• Google Meet reduces need for meetings in person, saving costs and time

• Helps enable a more flexible work culture

• Increases work efficiency with minimal interruption even in low connectivity areas

• Modernizes old ways of working to be more competitive

Founded more than a century ago, Pegadaian is a dominant player in the financing, mainly pawnbroking, industry in Indonesia. However, in order to keep up with the competition from new lending service businesses and to appeal to the younger generation, it understands the need to embrace new technologies and upgrade its current workflow processes. Keeping a mindset that change begins from the inside, the company turned to Google Workspace to improve its internal communication processes.

Beyond appealing to the younger generation, Pegadaian is also looking to expand its business in the financial world, growing its services through digital products such as fintech lending. "Nowadays, we are competing with many startups that are very agile and quick, so we have to embrace technology to operate in a similar model to them in order to compete," says Teguh Wahyono, CTO at Pegadaian.

To launch its digitization efforts, Pegadaian started a Transformation Office, an open innovation platform that serves as a catalyst to drive change from within the company, and works as a functional organization to lead the transformation in Pegadaian. "Even the physical office space has been transformed from a traditional corporate office, to now looking like a startup space that's more open and welcoming," says Teguh.

With Google Workspace at the helm of its digital transformation journey, Teguh says, "It is the most important pillar supporting all of our communication channels across the company, as everything is centralized in the cloud." Referring specifically to email, he adds, "We also used to work with very limited email attachment allowances and an unreliable mail server, but now we can send much larger files without worrying about them not getting through."

Moving away from on-premises systems to cloud means that employees have a more flexible work environment. "As long as employees are contactable, they don't have to be confined to a fixed clock-in time. This gives them more flexibility, without compromising productivity," says Bhimo Wikan Hantoro, SVP Transformation Office at Pegadaian. Employees can also store their work in Drive, so they can access their files anywhere, anytime.

Google Workspace also serves as a project management platform across Pegadaian's 4,100 branches across Indonesia. The ability of Docs, Sheets, and Slides to allow different people to work on the same document in real time helps project managers track the progress of their projects easily.

Working with partner agency PointStar, Pegadaian developed a Google Workspace portal that serves as a knowledge base for employees. "Through the portal, employees can see Google Workspace tips and tricks and raise questions around any issues they face. There are also video tutorials for employees to watch in their own time, so that they can become more proficient in the tools available to them," says Aditya Rachman, VP PMO and Change Management at Pegadaian. The organization also shares Google Workspace hacks across its internal social media channels.

Beyond having a repository of product information, Pegadaian holds training sessions that teach employees how to maximize the different tools available. "With advice from PointStar, we went with a ‘train the trainer’ system, where a representative from each region is trained on Google Workspace, and can then train their peers. Through this strategy, we are able to effectively reach every employee across all branches," adds Aditya.

With more than 13,000 employees across thousands of branches, the migration from an on-premises email system to cloud could have been a challenging process. But according to Haris Dermawan, Enterprise Architect at Pegadaian, the project couldn’t have gone more smoothly. “Even though we have more than 13,000 employees, the migration from on-premises to cloud was a seamless experience,” he shares. “Most of our employees didn’t even realize that the mailbox migration was complete.”

Tools aside, the ability of Google Workspace to function without interruption, even in the more remote islands of Indonesia, is something that really stands out for Pegadaian. Teguh had a particularly successful meeting in Buru Island, part of the Maluku islands in the eastern part of Indonesia.

"I was recently in Buru Island, where we had a meeting via Google Meet. Although the internet connection wasn’t the fastest, we managed to hold a meeting that lasted more than an hour without disruption," says Teguh, adding that he was impressed at the platform's ability to enable seamless connectivity despite being in such a remote location.

Being able to connect on the cloud without disruption also means that employees can reduce the number of in-person meetings. "Looking at my personal expenses alone, I've cut more than 50% of travel costs, yet this is only my commute within Jakarta. If you look at employees who come in to do day meetings, the cost saving there is even more significant," adds Bhimo.