Sukanto Tanoto and His Success Strategy

Sukanto Tanoto’s favorite sentence includes “those who do not understand don’t pretend to know.” This is especially true and as the Chairman of RGE Group, a multi-billion dollar enterprise, Sukanto Tanoto is still living by this principle today. He mentioned several times, “I like observing and studying, draw experience from practice. When I do something each time, I would consult the most successful person in the trade and also look for the person who failed. Everybody said that this person has failed, why do you look for him? We should consult his advice, but don’t repeat his mistake. The positive and negative should be combined together.

As a start, a good idea is required for a business to run. “20 years ago, President Sukanto Tanoto said after (year) 2000, the three-ply board factories of Indonesia could not maintain because trees of Indonesia are limited. When he said so, these (three-ply board) factories were all making a lot of money, but now things are really like this (these factories are struggling). At that time he said that we must plant trees because in the future, resources would get the upper hand. Everything (he said) is confirmed (given today’s situation).” an employee on the senior level of RGE shared.

However, besides having a good idea and foresight to the future market supply and demand; Sukanto Tanoto added two more reasons for his success which are 1)Friends and 2)Diligence.

“Take talents as the foundation and rely (the rest) mainly on working (diligence).” is Sukanto Tanoto’s principle of choosing the right person and build the lasting friendship that can ensure the sustainability of the business. He said: “There are a lot of talents, but they must be diligent. It needs efforts to build up enterprises.” At the same time he said with sincerity: “The biggest challenge lies in talents that we are developing.”

Sukanto Tanoto

For this reason, RGE allocates the world-class equipment, offers the world-class chance, and enlists the most outstanding talents from the whole world. These talents of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds gather in RGE. They are innovative and do solid work and are the most valuable resource in the fast development of RGE.

“I administer personnel. People are the most complicated. Chinese call it management. If you pay no attention to them, serious problems will arise; also it is impossible if you use them without arrangement or arrange them without administration. Both administration and coordination are needed. “He said.

Sukanto Tanoto treasures his personnel and treats them as friends. According to Sukanto Tanoto, RGE enjoys three kinds of resources, abundant natural resources, advanced technological resources and of course, outstanding talent resources. It is not a big surprise that RGE and companies under RGE is able to enjoy today’s success.