Professional Documents
Culture Documents
September 2019
Glovo 2.0
Pivoting to a New Business Model
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Glovo was facing a challenging situation in the late summer of 2016. After more than a year of
activity, the company’s growth was no longer satisfactory. The company was moving away from
the break-even point and was not expanding its user base as quickly as predicted in the business
plan (and as promised to its current investors). The future of the company was uncertain.
However, a year later, in September 2017, Glovo closed a funding round of €30 million and was
immersed in a very ambitious international expansion. The volume of operations had increased
significantly, and the company was growing in new geographical areas such as Latin America and
the rest of Europe.
The Diagnosis
From its inception until April 2016, the growth of Glovo was impressive. The monthly number of
orders increased significantly, showing a sustained and uninterrupted growth trend. However,
the situation became complicated in the following months. Even though the company had
started operating in more cities in Spain and in Milan and Paris, Glovo’s growth expectations
were not met. The assumption that, by operating in more markets, the company would see
orders increase, at least in proportion, was not verified in practice. This stagnation motivated
Glovo’s leadership team to analyze the situation and reflect on the sustainability of the business
model. What did they have to change to recover the growth curve that had allowed the company
to raise big rounds of financing and convert, at least initially, a lot of new customers at a relatively
low cost. Was it the price they should change? Was it how Glovo divided the pie between the
company and its couriers? The service?
This case was prepared by Professor Joan Enric Ricart, Mathieu Carenzo, lecturer, and Albert Tapia, research assistant.
September 2019.
IESE cases are designed to promote class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective management of a given
situation.
Copyright © 2019 IESE. To order copies contact IESE Publishing via www.iesepublishing.com. Alternatively, write to
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The price, fixed at €5.50, did not turn out to be realistic. Glovo was offering an expensive
service, attractive only to a small market segment since, on some occasions, the cost
exceeded the price of the product to be transported. For this reason, Glovo was
becoming a service for snobs, a customer profile with little in common with the
company’s young target audience (see Exhibit 1), who had a certain aversion to high
prices.
The unverified assumption: with the first business model, Oscar Pierre and the whole
leadership team were assuming that users knew just what they wanted to buy. That
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assumption was incorrect since many users preferred to be able to look at various
options before making their final decision. The interface of the mobile app was designed
to receive an order from the customer, whether this was to buy or send something, and
the app needed the user to specify the product. This was a barrier for any hesitant users
who, for instance, knew they were hungry but did not know exactly what kind of food
they wanted or where to get it from.
With Glovo’s new business model, the partner vendors are also users of the platform but from
a different perspective—selling products and services rather than purchasing them. Therefore,
Glovo has to offer them an attractive value proposition, capable of meeting their needs: bringing
their value propositions (products and services) to a wider market, by serving as an alternative
channel between consumers and partners.
Additionally, the platform was improved in terms of user experience. People could use a toolbar
to write the name of a specific product they wanted to purchase or they could choose from
different predetermined categories. Categories guided users to a product that would really fit
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In this way, Glovo concluded many agreements with local stores, restaurants and
supermarkets. It expanded its catalog and therefore its capabilities as an aggregating
platform, which was something crucial for attracting customers and increasing the
company’s turnover.
In terms of cash management, when ordering from a partner (in the case of both the insight and
key accounts), Glovo would charge the customer the price of the order but hold onto the entire
payment for a month. The partner company would hold onto the commission due to the Glover
courier for two weeks.
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Changes in Operations
With the change in the business model, Glovers maintained a crucial role in the company’s
structure. However, the types of order changed, and new transactions were added as partner
stores and restaurants grew within the platform. Now, Glovers could receive three types of
order, depending on whether a partner store or restaurant was involved and on whether any
other actor was involved other than the Glover and the end consumer. Glovers faced three types
of situation in which an order could be implemented, described as follows using Glovo’s
terminology:
The shipment case: The Glover would act as a transporter of a product, only having to
collect an item and deliver it to a specified location. There would be no purchasing
process involving the Glover.
The partner case: The Glover would collect a product from a partner store, upload the
receipt generated by the partner to the mobile app and deliver the product to its desired
destination, previously specified by the customer. The Glover would not have to make
any kind of payment.
The “I want” case: The Glover would have to pay for the order when collecting it from a
no-partner store. The courier would upload the receipt and deliver the order to its
destination. To pay for the products, the Glovers would have a bank card provided by
the company in collaboration with Bankable, a company specializing in innovative
payment solutions. Each payment would have to be justified by the courier scanning and
uploading the receipt to the platform.
In October 2016, a scoring system was introduced. Until then, orders had been assigned without
taking into account the “reputation” score of the Glover. This system—first called the loyalty
score and currently known as the scale of excellence—was managed through the Glover’s
corporate app and showed what score the Glover had been given by customers. With this
method, Glovo would determine seniority levels for its couriers.
Since Glovo considered the Glovers to be self-employed workers and not employees of Glovo,
the operations team did not set working schedules for them. However, the team did have to
adjust the number of Glovers available depending on the expected demand and fluctuations in
demand. Hence, the higher the Glover was ranked on the scale of excellence, the greater priority
he or she would be given in terms of choosing the hours in which to be available.
A technological instrument known as the system of excellence provided a score based on five
different parameters. The system delivered a final score from zero to five, which was updated
every day via the Glover app. The parameters used to calculate the level of excellence were the
following:
1. Proven level of efficiency: This was the most important parameter, accounting for 45%
of the total score. This variable depended strictly on the number of orders assigned
automatically by the mobile app and carried out while available. More precisely, it was
the number of accepted orders divided by the 40 latest orders delivered to and scored
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by the customer. For instance, if an order was assigned to a Glover but, for whatever
reason, he or she decided to refuse it, the efficiency parameter would take this into
consideration, penalizing the Glover.
2. Number of orders accepted by the Glover within the previous 90 high-demand hours:
This variable represented 35% of the total score.
3. Total number of orders: This number was divided by 750 and accounted for 15% of the
total score.
4. Customer satisfaction: This was based on the average score of the 40 latest deliveries.
This variable accounted for only 5% of the total score.
5. Number of absences: This variable was considered only for penalization, with 0.3 points
per absence being subtracted from the total score. An absence was considered when a
Glover made a commitment to operate during certain hours but ended up not being
available.
Glovo compensated Glovers according to the number of services performed. In Barcelona, for
instance, the company rewarded them with a fixed fee of €2.80 per order plus a variable
depending on the distance covered and the waiting time at the point of collection of the product.
The distance covered was estimated according to the fastest routes proposed by Google Maps.
The company paid the Glover an additional €0.30 per kilometer.
The time that the Glover spent waiting at the collection point often depended on whether the
order was ready. During this time, the Glover could not take any other orders. For this reason,
the company compensated the Glover for any time spent waiting beyond five minutes. In
addition, the waiting time started when the Glover was within a radius of 100 meters from the
collection point, whether this was a store or other type of location. From the start of the sixth
minute, the company would reward the Glover with €0.05 per minute spent waiting.
In addition to the waiting time and the distance, two other variables were considered to
calculate the Glover’s income. Glovo adjusted the number of Glovers available in relation to the
expected demand using two extra incentive fees:
Extra fee for complexity: When Glovo wanted to reward Glovers, such as during adverse
weather conditions, the company could decide to increase the Glovers’ profits for each
order delivered within the defined time slot. High demand or a lack of Glovers were two
cases that would motivate Glovo to apply the extra fee.
Extra fee for coverage: Glovo could apply this solution in cases of low demand. Glover
revenues depended on the number of orders delivered. When demand was low, the
Glovers’ motivation to be available decreased accordingly. With the extra fee, Glovo
ensured Glovers would have a minimum amount of earnings during a specified period,
regardless of the number of deliveries. In that case, the company asked Glovers to
activate the automatic acceptance of orders.
What Glovo paid the Glovers was not the same in all cities. To determine Glovers’ commission,
Glovo (considering the expected number of orders) would offer remuneration of around 20%
higher than the average salary of a waiter.
Thus, the income of Glovers depended largely on the number of orders fulfilled satisfactorily
and the corresponding deliveries. To retain its couriers and attract more, Glovo aimed to offer a
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higher average number of orders per hour than the competition. To do so, Glovo did not intend
to compete only on price—by reaching agreements with partner stores and chains—but also by
offering a more complete value proposition for all types of orders, not only those related to
food. Glovo increased overall demand and therefore generated more orders.
The company did not commit to a minimum number of orders per hour. Instead, it estimated
the number of orders that would occur in the following days and then decided on the number
of Glovers needed. This process occurred every Monday and Thursday. The number of couriers
who would be needed during each hour of the following days of the week was published on the
Glover app. Exhibit 4 summarizes the new operational approach in the new business model
(Glovo 2.0).
Since mid-2018, to comply with legal requirements in Spain, Glovo started to charge its Glovers
€2 every 15 days to avoid establishing a company-worker relationship with them. Instead, Glovo
tried to implement a company-user relationship with the Glovers, making them pay a usage fee
periodically to be part of the Glovo fleet.
Table 1
Business Models and Competition
Other
Own products
Food-delivery Mobile Marketplace fleet of (unrelated
business models Example application with partners couriers to food)
Restaurant Telepizza;
Integrated with its own Pizza Hut;
model delivery Domino's
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service Pizza
On-demand
Marketplace last-mile
model delivery
Just Eat
company
Marketplace On-demand Deliveroo;
model with last-mile Uber Eats
its own delivery
logistics company Glovo
In Spain, Glovo established itself as the leading company in the food-delivery sector, with Deliveroo
being its main competitor. Although the two companies competed in the Spanish market and in
cities in some other European countries, each had different expansion strategies. Glovo focused
on being first in cities where its couriers could be highly mobile but where there would be little
competition in the on-demand delivery market. Moreover, the Spanish start-up focused especially
on expanding into Spanish-speaking locations in Latin America, whereas Deliveroo focused on
bigger markets” (London, Paris, Berlin, etc.) the EMEA market and Southeast Asia.
Using data collected from users through its platform, Deliveroo launched new features such as
Deliveroo Editions, where kitchens would be distributed in strategic locations so that restaurants
could use them to deliver food to a wider population. Globally, Deliveroo managed to position
itself as the leading company among those that used a marketplace model with their own
logistics. The company raised the necessary funding in successive rounds. It raised $275 million
in 2016 and another $385 million in September 2017.
According to Glovo, its levels of user retention were satisfactory and slightly higher than those
of the competition. The aggregated data related to the retention of users from November 2016
to the same month in 2017 (see Exhibit 6) showed similar retention levels throughout that
period, although the number of new users was steadily increasing.
After Glovo changed its business model, its results seemed to improve, showing positive trends in
terms of active users per month (see Exhibit 7), total monthly orders (see Exhibit 8), and downloads
(see Exhibit 9). Total unit revenues increased after the change in business model due to a significant
increase in deliveries. However, the company seemed to fail to reduce the gap between total costs
and total revenues (see Exhibit 10) and, to a lesser extent, between unit costs and unit revenues
(see Exhibit 11). Nonetheless, unit operating costs seemed to improve noticeably in Barcelona
(see Exhibit 12) and in the entire Spanish and global markets after February 2016 due to the system
being optimized for the management of unpaid orders (see Exhibits 13 and 14). The trend continued
to improve after the change in business model in the late summer of 2016. In addition, unit
operating revenues improved in all markets, especially after the change in business model.
(See Exhibits 12 to 14.)
When expanding to new markets, Glovo decided to guarantee the new Glovers a fixed minimum
salary, which would be eliminated when the expected earnings per hour surpassed the fixed
amount. This decision was included in the business expansion plan that Glovo was preparing in
order to set out certain rules and guidelines for expansion into new markets, defining the steps
to be followed when starting operations. This manual, known internally as the playbook, had
been developed based on previous experiences. Initially, it took months of preparations to start
operations in new cities but, by the end of 2017, the company was entering a new city practically
on a weekly basis.
Exhibits 17 and 18 illustrate how Glovo was expanding into the European market, keeping most
of the services in its central headquarters but assigning people for sales and operations to each
of the cities. To successfully enter a new city, the company developed four successive stages,
each differentiated by a key activity. The first was the launch phase, focused on the investment
in operations, the incorporation of Glovers, work with no-partner stores, and the adjusting of
logistics so they would work properly in the new market. The next stage, in which the sales
department was critical, consisted of signing agreements with partner stores. Afterward, Glovo
prioritized the push-marketing campaigns in order to accelerate growth and generate enough
operations to reach the final stage of maturing, which involved consolidating results, generating
better margins and continuing to grow.
At the end of 2017, the company aimed to start operations in eight new countries and 25 cities
in South America in a period of eight months up to mid-2018. Glovo reached a collaboration
agreement with Cabify, a Spanish start-up specializing in providing transportation services via an
online platform and with a value proposition very similar to that of Uber but with a leading
position in Latin America. Glovo took advantage of the Cabify drivers to deliver products from
stores to customers.
Although the main headquarters of Glovo are in Barcelona, the company chose Buenos Aires as
its headquarters for managing the expansion throughout Latin America. The Argentine capital is
where Glovo’s value proposition best succeeded earlier out of all the South American cities
where the company had started operations.
The Middle East and Africa were other potential regions in which to operate, as well as Eastern
Europe. The goal was to become the industry’s benchmark company in these countries too,
starting with the cities of Istanbul in Turkey and Cairo in Egypt.
With an ambitious expansionist strategy, based on a solid business model, and large venture-
capital groups backing its growth, Glovo seemed to face very different challenges than those it
faced with the Glovo 1.0 model. The company was devoting every effort to these new priorities
and challenges. What would the next challenge be?
Exhibit 1
Distribution of Users by Age (November 2017)
35.000
35,000
30.000
30,000
25.000
25,000
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20.000
20,000
15.000
15,000
10.000
10,000
5.000
5,000
00
13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97
Exhibit 2
Pricing Scheme
Exhibit 3
User Interface
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Exhibit 4
Operations
Exhibit 5
Total Number of Glovers for Each Month from February 2015 to
November 2017
1,685
1,196
1,107
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693
622
2017-03
2017-09
2015-02
2015-03
2015-04
2015-05
2015-06
2015-07
2015-08
2015-09
2015-10
2015-11
2015-12
2016-01
2016-02
2016-03
2016-04
2016-05
2016-06
2016-07
2016-08
2016-09
2016-10
2016-11
2016-12
2017-01
2017-02
2017-04
2017-05
2017-06
2017-07
2017-08
2017-10
2017-11
Source: Provided by the company.
Exhibit 6
Monthly Number of Active Users Until December 2017
300,000
300.000
250,000
250.000
200,000
200.000
150,000
150.000
100,000
100.000
50,000
50.000
0
Exhibit 7
New Users’ Retention Cohorts
New +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 +12 +13
users month month month month month month month month month month month month month
2016-11 10,481 38% 33% 30% 31% 28% 29% 28% 27% 21% 28% 31% 31% 21%
2016-12 10,875 32% 28% 28% 26% 26% 26% 25% 20% 26% 27% 28% 18%
2017-01 11,546 34% 32% 29% 29% 28% 27% 21% 28% 30% 30% 19%
2017-02 15,304 36% 30% 29% 28% 27% 20% 27% 28% 29% 18%
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2017-03 16,860 34% 31% 29% 27% 22% 27% 29% 29% 19%
2017-04 18,542 36% 32% 30% 24% 30% 31% 31% 20%
2017-05 23,860 38% 32% 25% 30% 32% 32% 20%
2017-06 41,025 39% 28% 32% 33% 32% 21%
2017-07 48,592 33% 31% 31% 30% 19%
2017-08 37,985 34% 32% 30% 19%
2017-09 48,854 40% 36% 22%
2017-10 64,129 40% 23%
2017-11 72,276
Exhibit 8
Monthly Number of Delivered Orders Until December 2017
600,000
600.000
500,000
500.000
400,000
400.000
300,000
300.000
200,000
200.000
100,000
100.000
00
Exhibit 9
Total Downloads (February 2016 to November 2017)
250.000
250,000
200.000
200,000
150.000
150,000
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100.000
100,000
50.000
50,000
00
2016-02
2016-03
2016-04
2016-05
2016-06
2016-07
2016-08
2016-09
2016-10
2016-11
2016-12
2017-01
2017-02
2017-03
2017-04
2017-05
2017-06
2017-07
2017-08
2017-09
2017-10
2017-11
Source: Provided by the company.
Exhibit 10
Costs and Revenues (January to December 2016)
€ 700,000
700.000 €
€ 600,000
600.000 €
500.000
€ 500,000
€
400.000 €
€ 400,000
300.000 €
€ 300,000
200.000 €
€ 200,000
100.000 €
€ 100,000
- €€
Exhibit 11
Unit Costs and Revenues (January to December 2016)
€ 25
€ 20
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€ 15
€ 10
€5
€0
Exhibit 12
Unit Costs and Revenues for Barcelona (February 2015 to November 2017)
9.00
€ 9,00
8.00
€ 8,00
€ 7,00
7.00
€ 6,00
6.00
€ 5,00
5.00
€ 4,00
4.00
€€ 3,00
3.00
€€ 2,00
2.00
€€ 1,00
1.00
€€ 0,00
0.00
Exhibit 13
Unit Costs and Revenues for Spain (February 2015 to November 2017)
9.00
€ 9,00
8.00
€ 8,00
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€ 7,00
7.00
€ 6,00
6.00
€ 5,00
5.00
€ 4,00
4.00
€€ 3,00
3.00
€€ 2,00
2.00
€€ 1,00
1.00
€€ 0,00
0.00
Exhibit 14
Unit Costs and Revenues for All Markets (February 2015 to November 2017)
€€9,00
9.00
€€8,00
8.00
€€7,00
7.00
€€6,00
6.00
€€5,00
5.00
€€4,00
4.00
€€3,00
3.00
€€2,00
2.00
€€1,00
1.00
€€0,00
0.00
Exhibit 15
Weekly Orders
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Exhibit 16
Results
Exhibit 17
Rapid Expansion
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Exhibit 18
Reliable Model of Expansion