BALANCING NEEDS OF CONSUMERS AND PARTNERS
Change appears to be a constant at Grab. The COVID-19 pandemic threw “a great deal of curveballs”, requiring the company to transform from the transport app to some food delivery platform overnight.
“Just over the last 2 yrs, the number of merchants that came on board our platform has increased tremendously. A lot of the merchants see the value of online system deliveries, ” mentioned Mr Yee.
When Get first started as a transport app, it had been a “two-sided marketplace”, he recalled.
“And right now with food, it is a three-sided marketplace. It gets much more complicated. … There’s always the biggest challenge, which is to balance out. What ever we do right here on one side affects the other side and the additional side may be unsatisfied, and so it’s always a challenge to try and balance that will, ” he added.
“Even with our app, we all used to have two apps: Consumer and operater. Now (there is a) consumer, driver and merchant application. ”
But Mr Yee views data as a way to keep on creating affordability and value for consumers, while rewarding their partners enough to allow them to join the platform.
“That is the most difficult question. We pay attention to both sides. We do a lot of information analysis and try to estimate what’s the right amount when certain costs go up, what’s the best amount for the car owner fee, what would certainly we require for our drivers to have a take-home and what is the additional amount we need to put in so that their take-home is not affected, ” he said.
“For drivers, I think it’s simpler to estimate or calculate because their cash flow are their take-home. We know the cost, the particular COE going up plus rental rates. And we have very good information. ”
Where consumers are concerned, “you just need to know on what point they would just drop off the particular app and just go out and buy food themselves”, added Mr Yee.
“As a consumer, it’s regarding convenience. You’re spending money on convenience. If a restaurant is very nearby and you are willing to wait, go and queue up, there must be a value to that. And how perform we put that will value to the customer side? But body fat easy answer. ”
Mr Yee highlighted GrabUnlimited, the newly launched subscription package for meals delivery, which allows normal users to get a low cost on their delivery fee.
And there is good news designed for merchants too. The particular GrabMerchant Centre can expand its vendor support for the Singapore market, announced the organization on Thursday.
This support includes “bespoke, one-on-one consultation” for merchants; immediate operating assistance, such as how to run their particular business more efficiently and minimize downtime; and upskilling workshops and networking events for them to mingle and meet various other business owners”, shared Mr Yee.
In light of the small- and medium-size enterprises arriving online for the first time during the pandemic, many are at this point “ready to level (up) from the transport online platform”, he added.