Behind the Mic with Dewantoro Bimo: Exploring the Future of AI and Customer Experience

Passionate about driving exceptional customer experiences and brand growth, Dewantoro Bimo has spent over 15 years shaping global B2B marketing strategies and customer engagement.

As VP of Marketing at Telin, a global connectivity provider, he leads worldwide marketing across digital and traditional channels, ensuring a strong and cohesive brand presence. His expertise in B2B CX and brand management enables him to develop strategies that enhance engagement and satisfaction, directly driving brand growth.

These initiatives have reinforced Telin’s industry influence while elevating B2B CX by fostering relationships and addressing customer needs.

In this Behind the Mic feature, Dewantoro shares his insights on the evolving CX landscape, the impact of AI, and the key trends shaping how businesses approach customer experience and digital transformation.

Q1. What motivated you to pursue a career in B2B marketing and customer experience, and what key experiences have shaped your leadership journey over the past 15 years?

I’ve always enjoyed connecting business strategy with customer needs because it’s one of the few functions where you can directly see how better marketing and customer experiences translate into business growth. Over the past 15 years, leading regional marketing, brand transformation, and customer experience initiatives has taught me that sustainable growth comes from building trust, fostering collaboration, and creating long term value, that not only for customers and partners, but also within our own teams.

Q2. How have you leveraged emerging technologies such as AI, data analytics, and digital marketing to strengthen brand presence and enhance B2B customer engagement?

We leverage AI and data analytics to better understand customer behavior, personalize engagement, and improve marketing effectiveness. I also believe that digital marketing and social media are just as important in B2B as they are in B2C. At the end of the day, every business decision is still made by people, and those people consume content and build opinions through digital channels. By combining technology, data, and digital platforms, we create more relevant customer experiences while strengthening our brand and generating better business outcomes.

Q3. What are some of the most significant challenges you've faced in delivering exceptional customer experiences across global markets, and how did you overcome them?

One of the biggest challenges is balancing global consistency with local relevance. Every market has different customer expectations and business cultures. In 2022, we introduced our “One Telin” strategy, not only by operating as one global organization, but also by presenting one consistent global brand across all markets. This approach has helped us deliver a unified customer experience while still giving local teams the flexibility to adapt their execution based on local customer needs.

Q4. What role does customer feedback and market intelligence play in shaping your marketing and customer experience strategies?

Customer feedback and market intelligence are at the center of our decision making. We regularly gather insights through brand perception surveys and customer journey surveys, then use them as part of a closed-loop feedback process to continuously improve our products, services, and customer experience. Combined with market intelligence, these insights help us prioritize initiatives, identify new opportunities, and ensure our strategies remain customer-centric.

Q5. What strategies have you found most effective in building a strong global brand while maintaining meaningful and lasting relationships with B2B customers?

For me, it comes down to five things: presence, consistency, credibility, customer listening, and industry engagement. We maintain consistent brand messaging and consistently deliver on our promises to build trust. We actively listen to the voice of the customer throughout every stage of the customer journey to continuously improve our services. We also believe in being present where the industry comes together, not only by participating in key forums, but also by building BATIC (Bali Annual Telkom International Conference) as one of the region’s largest digital ecosystem platforms. This helps us stay relevant, strengthen brand awareness, and build meaningful, long-term relationships with customers and partners.

Q6. Could you share a success story where your leadership significantly enhanced customer engagement, brand perception, or business growth through innovative marketing strategies?

One example is transforming our flagship annual event, BATIC, from a traditional telecommunications event into a broader digital ecosystem platform. We repositioned the brand, expanded the audience beyond telecom to enterprise, hyperscalers, regulators, investors, and technology partners, and built year-round engagement through digital campaigns and industry collaborations. Within three years, participation grew from hundreds to more than two thousand delegates representing over 600 organizations from around 60 countries. Beyond strengthening Telin’s brand positioning as a leading digital infrastructure and platform partner, BATIC has consistently become our largest source of new business opportunities and strategic partnerships.

Q7. How do you balance the increasing use of AI and automation in marketing with the need to maintain authentic relationships and trust with B2B customers?

I believe AI should augment people, not replace them. We use AI to automate repetitive work, generate insights from customer data, and improve personalization, allowing our teams to focus on higher-value activities. From my perspective, the biggest challenge in AI today isn’t the technology itself but integrating AI into business processes and earning customer trust. In B2B, decisions are still built on relationships, credibility, and human judgment. AI can make those interactions more informed and efficient, but trust is ultimately created by people.

Q8. What best practices have you implemented to ensure marketing initiatives remain customer-centric, data-driven, and aligned with long-term business growth?

For me, customer-centric marketing starts with understanding the customer before creating any campaign. Every major initiative begins with customer insights, market intelligence, and clear business objectives, not assumptions. We continuously measure performance through customer feedback, digital analytics, and business KPIs, then refine our strategies through a closed-loop improvement process. Most importantly, marketing is not measured by awareness alone, but by how it contributes to pipeline growth, customer experience, brand trust, and long-term business value.

Q9. How do you stay updated with the latest trends and developments in B2B marketing, customer experience, digital transformation, and brand strategy?

Continuous learning is part of my routine. I regularly attend global industry events, engage with customers and ecosystem partners, and follow leading research from technology firms and consulting companies. I also learn a lot by organizing international industry platforms like BATIC, where I have the opportunity to exchange ideas with global business leaders, communities, media, and marketing peers. Beyond following trends, I always ask one question: How can this create real value for our customers and our business? That’s what helps me turn insights or latest technologies into practical
strategies.

Conclusion

Dewantoro Bimo’s insights highlight how successful B2B marketing is ultimately about connecting technology and strategy with real customer needs. From using AI and data to strengthen engagement to balancing global consistency with local relevance, his approach places customer understanding and trust at the centre of long-term growth. His experience with BATIC also demonstrates how a strong brand can evolve into a platform for meaningful industry engagement, business opportunities, and strategic partnerships. As AI continues to reshape marketing and customer experience, Dewantoro’s perspective is clear: technology can make businesses more informed and efficient, but lasting relationships and trust remain fundamentally human.

“Stay tuned for more such Behind the Mic features, bringing you closer to the ideas and insights shared by the speakers at the Conversational AI & Customer Experience Summit Asia 2026.”