Telecommunications

FRnD Brand Insight - The Strategic Intelligence Engine

90%

reduction in reporting time

300.000+

rows of data updated daily

About

Telkomsel connects more than 160 million customers across Indonesia with reliable mobile, home internet, and digital services, backed by Telkom Indonesia and Singtel.

Industry

Telecommunications

Company size

6,000 employees

Founded

1995

Overview

The End of the Reporting Lag

Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest connectivity provider, struggled with slow data and old reports that made it impossible to see what was actually happening. We introduced the FRnD Brand Insight, an AI-powered strategic engine that eliminated the organizational '7-Day Reporting Lag'. This innovation shifted marketing and branding strategy from reactive guesswork to proactive certainty, resulting in a 90% reduction in manual reporting time and unlocking previously invisible cross-channel ROI. FRnD is not a passive tool; it is the Strategic Intelligence Engine that connects the entire marketing ecosystem into one actionable loop.

The End of the Reporting Lag

Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest connectivity provider, struggled with slow data and old reports that made it impossible to see what was actually happening. We introduced the FRnD Brand Insight, an AI-powered strategic engine that eliminated the organizational '7-Day Reporting Lag'. This innovation shifted marketing and branding strategy from reactive guesswork to proactive certainty, resulting in a 90% reduction in manual reporting time and unlocking previously invisible cross-channel ROI. FRnD is not a passive tool; it is the Strategic Intelligence Engine that connects the entire marketing ecosystem into one actionable loop.

CHALLENGE

FRnD Seeing the Unseen

Telkomsel faced a problem endemic to all large advertisers: data fragmentation coupled with strategic paralysis. Critical performance data was isolated across five distinct silos: ATL (TV/OOH), Paid Digital, Owned Channels, Earned Media, and internal Sales Data.

Meanwhile, the industry is currently flooded with two types of ineffective tools:

  1. Passive BI Tools: (Tableau, Power BI) which visualize data but require human experts to find the "why" and "what's next."

  2. Siloed Marketing AI: (Meta AI, Google AI) which optimize within their own platforms but remain blind to the "halo effect" of offline spend.

Executives were operating with a strategic blind spot, unable to confidently allocate millions in budget because they couldn't see the full, integrated relationship between their traditional media investments and digital conversions.

FRnD Seeing the Unseen

Telkomsel faced a problem endemic to all large advertisers: data fragmentation coupled with strategic paralysis. Critical performance data was isolated across five distinct silos: ATL (TV/OOH), Paid Digital, Owned Channels, Earned Media, and internal Sales Data.

Meanwhile, the industry is currently flooded with two types of ineffective tools:

  1. Passive BI Tools: (Tableau, Power BI) which visualize data but require human experts to find the "why" and "what's next."

  2. Siloed Marketing AI: (Meta AI, Google AI) which optimize within their own platforms but remain blind to the "halo effect" of offline spend.

Executives were operating with a strategic blind spot, unable to confidently allocate millions in budget because they couldn't see the full, integrated relationship between their traditional media investments and digital conversions.

THE CONCEPT

Predictive Orchestration

FRnD’s concept represents a paradigm shift from passive data monitoring to proactive strategic guidance. We didn't just automate a dashboard; we "killed" the traditional report. While most AI applications in the market are either Descriptive (summarizing what happened) or Generative (making copy), FRnD is Prescriptive and Multi-Dimensional. We bridge the gap between the "Data Scientist" and the "Creative Strategist."

How we go beyond the Pivot Table

A human analyst with a pivot table can find linear regressions (e.g., "when TV spend goes up, web traffic follows"). And most AI dashboards today merely summarize what is on the screen. But FRnD’s Cross-Channel Correlation Discovery performs high-dimensional pattern recognition that a human mind cannot compute in real-time. FRnD is built to have an opinion. It is a KPI-driven engine that interprets data through a marketing lens (funnel stages, media taxonomy, brand safety) and provides explicit strategic advice. It tells the user what to do next, not just what happened.

  1. Campaign Report

    Instead of waiting for conversion rates to drop, the AI analyzes subtle shifts in micro-interactions across the Campaign Page. It predicts "Creative Burnout" 48-72 hours in advance by detecting decreasing engagement depth. This allows the team to refresh the story while momentum is still high, finding the "boredom" in the data before it costs more.

  1. Trend-Activated Campaign Pivots

    Instead of just watching trends, the AI understands how the outside world impacts our internal goals. It connects the Trends (what people are talking about) with the Campaign (what we are running). If a topic suddenly goes viral—like a surge in "saving money" sentiment, the AI tells Telkomsel to switch to "budget-friendly" ads immediately. It's about catching the wave while it's still rising, before competitors reacts.


  2. From Reporting to Strategic Real-Time Intelligence

    From waiting for a campaign report, to see the story unfold in realtime. Executive summary, including insights, is available realtime. Campaign health can be seen automatically and can even send a PPTX to the executive level with a click

Predictive Orchestration

FRnD’s concept represents a paradigm shift from passive data monitoring to proactive strategic guidance. We didn't just automate a dashboard; we "killed" the traditional report. While most AI applications in the market are either Descriptive (summarizing what happened) or Generative (making copy), FRnD is Prescriptive and Multi-Dimensional. We bridge the gap between the "Data Scientist" and the "Creative Strategist."

How we go beyond the Pivot Table

A human analyst with a pivot table can find linear regressions (e.g., "when TV spend goes up, web traffic follows"). And most AI dashboards today merely summarize what is on the screen. But FRnD’s Cross-Channel Correlation Discovery performs high-dimensional pattern recognition that a human mind cannot compute in real-time. FRnD is built to have an opinion. It is a KPI-driven engine that interprets data through a marketing lens (funnel stages, media taxonomy, brand safety) and provides explicit strategic advice. It tells the user what to do next, not just what happened.

  1. Campaign Report

    Instead of waiting for conversion rates to drop, the AI analyzes subtle shifts in micro-interactions across the Campaign Page. It predicts "Creative Burnout" 48-72 hours in advance by detecting decreasing engagement depth. This allows the team to refresh the story while momentum is still high, finding the "boredom" in the data before it costs more.

  1. Trend-Activated Campaign Pivots

    Instead of just watching trends, the AI understands how the outside world impacts our internal goals. It connects the Trends (what people are talking about) with the Campaign (what we are running). If a topic suddenly goes viral—like a surge in "saving money" sentiment, the AI tells Telkomsel to switch to "budget-friendly" ads immediately. It's about catching the wave while it's still rising, before competitors reacts.


  2. From Reporting to Strategic Real-Time Intelligence

    From waiting for a campaign report, to see the story unfold in realtime. Executive summary, including insights, is available realtime. Campaign health can be seen automatically and can even send a PPTX to the executive level with a click

THE EXECUTION

Designing Invisible Intelligence

At FRnD, our philosophy is simple: the more powerful the AI, the less you should have to worry about it. This "Invisible Tech" is more than just a pretty interface. It is a Strategic Brain that does the heavy lifting of an entire analytics department in the background, translating massive complexity into simple, human stories.

The Engine Under the Hood

At the heart of FRnD lies a proprietary Machine Learning engine that acts as a silent strategic partner, working in the background to connect dots that are impossible for human analysts to track in real-time. When a strategist asks a question, the AI doesn't just fetch a number; it performs a simultaneous cross-reference of marketing spend, real-time sales velocity, and external environmental variables. This is the "Brain" that does the multidimensional math before the user even sees a chart.

The "Aha!" Moment in UX

We realized that the most powerful technology is the one you don't have to "learn." We designed the interface to meet the psychological and operational needs of different users, ensuring the AI feels less like a tool and more like a trusted advisor who anticipates your needs:

  1. The Boss’s View

    We ended the era of "digital fatigue. Instead of a 40-tab spreadsheet, Telkomsel's leadership wakes up to a story. Every morning, the AI writes and emails a Narrative Executive Summary, a clear, human-readable brief that highlights only what matters: the wins to celebrate and the risks to mitigate.


  2. The Strategist’s View

    We broke the bottleneck of "Request and Wait." Through the AskFRnD interface, complex data science becomes a simple conversation. A strategist can follow their curiosity in real-time, asking, "Show me the connection between the current Instagram Followers and Impressions" and receive an instant insight. It transforms a three-day analytical project into a three-second dialogue, allowing the team to act while the momentum is still fresh.


The execution delivers on its promise: technology is invisible, but strategic clarity is undeniable.

ETHICAL PRACTICES

Integrity with Control

Ethical accountability is built into our architecture, ensuring Telkomsel’s data remains a private competitive advantage.

  • Privacy & The Zero-Retention Policy: We treat Telkomsel’s proprietary data—from sensitive sales figures to strategic media plans—as their most valuable competitive asset. We guarantee absolute privacy through a strict Zero-Retention Policy: Telkomsel’s unique data is NEVER used to train public AI models. By housing every brand within its own encrypted, separated siloed instance, we ensure that their strategic "DNA" remains exclusively theirs, protected from co-mingling or accidental exposure.

  • Enterprise-Grade Security: To serve Indonesia’s largest telecommunications provider, we implemented a rigorous security framework centered on SOC 2 compliant practices. This includes SSO integration for seamless organizational access, End-to-End Encryption for data at rest and in transit, and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). This architecture protects sensitive strategic intelligence and ensures full compliance with enterprise governance protocols.

  • Human-in-the-Loop Transparency: We designed FRnD as an Intelligence-Augmented partner, not a replacement for human judgment. While AI discovers correlations and offers advice, we believe that the most critical decisions must always be made by a person. Every recommendation is transparent and auditable, showing the exact data sources that drove the AI's conclusion.

Drill-Down Accountability

Every recommendation is accompanied by a "Source Evidence". It allows the user to see the exact data rows from the original silos (e.g., specific Meta ad IDs vs. internal sales timestamps) that triggered the advice.

Data Lineage Mapping

The AI generates a visual map of its "thinking process," showing how it weighted different variables to reach its conclusion. By showing its work, the AI transforms into an auditable partner, ensuring that the final, accountable strategic decision always rests with the human team.

Integrity with Control

Ethical accountability is built into our architecture, ensuring Telkomsel’s data remains a private competitive advantage.

  • Privacy & The Zero-Retention Policy: We treat Telkomsel’s proprietary data—from sensitive sales figures to strategic media plans—as their most valuable competitive asset. We guarantee absolute privacy through a strict Zero-Retention Policy: Telkomsel’s unique data is NEVER used to train public AI models. By housing every brand within its own encrypted, separated siloed instance, we ensure that their strategic "DNA" remains exclusively theirs, protected from co-mingling or accidental exposure.

  • Enterprise-Grade Security: To serve Indonesia’s largest telecommunications provider, we implemented a rigorous security framework centered on SOC 2 compliant practices. This includes SSO integration for seamless organizational access, End-to-End Encryption for data at rest and in transit, and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). This architecture protects sensitive strategic intelligence and ensures full compliance with enterprise governance protocols.

  • Human-in-the-Loop Transparency: We designed FRnD as an Intelligence-Augmented partner, not a replacement for human judgment. While AI discovers correlations and offers advice, we believe that the most critical decisions must always be made by a person. Every recommendation is transparent and auditable, showing the exact data sources that drove the AI's conclusion.

Drill-Down Accountability

Every recommendation is accompanied by a "Source Evidence". It allows the user to see the exact data rows from the original silos (e.g., specific Meta ad IDs vs. internal sales timestamps) that triggered the advice.

Data Lineage Mapping

The AI generates a visual map of its "thinking process," showing how it weighted different variables to reach its conclusion. By showing its work, the AI transforms into an auditable partner, ensuring that the final, accountable strategic decision always rests with the human team.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE

Organizational Pulse

At its heart, FRnD is about people, not just algorithms. It’s what happens when a clear strategic vision meets technology that’s so natural to use. By building everything on a foundation of total trust, we’ve created more than just another dashboard—we’ve fundamentally changed how Telkomsel thinks, works, and succeeds together.

>85%

management and marketing leaders now begin their report within the FRnD ecosystem.

90%

reduction in manual reporting time

Avg of 5

Natural Language queries per day via AskFRnD

Word-of-mouth Growth

within parent organization

Measurable Adoption & Stickiness: FRnD has achieved an unprecedented level of daily integration within Telkomsel’s ecosystem. Every brand inside Telkomsel is shifting their traditional report to FRnD as their strategic intelligence. The technology isn't just used; it is relied upon:

  • High-Frequency Usage: Over 85% of management and marketing leads now begin their report within the FRnD ecosystem. The platform has become the company's "Pulse," with them returning to the AI-generated executive summary for their report meeting.

  • Time Recovery: The platform has delivered a 90% reduction in manual reporting time, reclaiming thousands of collective hours for strategic thinking instead of data entry.

  • The End of Data Gatekeeping: By democratizing insights through AskFRnD, we’ve seen a shift from static reporting to "Active Dialogue." Power users now perform an average of 5 Natural Language Queries per day, exploring creative correlations that previously remained locked in raw CSV files.

  • Word-of-Mouth Growth: The most telling sign of success is the desire to share it. The impact was so profound that it sparked an organic referral network within the parent organization. After seeing the results, Telkomsel brand managers began actively recommending FRnD to their sister companies. This internal "word-of-mouth" has led to a group-wide initiative to deploy FRnD as the standard intelligence layer for all associated brands.

    Fundamental Behavior Change

    The most significant impact is the shift in human behavior. Telkomsel moved from a reactive "post-mortem" culture—analyzing what went wrong a week too late—to a proactive daily optimization loop. This transition from "blind spending" to "synchronized strategy" has unlocked efficiencies that were previously mathematically invisible.

    "FRnD has fundamentally changed how we breathe as a marketing team. We’ve stopped wrestling with fragmented spreadsheets and started having a real-time dialogue with our performance. It’s no longer about finding the data; it’s about knowing exactly where to move the needle every single morning." — Marketing Lead, Telkomsel

    The Final Verdict

    By delivering an experience that users love, return daily, and proudly recommend to others, FRnD proves that AI is at its best when it empowers the human spirit. Telkomsel no longer views their brand in fragments; they execute as a unified, data-driven force, proving that the right technology doesn't just display the future—it helps you build it.