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立 政 治 大 學
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1. Introduction
Many companies participating in the so-called platform economy, because this concept supports people’s current mobile and online lifestyle. Only few of them succeed, and very few of them grow and generate profit. Companies like Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp and Spotify, are the youngest examples of this time (2019), which bring people together or provide services or content to the people, using a single platform. Older companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix had to adapt their business model to succeed and became part of the platform economy.
Not many people outside of Indonesia heard about the company Gojek. The author of this paper heard about them in 2015, while working in the Philippine telecom sector, together with colleagues from Indonesia. These colleagues where so excited about this new company, which apparently came out of nowhere and suddenly ruled the streets with public transportation on motorcycles, food delivery, and many other services that make their people’s lives easier. All via one app, all on motorcycles, which is a significant aspect, taking the busy streets of Indonesia’s cities into consideration.
A person who is interested in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship cannot avoid Gojek, even outside of Indonesia. They are all over the news, growing fast and expanding vertically, horizontally and internationally, and soon will be mentioned in one breath together with the international giants.
What makes this company not only interesting but also relevant is that Gojek has currently an approximated valuation of US$10 billion, which makes them Indonesia’s first unicorn (value >
US$1b) and first decacorn (value > US$10b). They were able to defeat Uber and Grab in
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Indonesia. They are focusing on solving real and relevant problems of Indonesian citizens and support them to overcome the infrastructural deficits of the government. They provide job and essential benefits to hundreds of thousands of Indonesians (the riders) and with that, boost the Indonesian economy.
They are well funded by Google and other big technology giants. They are acquiring and investing in, and local and international startups in various industries. Finally, to mention is the charismatic founder Nadiem Makarim, who was recently (October 2019) sworn in to a Ministerial office by the President of Indonesia, to drive the fourth biggest country in the world by population forward, with this his innovative mindset and international experience.
“Our strategy was designed to be resilient against giants” - Nadiem Makarim, CEO, Gojek (Bloomberg, 2017)
1.1. Aim and Objectives
Inspired by the IMBA program’s courses “Global Entrepreneurial Leadership”, “Venture Capital & Entrepreneurship” and “Strategy & Business Modelling”, the author of this paper want to find out, what are the success factors of this remarkable company, while focusing on the phenomenon of multi-sided platform economics, and entrepreneurial leadership.
Gojek’s story makes curious and raises questions about the founder’s aspiration and drive, how he managed to stay relevant and out-compete Uber and Grab, why Google, and other giants are interested in funding them.
This paper aims to understand tremendous growth and success of Gojek, to recognize repeatable patterns (successful habits and key success factors) within the Online2Offline platform
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立 政 治 大 學
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economy, and seeks to analyze how this growth can be sustained with an attempt to provide recommendations.
1.2. Process and Chapter Outline
This introductive chapter describes the aims, objective and methodology of this thesis, as well as some of the terms and environment. Chapter 2 will dive into the analysis of Gojek’s business plan. Chapter 3 will elaborate on the findings and lead to the repeatable patterns and key factors of a successful platform company, followed by recommendations for the outlook of Gojek and a summarizing conclusion in chapter 4.
1.3. Methodology
To analyze a business in its different life stages, multiple methodologies can be considered (i.e.
SWOT, PESTLE, Five Forces, Heptalysis, MOST, etc.). To fulfil the objective of the thesis and find the key success factors of a unicorn startup company, the author chose to perform a hendecagonal analysis of the company’s business plan. Similar to an investor during the assessment process of a startup venture. The business plan analysis is broken down to the following parts: 1) The Problem, 2) The Venture, 3) The Consumer and Market, 4) The Industry, 5) The Opportunity, 6) The Value Proposition, 7) The Product and Services, 8) The Route to Market, 9) The Operation Plan, 10) The Management Team, 11) The Financial Plan.
The above-mentioned analysis is followed by a Business Model Canvas, which documents and visualizes the company’s business model, as well as a SWOT analysis. Together, they are leading to strategic conclusions, as well as the key success factors (KSF) that helped the company to achieve their tremendous growth and success.
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1.4. Terms and Environment
1.4.1. Platform EconomyUndoubtedly, the platform economy is one of the most important economic phenomena of recent times (2019). Many industries have been disrupted, and the way we communicate, commute, book our accommodation, listen to music, watch a movie or do monetary transactions is not the same anymore. It is digital and online, and managed by platform companies like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Facebook and many others. In the platform economy, the business model relies on handling information, facilitating exchange of services or assets, rather than owning them and has a match making and filtering mechanism. It benefits and relies on the network effect, where it becomes more valuable only if many users are using the platform and contribute. Aside the production and generation of the desired content by the suppliers, the digital platform company has nearly zero marginal costs for access, reproduction and distribution. Everything, from music over films to communication and contracts can be digitalized and with this, is free (cost for storage approaches zero), perfect (digital reproduction) and instant (accessible through the internet) (McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2017).
1.4.2. Multi-Sided Platforms
A single sided platform has only the consumer side that retrieves on-demand content, like Spotify, Netflix and Facebook. The content is digital and could be created by other users.
A two-sided platform brings together suppliers and consumers for a defined purpose. service or product, like Uber, Airbnb, etc. The suppliers or “workers” will be rewarded according to the defined or negotiated compensation that is paid by the consumer. The platform receives a commission for the match making.
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A multi-sided platform brings in another dimension to the two-sided concept, by adding additional services that are complementary to the existing ones, and with this benefiting from the economics of complementary goods. If the a transportation app does not only offer to match drivers with passengers, but also offers food delivery, they are adding the food makers as a third side to the platform. The platform is becoming more attractive to any of the three sides (drivers, consumers, food makers) if any of the three sides increases in size.
1.4.3. Online2Offline Economy (O2O)
The term describes a certain characteristic of a two- or multi-sided platform. Certain goods cannot be digitalized, like food. An O2O platform is operated in the digital world (online) and triggers actions in the real world (offline).