Tuesday
On Tuesday afternoon, we boarded a train from Tegal to Jogja. We were looking forward to this train ride as we passed rice paddies and mountains, kids flying kites, and saw the rural landscape transform to urban. We worked diligently on our slides, preparing for the 4(?) presentations we’d be giving in the final three days of the trip. Arriving in Jogja, we ate dinner at a tasty restaurant (Roaster and Bear) before heading back to the hotel to do some more work, brainstorming for our final presentation on Friday.
Wednesday
Wednesday we gave two presentations; DJ and Abby led the Supply Chain presentation, while Savannah and Alex led the Sales presentation. We felt like our presentations were well received, and were pleased to see that by that afternoon, the Supply Chain team had already taken our first suggested next step of placing our recommendations on a matrix to prioritize their next actions. We used that evening as a work night, as we had the Finance presentation Thursday.
Thursday
On Thursday, DJ and Savannah led presentations/workshops with the finance, accounting, and tax team. Without an accounting software, their manual processes were time-consuming and tedious. Without a CFO, the teams were managing and processing the day-to-day well, but lacked an advocate and strategy setter for how to scale, grow, and improve the team as well as the finances of the business. These were two of our most key recommendations not just for the finance team, but for the business overall; to hire a CFO and to implement an accounting software that could integrate with their custom back-end software. We used the remainder of the day as a work day, preparing for our final presentation.
At this point, we’d decided the final presentation should be not a repeat of all our five former presentations, but based on the insights we’d developed from those five operational excellence research, interviews, and presentations – we wanted to highlight new insights and recommendations for the higher level leadership team. Pulling a late night to finish the deck Thursday, we sent out the deck and prepared for our final day in Jogja.
Friday
With all the work we’d been doing, we hadn’t left time for sightseeing! By prioritizing our work earlier that week, we’d left Friday morning open to go see the Borobudur Temple. It was a beautiful Buddhist temple, with a thoughtful guide names Midi. We climbed up the stairs, took photos, and admired the view of a nearby Volcano (Mt Merapi?) while learning about the history of Buddhism.
For lunch, we ate with the leadership team at a beautiful and trendy newly-opened A-frame restaurant, where we met the CEO, Ryan, and COO, Willy for the first time.
In the afternoon, we gave our final presentation to the leadership team. They were appreciative of our suggestions – some of which the teams had already begun discussing and implementing. While we’re not sure as to their follow-up or next steps, we promised to stay in touch. They gave us gifts to say thank you, and we headed out for a sunset Indonesian buffet dinner with our project sponsors.
We wrapped up our final evening by walking down the main street in Jogja, with Adi and Amay pointing out historic buildings, museums, classic batik clothing, and tasty street food. By the time we said goodbye late that night, we were genuinely sad to say goodbye to these client contacts – who had gone from being more than colleagues but good friends over the course of our last two weeks together. We hugged goodbye and promised to keep in touch, and hope we can hear updates on their implementation of our recommendations – as well as their personal lives – in the months and years to come.
