1. AWS Summit Singapore 2013
Panelist Discussion
Moderator: Angela
Event info: https://aws.amazon.com/aws-summit-2013/singapore/
At the first event of the AWS Cloud Computing community in South East Asia that took place in
Singapore, our CEO Ikin Wirawan along with 3 others were the panel speakers of AWS partners.
If you missed the talk show or want to relive the words, below is the transcript of the talk show:
(A)NGELA: In your opinion, how have you seen the cloud adoption evolve over the past few
years? And how has this shift benefited your business ?
Minjar: We have been using AWS platform for last 5 years and clearly the market has accepted
Cloud Computing as next paradigm shift for their business to bring agility and flexibility in
IT, we have moved from too much noise in the market place to a clear business value
proposition of using on-demand computing for critical workloads. Till last year, we had to
educate customers and businesses about using Cloud Computing but now they are more
interested in “how to use Cloud?” and “where to use Cloud?” so there is clearly a great
traction among even traditional businesses to leverage Cloud for testing their business
workloads like internal web applications, messaging solutions, websites, dev/qa
environments, cost effective offsite DR etc. As a AWS partner, we have helped many
customers ranging from Fortune 500 to fast growing technology companies in US, APAC
and India to leverage AWS platform. Some of our customers like Mobstac, txtWeb are
able to scale their business to 10’s of millions of users from few hundreds of users in just

2. 2 years by leveraging AWS infrastructure. We have also helped customers like Coconuts
in Thailand providing local news to use AWS for handling viral growth their news content
and do that effectively.
Minjar started as a business unit in Kuliza providing cloud-consulting services on AWS in
2008 and we have now grown to a size where we had to create an independent entity
last year focusing on Cloud and BigData solutions market. We have been growing at over
100% consistently from last 3 years and see an amazing growth happening over next 2 to
4 years as more mainstream businesses want to look at using AWS Cloud for deploying
their workloads including critical ones like CRM, ERP etc and when hardware refresh
cycles kick in for existing virtualized infrastructure. We are looking at growing atleast by
10X of our size in next 3 years
Ogilvyone: Education and Awareness has increased to the point that Marketing folk have heard of
Cloud
For a Digital Marketing Agency like us, it’s a good fit because of these factors:
o Fits the Campaign-based model (short-term)
o Clients move quickly (don’t always plan, can build on the fly)
o Takes away the headache of managing and procuring infrastructure (which our
clients don’t care about – our clients are typically Marketing folks)
o Cost, cost & cost efficiency
o AWS was not our first cloud partner, which has helped because you get perspective
on what AWS can do that others simply can’t!
Izeno: In the past there’s more talks then action
 Now we are seeing more and more web workload, dev test workload adopting cloud
 With the mainstream business adopting cloud we will have more services
opportunities
Walden: I think it begins with the tech startup community. Their products are mostly in the cloud,
they need the cloud because it’s affordable, and to reduce risk on failure and to be able
to scale on success. Cloud adoption in the Enterprise community is slower, but gaining
traction, and the trend is clear – it’s towards the cloud. My business is in software
outsourcing with strength in web apps. It certainly benefits my business when startups
and enterprises rush to the cloud.
(A) We have been hearing a lot about Cloud, what do you think are some of the barriers to
cloud adoption, and how your organisation was able to support in this area?
Minjar: One of the main barriers to cloud adoption in enterprises is to redesign their existing
business processes and make internal teams aware/skilled to leverage Cloud Computing

3. benefits. This is where AWS partners also bring a great value add for businesses to
accelerate their Cloud adoption.
One of the patterns that we noticed is even in big corporations most of the new
applications or product development workloads are targeted for Cloud and business
owners want to use Cloud Computing to bring more agility and reduce time to market.
However with workloads like internal applications, CRM, ERP, SCM etcthere is a fear of
complexity because of tight integrations with existing IT applications and CXOs are
clearly looking at skilled partners who can help them evaluate, identify and implement
Cloud for those workloads.
Another challenge is to move existing IT management processes like change
management, security processes, compliance requirements, audit mechanisms etc to
Cloud along with IT application workloads.
Also as a partner, we are able to help businesses look at Cloud Computing not only as a
cost saver but also as a business accelerator by leveraging the elasticity, on-demand and
flexibility characteristics of Cloud platforms. We have been working with Business and IT
decision makers to deploy their application workloads on Cloud and make internal teams
ready/comfortable for using Cloud.
Ogilvyone: Knowing where to start and first steps
Help customers understand what they have and also with migration from on-premise
solutions
Technology is reshaping Digital landscape. More and more, our Technology team
members are becoming generalists and they need to understand how all elements of a
Technology solution works and comes together, from the UI through to Servers. It’s a
cultural change for our developers where they no longer specialize in one language or
one platform only. They need to know about “everything” and how to solution.
Izeno: Not many partners providing consultancy and managed services locally. Our infra team
who is traditionally working with open source stack (such as Red Hat Linux, Apache, Php
and Mysql) helps make the transition to AWS easily.
Walden: The common barriers are misconception of security –eg.is my data secure with you,
sovereignty – is my data private to me, can you snoop on it, and accessibility – what if my
internet connection is down?. These barriers usually stem from lack of understanding. So
what we have to do is acknowledge these common barriers and that include assessment
and risk mitigation. Obviously clients love the cost advantage and scalability that AWS
provides, so once these common barriers are lifted we are in a good spot.

4. (A) For those of you who had been having a AWS practice for a while, what do you think will
be the initial challenges in building this Cloud Practice? And how has this partnership
benefited you?
Minjar: Our initial challenge was to create skilled teams, define specific solution offerings and
simplify IT management processes so we can help our customers accelerate their
business using AWS Cloud. It was also important to align internal teams about change to
make sure they are part of our new direction.
While we have started building a Cloud practice before there was a formal partnership
program from AWS but after joining the APN, we were able to leverage AWS team skills
and have partner specific training programs to make our internalteams skilled
APN team is also working with us to accelerate our business growth by planning joint
GTM strategies and organizing local events to bring the business community together to
talk about Cloud Computing adoption and best practices for leveraging business value.
There is a great value add in being APN partner as it helps us to connect with AWS
teams and leverage their skills/best practices to help our customers
Ogilvyone: Investment in skilling up or recruiting your team & Identifying your unique or
differentiating offering in the market
Izeno: Initial investment in staff training and marketing
AWS Channel managers have been very helpful to link up with the right resources
internally to help us get on the aws business to market at a faster pace
Technical presales support
Marketing support
Walden: My company has used AWS since 2007 I think. We didn’t have any formal partnership
with AWS back then. We signed up to become an official AWS partner late last year, and
just having that Partner logo helps build better trust with our customers. And when AWS
starts focusing on the Indonesian market early this year, I realize they are really
committed in their relationship with us the partners, and that boost our confidence and
motivation.

5. (A) Why did you sign up to be an AWS Partner?
Minjar: AWS Partnership gives us a brand exposure in the market and reach prospective
customers with confidence as its recognition of our company skills and capabilities.
AWS Partnership helped us to accelerate business growth by planning joint GTM
strategies and preparing solutions for specific market segments while reaching out to
CXOs by leveraging capabilities of local AWS teams.
It’s a great platform to make internal teams Cloud ready!
Ogilvyone: Partnership has helped optimize our business and also unlocked opportunities
 We don’t need a team of dedicated Network and System Engineers. We’ve
empowered our developers to own the entire stack
 Cloud is in its infancy in Asia. AWS partnership has helped identify opportunities.
Also its global presence and recognition as an industry leader gives the Ogilvy
more weight.
Izeno: We are users of AWS for our sugarcrm hosting hence it makes a lot of sense to be a
partner
We like the scalability and the high availability that comes with AWS
We believe that AWS is the way to go and will like to position ourselves as the leading
solution provider for AWS!
Walden: Well, as I have mentioned, we have used AWS for a while, setting up accounts for our
customers. By becoming an official partner, I was hoping I could get leads and more
services business. And the partner logo/ recognition is a plus selling pointand credibility
proof point. Also I like Walden to be the first in Indonesia to be an AWS key partner with
the first mover advantage.