Infocomm Indonesia

It was just an ordinary day until executives from regional office in Singapore appeared at the door and announced that this would be the last day of CA’s representative office in Indonesia.

CA’s decision came without any warning, even to local top executives. Local staff had no clue until the day the regional executives arrived -one of them identified as Brenton Smith, CA’s Managing Director for Asia South. The closing down day itself had left dramatic stories.

One is that while delivering a presentation in front of client, a sales person was called to immediately go back to the office. Another is CA specially brought security staff from regional office to make sure all digital assets secured. Not only that, CA also hired local security person to seal the office.

It was like a silent operation, everything has to settle down in just one day, leaving no chance for local staff to say goodbye to colleagues. Even the press was not aware of the event until days after. Just when journalist begun to sniff the scoop, CA released a brief statement, signed by Brenton Smith:

Effective immediately, CA is putting into place a service structure drawing on local industry expertise to serve the Indonesian market. This move is in line with a carefully-considered channel partnership strategy that has been under development in our Asia Pacific & Japan region for a number of years. CA remains committed to the Indonesian market and to serving local customers.

Our customers in Indonesia will continue to enjoy access to CA’s industry-leading solutions and support capabilities, and CA APJ will maintain close contact with our partners to ensure quality of service.

Well, what an “informative” explanation, leaving many questions unanswered like why Indonesia? Where IT had showed tremendous growth over the past years? Indonesia had survived the long tiring -nine months- general elections in 2004, political situation is stable than ever (compared to Thailand), and the President had acknowledged the importance of IT to run the nation and enter knowledge economy.

CA’s decision felt uncanny while many global companies just opened their representative in Indonesia. Name it: Hitachi Data Systems, Advanced Micro Devices, SAS Institute, Force10 Networks and many more are in the list.

Even in time of economic crisis, many long established global IT companies were doing well. They survived and showed more commitment: they’re here not only to draw money from Indonesia market, but to also invest in the country, hiring local people, transferring knowledge and bringing international working standard.

Shutting down representative office doesn’t mean CA is pulling out from the country. As mentioned in their official statement, the software company remains committed to Indonesian market, but now they will have to count more on their local partner. Well we can only hope someday CA will re-open their rep.office, making their local presence stronger.

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