing concern and the investment grade rating is positive. The government is approachable, they take our suggestions into account, and that is what I call good governance.