Stepping Out Of My Comfort Zone with the Gojek Acquisition

_{This blog post was written by Pond (Tippayavut Kovanthanakul), Teleport’s Senior Manager of Commercial Strategy on her experience and learnings from working on the acquisition of Gojek into the airasia group.}

Since the pandemic started I have been a frequent customer of food delivery platforms. It’s easy to count the number of times I’ve cooked with my hands, but I can’t say the same for the number of times I’ve ordered in the past year alone. Which is why, I am forever grateful for food delivery platforms and the riders that have kept me “alive” (literally) throughout this time.

One thing all this ordering has done to me though, is making me miss home like crazy. That’s Thailand (if you didn’t know). There’s nothing like Thai food, a wide array of restaurants to pick from and crazy deals back home (Don’t cancel my Visa, Malaysians :D) I miss home so much, I wish I could teleport some Thai food to Malaysia. (hint hint 24 hours delivery from Bangkok to KL? I am counting on you!) 

Which was only fitting that I got super excited when I heard the news about Gojek’s acquisition into the AirAsia family. This acquisition will not only help AirAsia’s Superapp have an immediate footprint in Bangkok but will also allow us to tap into the large merchant and customer base of Gojek. This acquisition turbo-charged Teleport’s operations in Thailand because of the integration of Gojek’s delivery operations into ours, along with a large database of riders which will help scale our last mile delivery services and increase our delivery volume. (How fun!)

When the management team asked for a volunteer to lead the integration project, I decided to give it a shot (This was after multiple pep talks from my manager! Thank you for pushing me, you know who you are).

 

My main goal working on this project was to try my level best to make the smoothest transition as possible. However, with a really tight schedule (6 weeks to be exact!) we didn’t  have the luxury of time to make everything as perfect as we could). Luckily with the guidance of my awesome teammates, helping me set up the project, identifying key stakeholders and working hand in hand throughout the project, it went as best as it could! I remembered sitting in the first session and was amazed at how the team could structure and plan out the project really quickly to identify key items that needed to be ironed out in order to make this transition successful. 

The plan looked good, now the tight timeline seemed achievable and we were confident that we could hit the ground running. One of the KEY goals of the project is for us to onboard active crowdsources riders from Gojek. We needed to figure out what to offer, when to onboard and how to get them onboard during COVID (Ugh, I know). Looking at the timeline, we needed to get this done fast and had no time to wait, but we had one major barrier – not being able to communicate with our Gojek counterparts as the deal was in the midst of finalisation (Here comes the waiting game).

As such, most of the planning and decision had to be made initially without their input. We managed this by gathering insights and data via online research and interviewing riders. We were able to come up with decisions such as how much to pay and determining ways of working which would easily attract them. We announced the offers to the riders with the expectation that we would get good feedback as we had provided a better income than what they were currently receiving. 

Oh boy how wrong I was. We got feedback that the offer we made did not meet the drivers expectation as each food platform draws different types of drivers. Lucky for us, the deal with Gojek was signed and we could finally get insights and feedback from Gojek’s local team on how to go about this. 

During the first meeting with the local team, the amount of knowledge sharing and the questions asked about how we treated riders showed that the Gojek team was really passionate about helping the riders. That session was a good reminder for me (I hope everyone else present too) that this project is not just a business transaction but that the success of this project will have a major impact on people and not just the Gojek team that will be joining Teleport but also thousands of riders that they had.

My mindset shifted automatically after realising this and the way I approached the project became more people oriented. Getting to know our new colleagues was also a blast and added a lot of value to the project. Rather than crossing off items as fast as possible, I began to focus more on engaging in collaborative discussions and trusting the new Teleport team to execute and do the necessary.

I have learned so much from different stakeholders within and outside Teleport throughout this journey and would like to thank everyone for such great support, for all the guidance given to me and for trusting me to lead the project. Although we have launched the AirAsia Superapp and Teleport is in full gear to be the best in the region, the journey has only just started. #TeamTeleport #GoTeleport

My wish now is for Thailand to hit 100,000 orders per month and for the team to expand from having on demand food delivery expertise to becoming an expert in logistics and cross border deliveries (We are already on the right track, and I am certain we will be there very very soon). I hope we will be able to create more job opportunities in Thailand for our riders and help local businesses grow their sales channel and improve their operations with Teleport logistics. 

Here’s to trying new things and using everything that you have learned along the process, to grow and excel from it!