Winners of Superbrand awards are hoping for better future

Rudijanto, Contributor, Jakarta

Winners of the Superbrand Award certainly feel lucky to have their companies included among the select group of businesses with Superbrand status.

No doubt the award is a source of pride for its recipients. Their hard work has received recognition from a third and independent party with an international reputation.

"Basically, our management staff are proud and happy that PT Asuransi Central Asia (ACA) has obtained Superbrand status," said ACA's retail division manager Jakub Nugraha.

ACA is one of the 23 brands that received a Superbrand Award last week. Other recipients are Acuvue, Aquaproof, Ayam Merak, Berri, Baskin Robbins, Bimoli, Bank Muamalat, Bank Ekonomi, Ciputra, Daia, Indofood, Infomedia, Indomie, Indomilk, JNE, Nokia, Optik Tunggal, Sucofindo, SoKlin, Trac, Wings and Yellow Pages.

ACA is an old player in the Indonesian insurance industry. Founded in 1956 as Oriental NV, the company changed its name to PT Asuransi Central Asia (ACA) in 1958. Currently, ACA is included among the five biggest players in the Indonesian insurance industry with 36 branches and 34 representative offices throughout the country.

For ACA, the Superbrand status conferred by an independent organization such as the Superbrand organization constitutes recognition of the hard work of all of its employees and board of managers in the past two years.

"Our company has been included among local companies that have received recognition due to their quality service, consistency and commitment in rendering the best for their clients. Moreover, this recognition is given by a neutral independent party with a good international reputation outside our organization," Jakub said.

A similar reaction was expressed by another Superbrand Award recipient, PT Infomedia Nusantara (Infomedia), the country's publisher of the Yellow Pages, the Indonesian telephone directory.

"We are happy to receive the Superbrand Award because it was given by an external agency. They have awarded us Superbrand status after seeing our good performance," says Infomedia's president director M. Gatut Awantoro.

For Gatut, his company certainly deserves to receive such a prestigious award from an international-based organization as the company has developed into one of Indonesia's leading information and communications services providers.

"Our Yellow Pages is the only telephone directory that has been widely accepted by our customers and users. We have shown good performance through our call center with several major companies using our services," said Gatut.

Further proving his company's performance, he said the Yellow Pages had been issued in full color in order to increase the quality of advertisements. In addition, Infomedia has developed its own vast distribution networks throughout the country and issued Yellow Pages CDs.

Many Superbrand Award recipients consider their new status a good start to entering the more competitive international market.

"For us, Superbrand is a trademark that we can use for promoting our services to the market. Sucofindo will use the award as momentum to enter into the international market," says Zafar D. Idham, president director of Sucofindo.

Sucofindo has every reason to be proud of its new Superbrand status, particularly as it receives it a few months short of its 50th year of operation in inspection, supervision and assessment services.

"Being granted the award, we feel we are trusted as a national brand that has vast experience and a good reputation. We hope that the Superbrand status that we earned will strengthen our position as a leading national brand and open up access to the international market," says Zafar.

Sucofindo is Indonesia's first inspection company and a joint venture enterprise between Indonesia and SGS SA -- one of the world's leading inspection companies, which is based in Switzerland.

Sucofindo's activities at present cover inspections in agriculture, engineering and trade as well as trade facilities, management collateral, certification of products, certification of quality and environmental management systems, consultancy in the investment sector and laboratory services.

Superbrand recipients are no doubt planning to reap more benefits from the award. For instance, Jakub of ACA has revealed a plan to announce the company's success in obtaining the award to all employees, partners and customers, as one of the company's achievements for 2005.

Furthermore, we will use the award as a momentum to kindle the spirit, performance and professionalism of all of our employees so that we will be more widely known as a trusted insurance company," said Jakub.

While the award winners will do their best to use the award as a momentum to boost their performance in delivering services or products to customers, they also expect the organization granting the award to do more than simply hand over a plaque, trophy or certificate.

Aside from publishing the Superbrand Book containing data on all the award winners, the Superbrand organization also commits to doing public relations (PR) work on behalf of the recipients.

"Each company that receives the award already has its own PR program that cannot be diverted or altered by the handing over of the Superbrand Award. The organizer of the Superbrand Award has to make a PR program to meet the expectations of the recipients," said a source in the Indonesian public relations industry who requested anonymity.

Giving an example of the PR program, she said the Superbrand organizers could forge partnerships with several media which would publish special reports on the success story of each award winner.

"It is not enough to publish the Superbrand Book that contains the names and stories of the award winners as such a book will only reach a limited audience. Without good publicity, the award will not achieve its intended result," she says.

On the one hand, the Superbrand Award marks the start of a new journey for award winners. On the other hand, the awarding of Superbrand status must be accompanied by a good PR program.

Without the cooperation of the two sides -- namely the winners and the award organizer -- the Superbrand Award will at best be an additional logo to be printed on the winners' business cards or simply a plague or trophy or certificate to be displayed in the winners' offices.