Succession is about passing the mission, not assets: Sariguna makes a splash in Indonesia’s water market

[JAKARTA] Two years into her tenure at Sariguna Primatirta, Melisa Tanoko has leaned on her father’s advice: for a smaller player, agility and speed can be the sharpest edge against giant rivals.

She has put that mantra to work on TikTok Live Shopping, driving Sariguna’s near-daily sales of bottled still water and helping the company gain a foothold in one of South-east Asia’s most fiercely contested consumer markets.

“Agility is our guiding principle,” said the 41-year-old president director of the Indonesian listed bottled water producer in an interview with The Business Times. “We operate on a single mission: making our products available whenever and wherever consumers need them.”