'Employees are our first customers' - Indonesia unicorn Go-Jek's Ajey Gore on the company's culture
In a span of three years, Go-Jek has expanded from one service to 22 different categories, and is forever on the lookout to meet all the daily needs of a consumer.
The cloudy Bengaluru weather could not dampen the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs, techies, investors, and corporate honchos, who turned up at Techsparks 2018, YourStory's flagship tech conference, to hear stories of success, and determination and grit. And Go-Jek, the unicorn from Indonesia, is exactly that: a bright and shiny success story.
Go-Jek, which started operations as a ride-hailing app in 2015, has now grown into 100 million monthly orders spread across 22 products or services. To talk about this scale was Ajey Gore, Group CTO, Go-Jek, on the topic 'Culture and Scale'.
He explained the attitude and culture at Go-Jek which makes it the success story it is in Asia. “At the core is the attitude to make things happen, which is positive and impactful,” he said.
Ajey added Go-Jek is not just a business enterprise. “We are social at heart and have to do things that make people trust us,” he added.
Go-Jek encompasses a mind-boggling array of services: transport, logistics, food, payments, lifestyle, and digital solutions. It is one of the largest massage and beautician services companies in Indonesia.
As a company that is deeply connected to the everyday needs of the consumers, Go-Jek believes its employees are its first customers. “Drivers are our first-class end users,” Ajey noted. This culture actually saw Go-Jek undertaking many pioneering initiatives such as introducing the fixed price concept and providing tips to drivers.
Go-Jek has disbursed $20 million in tips in the last 18 months, and every month it averages around $1.5 million. These measures have also had a larger impact on the economy in Indonesia as it has helped reduce unemployment by 0.5 percent, and around 75 percent of its drivers earn an income that is higher than the national average. It has one million drivers on its platform. Ajey said the company takes pride in the fact that its pioneering efforts have been aped by others in the market.
Today, Go-Jek has seen 100 million downloads of its app, which has resulted in the delivery of 30,000 tonnes of food, and its fleet covers eight million km per day. Through its myriad services, the company is touching eight million lives.
According to Ajey, Go-Jek's USP is its ability to look at the unorganised sector, make sense of it, and remove any friction.
Go-Jek has ambitious plans ahead, including foraying into newer countries. It recently launched its Vietnam operations and will soon move into Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines.
At the end of the third quarter of 2017, Go-Jek had a monthly booking of 90 million. However, its tech team is still small. The ratio is one engineer for half a million orders.
YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers and, of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.
