Google Cloud Establishes Local, Cloud Powered Ecosystem to Accelerate Surabaya’s Economic Development

By bringing together technology partners and major enterprises who are the city’s trailblazers and leading examples of cloud and data powered innovation, Google Cloud is building an ecosystem in East Java that will support organizations of all sizes throughout their digital transformation journeys

At a press event featuring Eri Cahyadi, Mayor of Surabaya, Google Cloud has announced collaborations with Pakuwon Jati, EIKON Technology, Wings Surya, Datalabs, and Metrodata, to advance Surabaya’s next phase of economic growth and development.

By bringing together technology partners and major enterprises who are the city’s trailblazers and leading examples of cloud and data powered innovation, Google Cloud is building an ecosystem in East Java that will support organizations of all sizes throughout their digital transformation journeys.

“We welcome the presence of Google Cloud in Surabaya and are optimistic that its technological capabilities can help accelerate the digital transformation of various important sectors across our city. We encourage the use of cloud computing to boost efficiency, effectiveness, reliability, and the security of public services and businesses alike. We also hope that the cooperation that’s been established between the Surabaya City Government and Google Cloud can continue to be strengthened – because with strong synergy, we can make Surabaya even greater,” said Eri Cahyadi, Mayor of Surabaya.

Digital Infrastructure Powering the City’s Leading Physical Infrastructure Provider

Surabaya is not only Indonesia’s second largest city, it is one of its greenest cities, and a thriving commercial and business center. Pakuwon Jati, a leading real estate developer in Surabaya, has been responsible for constructing much of the city’s physical infrastructure for the past 40 years – from its office buildings and hotels to Indonesia’s largest shopping mall. To prepare its business operations for future growth and reinforce its efforts to maintain a harmonious relationship with the environment, Pakuwon Jati is collaborating with Google Cloud and its implementation partner EIKON Technology.

To allow its staff to seamlessly communicate and collaborate with customers, vendors, and colleagues, Pakuwon Jati has adopted Google Workspace, which enables the company to enhance workforce productivity and customer satisfaction. Built on the industry’s leading cloud-native communication and collaboration platform, Google Workspace brings together the applications people know and love – like Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Meet, Chat, and more – into a single, integrated workspace, with built-in enterprise-grade access management, device management, data protection, and data encryption, to establish a secure working environment from anywhere, on any device.

Pakuwon Jati now plans to leverage Google Cloud’s secure-by-design, scalable, and carbon neutral infrastructure and services to modernize its mission-critical enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. “By building on Google Cloud’s local infrastructure, we expect to optimize IT costs, reduce our IT workloads’ carbon footprint, ensure zero downtime, and implement the highest security standards,” said Minarto Basuki, Director of Finance, Pakuwon Jati.

By integrating its modernized ERP systems with Google Workspace, Pakuwon Jati’s employees would eventually be able to access Google Docs and Google Sheets to edit documents collaboratively with version control and process reliability. “Once the integration is complete, staff from Pakwon Jati’s finance department, for instance, would be able to manage sensitive financial records in a safe, reliable, compliant, and more efficient manner,” said Basuki.

Smart Manufacturing to Deliver Homegrown Products of the Highest Quality

The manufacturing sector is a key growth engine for the East Java economy, with many industrial estates located in or around Surabaya. Already a Google Workspace user since 2020, Wings Surya, a Surabaya-headquartered company and one of the most trusted distributors of household, personal care, and F&B products for the past 73 years, is now extending its collaboration with Google Cloud and its implementation partner Datalabs to become a leader in Industry 4.0.

To ensure that the production and distribution of its popular ice cream brands from Glico Wings, such as Haku, Waku Waku, Frost Bite, and J-Cone, meet stringent standards for quality assurance and customer satisfaction, Wings Surya’s data scientists turned to Google Cloud’s advanced data analytics and AutoML Vision Object Detection solutions to bring intelligent imaging technology to life in a matter of weeks. “Google Cloud certainly accelerated our development and deployment of  intelligent imaging technology, otherwise it would have taken us months to build and train machine learning (ML) models from scratch,” said Daniel Tjandra, CTO, Wings Surya.

With intelligent imaging technology automatically and accurately detecting and classifying objects across production lines and distribution channels, Wings Surya’s employees will, for instance, receive relevant data-driven insights and real-time alerts on their mobile devices. “These insights and alerts will then inform the predictive maintenance of freezers to avoid disruptions to delivery quantities and timelines, or prompt our staff to quickly rectify any stock keeping units with defects in shape, size, or packaging,” added Tjandra.

Nurturing the Next Generation of Digital Talent and Entrepreneurs

In addition, a third of Surabaya’s population is under the age of 30, presenting the city with an opportunity to establish itself as a hub for Indonesia’s next generation of digital talent and high-growth startups.

To help address the growing demand for digital talent, Google Cloud is partnering with Metrodata Academy to organize free “Cloud Hero” training programs to equip local undergraduates, such as those from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), with foundational skills in data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and ML. After acquiring these foundational skills, these students can pursue advanced learning paths and industry-recognized IT certifications through the Google Cloud Skills Boost platform. With Google Cloud accounting for the industry’s top two highest-paying IT certifications in 2021, students in Surabaya can now seize the opportunity to establish and showcase their proficiency in in-demand digital skills to prospective employers, to kick start their careers in technology and support local organizations’ digital transformation strategies and initiatives.

Many startups in Indonesia, such as CROWDE, Nodeflux, and Warung Pintar, have turned to Google Cloud for developer-friendly infrastructure and industry-leading data analytics, AI and ML expertise to build their companies and products. To make it easier for investor-backed, early-stage startup founders in Surabaya to scale their businesses, the Google for Startups Cloud Program is now available to cover their cloud costs of up to US$100,000 for two years. For self-funded startup founders, the program provides US$2,000 in free cloud credits for two years to help them fund the development of proof-of-concepts and showcase their products to prospective investors and customers.

These newly announced collaborations and programs complement Google Cloud’s existing partnership with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison to help Indonesia’s small and medium businesses (SMBs) – including those in Surabaya – digitally transform. With the goal of fully digitizing SMBs across their business lifecycles, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Google Cloud have been building a marketplace of tailored software-as-a-service offerings. This is set to include helping SMBs to create an online presence with Google My Business, boosting their productivity with Google Workspace, automating their operations using AI and ML, delivering better customer service through data analytics in the cloud, and much more.

“Pakuwon Jati and Wings Surya are tangible examples of how cloud and data powered innovation can drive real business and economic impact,” said Megawaty Khie, Country Director, Indonesia, Google Cloud. “By investing in local infrastructure and forging deep partnerships with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, EIKON Technology, Datalabs, and Metrodata, Google Cloud is well positioned to serve companies of all sizes across all of Surbaya’s core industries. We believe that the cloud will unleash new digital possibilities and act as a force multiplier in driving East Java’s next phase of growth and development.”