Nalendra Wiryawan on How Go-To-Market Strategy Runs at GovTech Edu
Nalendra Wiryawan is no stranger to marketing and research. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from Bandung Institute of Technology back in 2007, Nalen made his marketing career debut in the private sector. In 2011, he decided to take a master’s degree in strategic management at Tilburg University, Netherlands– his study was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Dikti). His knowledge and deep understanding of the field later brought him to work for various industries, ranging from telecommunication, FMCG, and startup.
While he was glad about his career leaps, Nalen, however, found a little something was missing. “My ideal career should give me these 4 elements: it gives me meaning, allows me to improve my talents, provides a great chance to explore my interests, and is certainly gainful,” he told us. Yet, in 13 years of building his career, Nalen has never found such a “perfect” job. They might tick some boxes, but not all.
A fresh of breath air then came in last year. GovTech Edu was looking for a Head of Go-To-Market (GTM), and Nalen surely wouldn’t miss the chance. He joined the organization and has run the role ever since.
“My role at GovTech Edu is by far the best of everything. It is even more appealing to me that they’re on a mission to support teachers across the archipelago. So not only does it offer me a career opportunity, but gives me a sense of meaning and I’m truly grateful to be a part of it,” he said.
Regarding his adaptation phase at GovTech Edu, Nalen didn’t find a quite massive challenge. While, admittedly, he needed more time to adjust, he was eventually able to overcome them by envisioning a possible reality. “I had known GovTech Edu a year before I joined the company. That was enough time to get to know the organization and lucky me I have friends, from whom I learned a lot, working there.”
According to Nalen, the workflow and culture at GovTech Edu are pretty much fast-paced, tactical, agile, and non-hierarchical like any other startup environment– but this one works closely with the ministry, which makes GovTech Edu so unique. “It takes different skill sets, approaches, creativity, and talent to balance out that startup energy with a bureaucratic system,” he said.
Information distribution at the core of marketing
During our discussion, Nalen passionately shared his perspectives on marketing and how it evolves over time.
“In the bygone era, marketers would knock on each and every consumer’s doors. Some people bought it, some didn’t. The marketing effort was huge, yet ineffective. But that was a story from 30 years ago. Today, thanks to technology, marketing is evolving. Everything we need is just a click away– in no time our orders are delivered right to our doorstep,” he said.
In the last 5 years, Nalen observed, marketing has shown significant developments in changing consumer behaviour and shaping their perspectives. “It is also interesting to see how marketers approach their users through technology. Marketing efforts seem to be more effective and efficient, with a much stronger below-the-line approach (or even through-the-line) rather than above-the-line,” he said.
Nalen also urges reaching a sweet spot between knowledge and implementation. “As far as my experience in marketing, one should not only be able to execute, but also be user-obsessed and think strategically to develop impactful marketing initiatives that really shift users’ behavior towards the expected state,” he noted.
We’re then curious as to how marketing implementation at GovTech Edu. Here, Nalen said, marketing is more about disseminating quality information or campaigns to the targeted audience at large rather than a transactional process like those in business.
“At GovTech Edu GTM team, we are responsible for disseminating information to our target users at different levels (individual users: teachers, headmaster, lectures, industry practitioners, and institutions: universities, schools, and ministry). Our main jobs include (1) conducting information dissemination programs on product introductions and usage (2) advising the schools and ministry on how to execute equitable adoption based on regions, education levels, or channels, and (3) developing proactive outbound campaigns to our end-users such as in-app notifications, email, SMS, and WhatsApp for Business,” he explained.
“I remember back in the days when government officials visited schools to provide training for teachers and headmasters. While such training is effective for the participants, the implementation is inefficient. It costs us a fortune and takes so much time. Yet, still, traditional training remains to happen to date,” he flashbacked.
“But the world is changing. Smartphone penetration in Indonesia is 90% now and even teachers in rural areas have the gadget. They’ll get access to information faster with much richer content. GovTech Edu is on a mission to distribute information in the most effective and efficient manner. We continue to improve how the message is conveyed while choosing the best channel to deliver it. We are integrating the use of technology with traditional training I mentioned earlier so that the effort can be more targeted with higher efficiency.”
In order to create relevant campaigns for their users, the GTM team always bases their work on two approaches, inside-out and outside-in studies, hence the collaboration with the data and research team. They have 2 steps prior to decision making: (1) utilizing data from the data analytics team, such as the number of monthly users, logins, engagement, cluster-based models, machine learning, and many more (2) revalidating the data to the real users that the quantitative readings are reflecting what really happens on the ground.
“Slowly but surely, we are now transferring the knowledge to the ministry on some new best practices that the data-drivenness isn’t about using the data and then making a decision right away. It’s about using the data, revalidating it to the users, then making better decisions on campaign planning and executions,” Nalen told us.
With more people having access to smartphones, Nalen is optimistic that more teachers and headmasters will be able to unleash their full potential through GovTech Edu’s initiative. “And not only at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, digitalization is also happening in other ministries as well. This is a promising moment to see our country evolve particularly for the public service sector.”
He also hopes that data-drivenness and a research mindset will be one of the fundamental determining phases prior to information distribution practices for The Ministry. “Therefore we can disseminate information with higher relevance more effectively and efficiently in the future,” he concluded.
