EDGE Group: Indonesia ‘extremely’ important, Jakarta to be main hub

THE Asian Defence Journal spent a few minutes of question-and-answer with EDGE Group’s managing director and CEO Hamad Al Marar, during the recent Indo Defence expo and forum in Jakarta.

ADJ: Can you tell us what are the EDGE Group’s main offers for Indonesia at this expo?

HM: Indo Defence for us, is a very important event. Not limited to what we have on display. We have been discussing with the Indonesian government and the Indonesian ministry of defence on several opportunities, it goes all the way from ammunition to rifles, to drones, to vehicles and ships.

When we look at Indonesia, it is an extremely important market, especially for us. Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates have for long been allies. In everything else UAE did with Indonesia, from tourism to healthcare to security, we’d like to also play our part when it comes to the technical side.

In our participation yes, we are pursuing collaborations between us and the industrial complex here in Indonesia. We have partnerships here, and we are looking to establish EDGE in Indonesia, in terms of offices, boots on the ground, to be closer to a very important client.

Indonesia, in terms of geography, brings with it many challenges that we are not familiar with due to its vast geography, the thousands of islands or the huge population. In our opinion, it is extremely important for a technology house like EDGE to take on different challenges outside its comfort zone. Going into cyber, going into space, going into homeland security, technology or weaponisation – nothing will be off-the-shelf for Indonesia. Everything will have to be driven towards a solution rather than product to maximise the usage and be more efficient.

As EDGE (has been) growing fast, not because we are anything different from others, we are an advanced group, yes, but so is our work. What we are more willing to do is to address challenges at their core and have bespoke solutions that can fit the technical requirement, accommodate the localised support to be able to support your systems, and to suit a budget. That’s what’s important… and I believe such an industry is always expensive, no matter what the country is.

And in any of those things, we need to drive a balance between being safe, having what it takes to remain safe, and economic development as well. So, when we bring our solutions here and we are looking at how to partner with the local industry, to maximise value in-country, (and) help to contribute to job creation. And not only that, we would like to see whether we can actually forge engineering alliances. When you have a brilliant youth population, it can bring innovation to our solutions.

So, we are looking at our relationship in terms of supply, co-development and alliances.

ADJ: As you mentioned just now, will there be an EDGE Indonesian office?

HM: Yes. Within the next 12 months, I think we’ll have it. Because it’s very important to have boots on the ground, and it’s very important to have teams closer to the end-users.

ADJ: Will it take care of only Indonesia or the rest of the Southeast Asian region, or a few (selected) countries?

HM: Wherever it can solve for customers. We would like Jakarta to serve as the main hub; we are not creating EDGE in Indonesia… what we are trying to do is having EDGE closer to the industry complex and try to utilise investments made by the nation. We do not want to come in and compete, we want to build on what Indonesia already has in place.

ADJ: With such a major global presence, how does the EDGE Group look to strengthen its footprint in Asia?

HM: We remain very receptive to any win-win situation, our growth in the last five years didn’t come because we are different or do miracles – we don’t do miracles. We all have 24 hours, we all have seven days a week, we all have the same amount, I think the main difference came in when we started forging relationships that are win-win to both. We saw the growth in the product portfolio because we picked where others have reached. And we have very clear collaboration programmes on various things – technology, products, solutions, and that complemented and supported our growth.

ADJ: What are some of the EDGE Group’s current efforts and collaborations with partners in the region, particularly with Indonesian partners?

HM: We see opportunities in shipbuilding, we see opportunities in the drones, we see opportunities in the ammunition and infantry weapons. but most importantly we see air defence, which is our own solution that is of interest to Indonesia. Air defence is very vital; our counter rocket, artillery and mortar – C-RAM (system), can be implemented on the ship and ground. It is very well designed for suppression and it is very well designed to take down modern threats.

ADJ: Which of the EDGE Group’s vastly impressive portfolio do you believe to be the priorities for clients in the region? Perhaps in the cyber defence, space or even armaments domain?

HM: The extremely important programmes will always end with defence, cyber defence, air defence, (and) counter-drone. In the UAE, we came to realise that you have to be ready to be reactive and act on the problem, but what is very and more important is to be proactive when identifying a problem (that is) going to happen. Preventing a problem is more important than dealing with a problem. Therefore, be it in cyber, national security or intelligence, these are the fundamentals of preventing a problem.

ADJ: What are some of the group’s latest milestones in the development of new technologies and products?

HM: Well, I can say that we are independent when it comes to drones – we are one of the largest producers of precision guided munitions in the world, we’re coming live with our air defence system and we are one of the leading if not in the top five, I would say in the top two, cyber-based technologies. If we don’t rank first, we rank second. We are actively with OEMs in terms of platforms to be able to supply our air-to-ground solutions.

We are very active when it comes to the maritime domain, we are very independent when it comes to vehicles, and in the unmanned domain, we are basically able to unman anything we want, because we have developed a core. We can unman an armoured vehicle, we can unman a piloted aircraft, we can unman underwater and on the water. Those solutions are now readily available and we basically can convert anything into unmanned – not remotely piloted but autonomous. With the introduction of artificial intelligence, we’ve been doing very big breakthroughs when it comes to swarming, teaming and intelligence.

With our satellites coming live within the next two years, we would also be able to enhance our solutions and be readily available. There will be a handful going up every year for the next 10 years. We’re going hard on that.

ADJ: Is there anything else you would like to highlight or add?

HM: To go back and say that Indonesia is an extremely important market for us, as I said, it is very important for us to learn from Indonesia – (its) geographic and population challenges, and to see how we can utilise your supply chain, your local industry, your local manpower to contribute towards our products, our solutions, our creations. And we’re here to deliver value.