Five local firms win management awards

JAKARTA (JP): Five Indonesian companies have won the 1994 Asian Management Awards from the Manila-based Institute of Management and the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review magazine, Ricardo A. Lim, one of the judges, announced.

The five companies, which received the awards in a ceremony at the Hilton hotel here last night, were the state-owned domestic telecommunications company PT Telkom (which won the award for financial management), oil company PT Caltex Indonesia (for people development and management), automotive company PT Astra International (for general management), taxi company Blue Bird (for operations management) and pharmacy company PT Kalbe Farma (for marketing management).

The five award winners competed against 1,044 nominees from all over Indonesia.

The Asian Management Awards received a total of 9,778 nominations this year, up from over 7,500 nominations last year.

All the participating countries, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, had their own awards.

Astra International's award was its fifth in the past four years. Telkom got its second after winning in the people development and management category in 1991.

Caltex Indonesia's president, Baihaki H. Hakim, said the award acknowledges the role of Indonesians in managing the company, especially in people development management.

He said that the U.S.-based oil company Caltex was the first foreign company to appoint an Indonesian as its top executive officer in 1966.

Caltex has replaced a number of expatriates with Indonesian employees. In 1960, only 176 of its 4,009 employees were Indonesian managers. By 1990, at the height of the company's steam flood project, it had 1,486 Indonesian managers and only 94 expatriates.

Hagianto Kumala of Astra International said the company's success in winning the awards lies in its human resource development. (04)