BATTLE THE OF OLD VS SHARING ECONOMY: HOW GO-JEK & GRAB DUEL FOR INDONESIA AND CRIPPLED BLUEBIRD

The timeline of this case began in the early of 2017, just after Go-Jek experienced one of its first violent engagement with public transportation such as minibus and angkot drivers. The incident took place all over Jakarta and Tangerang area causing one fatality, in which one of Gojek driver were run down by angkot driver, sparking massive retaliation among Gojek drivers which in retaliation performed violent sweeping activities towards these angkot drivers. Many angkot drivers were reluctant to drive their angkot the very next day to evade these sweeping activities causing the road to have some extra space which otherwise would be normally congested.

The case examines the strategic challenges faced by Gojek as one of Indonesia’s startup companies with ‘unicorn’ status. The company can be categorized as disruptor, as it totally disrupts the well-established ‘conventional’ public transportation company by providing solutions in the ever-congested traffic of many Indonesian big cities. As disruptors, Gojek continuously facing new challenges in every ground both internally and externally. Externally, they were facing fierce competitions from many types of public transportation including taxis, minibus and angkot, which few times escalated into physical and violent, as well as un-ready regulations from the Government which many times showed their unpreparedness in embracing the new era of sharing economy. Internally, they were also facing difficulties from their partner-driver with many arising issues such as changing commission rate from time to time as well as the ever-changing structure in the calculation of bonus points. These relationship with Gojek partner-driver were quite challenging to manage as their position was not considered to the staff of the company and yet they were the one that delivers the core product. Hence, one central issue of the case will Gojek sustain their business model by having so much problem and difficulties in the dawn of the new era of sharing economy.