CASE STUDY ON GRAB

1. Introduction
Grab Holdings Incorporated, universally known as Grab, is a Southeast Asian technology
company headquartered in Singapore and Indonesia, founded by Anthony Tan (CEO) and
Hooi
Ling Tan (Odesh, 2018). It started off as a taxi-hailing service in Malaysia, Grab Holdings
has
become a company that has expanded into providing numerous consumer services, including
ridesharing, food and package delivery, and online payments, among many others (Success
Story, 2021). Grab has grown exponentially since being launched in 2012 and has become
Southeast Asia’s most valuable start-up online service business having a valuation of $16
billion. Even with its meteoric rise, the company is looking to grow even further and is set to
go public in the U.S. market sometime soon. Despite the successful thrive the Grab company
gets all these years, Grab company made some losses in many southeast Asia countries. Ride
hailing giant Grab recorded a net loss of US$815 million in the second quarter of 2021
(Channel News Asia, 2021).
Ride-hailing services around the world have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and
Grab was no exception. The company is one of the most highly valued tech start-ups in
Southeast Asia, where it operates in eight countries. Its transport business suffered a sharp
decline in March and April 2020, as movement restriction orders were implemented (Shu,
2020). Grab’s driver app already allowed them to toggle between ride-hailing and on-demand
delivery requests. As a result of COVID-19 pandemic, more than 149,000 drivers began
performing on-demand deliveries for the first time with Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand
seeing the most conversions (Petraeus, 2021). That number included tens of thousands of new
drivers who joined the platform to make up for lost earnings during the pandemic.
The challenge was scaling up its delivery services to meet the dramatic increase in demand
by
consumers, and also merchants who needed a new way to reach customers. In March and
April
2020, Cohen (CEO) said just under 80,000 small businesses joined its platform (Shu, 2020).
Many had never sold online before, so Grab expedited the release of a self-service feature,
making it easier for merchants to on-board themselves.
I will be using SWOT analysis to evaluate the Grab company strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats.
2. SWOT Analysis (Hairom, 2022)
Strengths
 The transportation services provided by Grab are safe and of high quality. Drivers
and cars are only allowed to work for Grab if they’ve been verified.
 Cash, cards, and top-ups are the three payment methods for Grab.
 Both the driver and the passenger can rate each other, providing feedback and
boosting the level of safety and assurance for customers.
 Grab offers promo code to the passengers to interact with the customers
 Bookings can be changed after they are made.
 A double drop-off option is available.
 A variety of different kinds of vehicles are included in the fleet. There are GrabCars
(4 and 6 seats), GrabShare, GrabTaxi, and GrabCar+(Premium).
 Transport is just one of Grab’s services, but it also offers food delivery, groceries
delivery, mobile/data loading, and cargo services.
 After the booking has been completed, the estimated charge is displayed alongside
the driver’s details.
 Bookings and reservations in restaurants dine-in, amusements activities places, and
other tourists’ places or attractions areas.
 Hotel booking reservations, payments, and promotion.
 Shopping of designers, vestments, shoes, jewels accessories and cosmetics, daily care
products.
Weaknesses
 The payment offered to drivers by Grab are low. Grab takes 20% as commission.
 From time to time, the system encounters glitches.
 During rush hours, it is difficult to make a reservation.
 The prices are high during rush hours.
 Driver cancellation after waiting for a long time.
 Issues with pick-up points: driver sometimes are ignorant and having trouble locating
the specific pick-up point of passengers; poor google map quality of Grab.
 The penalty given when the passenger decides to cancel ride after 5 min of booking.
 Drivers’ unprofessional and unbecoming behaviour resulted in bad publicity.
 A company has no control over the behaviour of its drivers. Using the example above,
customers may feel uncomfortable if drivers ask for tips constantly or demonstrate
rude attitudes.
 Delivery transportations are not careful enough. Foods sometimes spill out while they
rush.
Opportunities
 Elimination of pollution through the use of electric/rechargeable cars.
 Customers often switch to Grab because of concerns about legality and safety related
to motorcycle hailing and cars.
 The uncomfortable public transportation services, lack of parking spots for personal
cars, and increasing incomes of consumers may boost Grab’s profits.
 There are still many profitable suburban (village) areas where taxi services are not
available in Malaysia that Grab can exploit.
Threats
 Apps for ride-hailing services are emerging (food panda, Gojo, Foodpanda,
ShopeeFood, airasia food, EASI, Bungkusit, DeliverEat, LOLOL).
 The company competes with other platforms as well as restaurants and stores that
have their own delivery services (Sumagaysay, 2021)
 The economy is in an unstable state due to dollar unstable rate.
 The imposition of new legal regulations could affect the operation.
 Grab drivers suffer from low-profit margins, which deter them from becoming
drivers or changing to other drivers’ company.
3. Recommendations
Overall, it’s currently a priority to recover from COVID-19 pandemic and to strengthen its
online presence. It is clear that grab’s finances are improving, and the management is
confident
that online services will increase in the future (Odesh, 20181). Online services have grown
due
to the pandemic. As you can see from this SWOT analysis for Grab, customer’s loyalty can
strengthen a company during times of adversity. Grab should familiarize with the audience,
build trust with them, and give them what they want; Grab company should take the time to
interview their new recruits before accepting them to be drivers to evaluate their nature and
reduce recruitments of bad drivers, and impolite drivers; Grab should provide training to their
staff (drivers and riders) on communication skills, patience, and right of customers or
passengers; Grab company could update the map quality on Google Map so pickup is more
accurate; As a result of the development, Grab may be able to operate in an important
strategic
location by expanding the company to many more countries such as U.S, African countries
and
more; Grab company could partnership with entertainment industries and sell cinema tickets,
activities park entertaining tickets.
4. Conclusion
Today, that tiny company in year 2012 has turned into Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest mobile
technology company that connects millions of consumers to millions of drivers, merchants,
and businesses (Myanmar Tech Press, 2021). Grab is taking on the largest problems that
affect
the region, including access inequality, outdated infrastructure, and income disparity. Grab
has
scaled up as a super app by setting foot in almost all business verticals after gaining a strong
user base in the ride-hailing industry. In addition, Grab has partnerships with so many
companies including WWF (World Wildlife Fund), bringing attention and help raise funds
toward endangered wildlife that are endemic to South-east Asia’s ecosystem (WWF, 2021).
These species include the Malayan tigers, Irrawaddy dolphins, Asian elephants, Pangolins
and
the Tamaraw which are a species of buffaloes’ native to the Philippines. The loss of any of
these species in their habitat will influence one or more other species down the line, bringing
instability to biodiversity in the immediate area and will cause a potentially drastic domino
effect to resources like food supplies (WWF, 2021).
5. Reference List
Channel News Asia. (2021). Grab's Q2 2021 net loss widens to US$815 million, up from
US$718 million in 2020 [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/grab-q2-2021-results-grabkitchen-
deliveriespayments-
2175591 (19/ 02/ 2022)
Hairom, S. (2022). Grab Taxi SWOT Analysis. Creatly [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://creately.com/diagram/example/it1ubuut2/grab-taxi-swot-analysis-%5Bclassic%5D
(24/ 02/ 2022)
Myanmar Tech Press. (2021). Grab selects and awards its Partnership Business who provided
the good contribution in 2020 [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.myanmartechpress.com%2Fgra
b-6%2F&psig=AOvVaw0VZKpqbNA8Sin6wEu-
EEPr&ust=1645372207546000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjhxqFwoTCKjzl5-
OjPYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD (19/ 02/ 2022)
Odesh. (2018). About Grab – Company [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.odesh.net/2018/12/30/about-grab/ (02 / 02/ 2022)
Petraeus. (2021). Grab: How losing billions and falling 20% on IPO is a path to success in the
digital economy. Vulcan Post [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://vulcanpost.com/770989/grablosing-
billions-fall-20-per-cent-on-ipo/ (22/ 02/ 2022)
Shu, C. (2020). Ride-hailing was hit hard by COVID-19 — Grab’s Russell Cohen on how the
company adapted. Join Tech Crunch [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/17/ride-hailing-was-hit-hard-by-covid-19-grabs-
russellcohen-
on-how-the-company-adapted/ (22/ 02/ 2022)
Success Story. (2021). Grab SuccessStory [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://successstory.com/companies/grab (02 / 02/ 2022)
Sumagaysay, L. (2021). After completing richest SPAC deal yet, Grab stock plunges 20% on
first day of trading. Market Watch [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/after-completing-richest-spac-deal-yet-grab-
stockslumps-
on-first-day-of-trading-11638475680 (02 / 02/ 2022)
WWF. (2021). Grab partners with WWF, Choosing Nature [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.wwf.sg/partner/grab/ (119/ 02/ 2022)
YellowBee. (2021). Top 12 food delivery platforms for F&B merchants in Malaysia [Online].
Retrieved from: https://www.yellowbees.com.my/top-food-delivery-platforms-malaysia/ (02
/ 02/ 2022)