Gudang Garam’s Digital Marketing Division is a division in the company that has assets on cloud, relying fully on Amazon Web Service reliable features.

Gudang Garam cigarette company is one of the leading companies within the cigarette industry in Indonesia that was established since 1958 in the town of Kediri, East Java.  Gudang Garam was widely known both domestically and abroad as a producer of high quality kretek clove cigarettes. Gudang Garam products can be found in many varieties, ranging from SKL (sigaret kretek klobot or corn husk-wrapped clove cigarettes), SKT (sigaret kretek linting tangan or hand-rolled clove cigarettes), up to SKM (sigaret kretek linting mesin or machine-rolled clove cigarettes). Gudang Garam is committed to provide outstanding experience in kretek clove cigarettes made from high-quality materials.

Brand Awareness through Digital Marketing
Despite the many cigarettes brands under Gudang Garam Tbk, there is no internal competition between them. Assistant Digital Manager Gudang Garam, Bayu Purwono, explains that each brand has its own specific target market segment.

"Surya Pro targets those who are into sports, martial arts, and survival. Other Surya brands target motorcycle modification enthusiasts. GG International started to target soccer fans, and recently also expands to car modification community," says Bayu.

With different market segments, Bayu says, each brand has different digital activation. Gudang Garam creates an activation platform to build relationship with customers and communities. Thus, fine-tuning each brand's website is crucial for the digital marketing division. The fine-tuning needed would vary; one of which is adding new features on the website.

The idea for the new feature on the website comes from a third party. The idea then goes through a lengthy approval process in the company. Once approved, the plan would need to be immediately implemented. The dynamic nature of the business needs, will still have to conform to IT security policy. This is the main challenge for the Digital Department.

The security policy includes limited access to the company's internal server. Each development vendor may only access the server from approved and verified hardware. Many of the vendors, employed resources that may spread in several areas, working remotely. A vendor may be required to do maintenance and ensures that the asset or website is working 24/7. Even with excellent preparation and planning, an issue may still come in the most unexpected time.

The condition becomes more complicated with the implementation of security filter, which bans specific keywords from being entered by the users to a content, which hinders customer’s comments and feedbacks.

To tackle the dynamic challenges, the Digital team considers cloud computing as a viable solution versus using on premise servers.

Complete Documentation
Bayu adds, the management considered several cloud computing vendors, one of which is Amazon Web Services (AWS). Although the vendors had previously provided cloud computing solutions, Gudang Garam choses to rely on AWS for their subsequent projects.

The decision was based on recommendations from the company's consultants and vendors. As the most prominent cloud provider in the world, AWS's reliability far exceeds local providers. Bayu says local cloud providers would have different standards between them and are lacking in clear documentations. AWS offers not only advantages in technology and high standard but in complete documentations as well.

"Because we have many vendors, we picked the one with the most complete documentations and better accessibility. In the end, we choose to go with AWS," Bayu says.

It was the right decision to take. By using AWS, the unnecessary complicated process of transferring of knowledge, faced by the Digital team when dealing with new vendors, has been minimized. All the necessary documentations provided by AWS makes it easier for vendors to work and resulted in faster execution time.

Another benefit brought in by using AWS is, if there is a need for a migration process it requires minimal support from our technical team. From previous past experiences by using local cloud solution providers, the migration process would require the prolonged support, sometimes hands on expertise, of technical team.

“If we use local (cloud computing) providers, when the development vendor is replaced, it usually followed by a data migration process. That process may become long and complex. As we routinely change vendors due to our policy, we decided to use AWS as it would simplify and streamline the process,” Bayu elaborates.

Indeed, Gudang Garam has to pay more for AWS. The cost of the local provider is cheaper compared to AWS. However, cost is not the only thing that is being considered, the benefits that AWS provided is of greater values.

To implement Amazon Web Services (AWS) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Gudang Garam partnered with PT Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII). MII is a registered consultant at Amazon Partner Network (APN).

"The implementation process was fast. We open an account and asked MII to upgrade the account to allow us to use the server with a higher specification. The implementation took less than a week," says Bayu.

Gudang Garam also works with MII for its Gudang Garam International brand. The brand targets the automotive community through its Intersport website. As an end-to-end motorsport platform, Intersport provides not only information about the automotive industry, but also an education entertainment channel.

Gudang Garam will also involve MII for its MOMENTS system. The system monitors the performance of the Sales Promotion Girls that covers one-on-one sales, sales locations, and customers' databases like telephone numbers and email addresses.

Challenges:

1. Limitation of access to internal server due to rigid security policy.
2. The slow process of transfer of knowledge when replacing a vendor.
    

Solution
Implementing Amazon Web Services for a cloud server to keep up with the fast-paced changes in brands' websites.
 

Benefit:

1. The vendor could make improvement or changes without the need to access the company's internal server.
2. Faster transfer of knowledge process when changing vendors.
3. AWS's complete documentation helps to increases new vendors productivity.
4. AWS is commonly used by many companies, widely known by vendors, makes development and implementation faster.