“I think in the short term we will be seeing some difficulties with a lot of households struggling to meet their monthly needs. However, this is the time to focus and build new capabilities for when things become normal again”, said Muneeb Maayr, founder and CEO, Bykea during an exclusive Q&A session with Daily NewsPK. Also he shared his key insights on the economic landscape in Pakistan post COVID-19.
- How do you see the overall landscape of the economy in Pakistan post COVID-19?
Online and Digital platforms and services are going to see a huge surge in popularity; I think that traditional services are going to rethink their business model and start exploring alternate sources. Due to COVID-19, a lot of people are starting to use and see the benefits of using digital banking, e-commerce and TeleHealth. This trend is going to accelerate further.
The extended lockdown is having adverse impacts on businesses; those with resources are trying to keep their workforce while others are being forced to cut-down their staff.
- What are the challenges and opportunities for ride hailing services in the current crisis scenario?
There is no ride hailing business at the moment; the lock-down has resulted in shutting down of business. People are not moving about; bike taxis constitute 80% of our business. With this drastic reduction in business, the costs don’t shrink by the same margin. Remaining afloat then becomes the main challenge.
The opportunities are here to re-imagine yourself as a business; now is the time to start focusing on ways to utilize the networks that companies like Bykea have built up. Last-mile deliveries, Bill payments and cash collection could be new use cases to target in the current scenario.
The advantage for us at Bykea is that we are a very lean company; we don’t burn anywhere near the amounts that our competitors spend. This has allowed us the space to aggressively start pursuing these other opportunities. We are also cognizant of our responsibility to the community and we are actively partnering with NGO’s and the government to distribute ration
Luckily we don’t burn money like our competitors and therefore are in a good position to ride this pandemic out. We do however have started focusing more on how our crowd-sourced fleet can be used alternately, currently it is playing a major part with ration distribution and donation collection and this is something we never expected to happen.
In general, ride hailing companies need to rethink their business models and offer something more apart from transportation of people.
- What measures have you taken to support your front-line staff; riders?
Our riders form the backbone of our platform. We have equipped them as well as the front-line staff with protective gear like gloves and masks to help them work in a safer environment. The economic downturn has led to reduced earnings for them; we have tried to mitigate that by setting up a fund which received healthy contributions from our employees, management and investors.
The strength of Bykea as a platform is contingent upon the strength of its network of riders. To protect and help them in these turbulent times, a PKR 7 Million Relief Fund was launched for top performing Driver Partners and for those whose daily earnings were most impacted.
- How do you see consumer behaviour shifting towards digital during this crisis time and what is your approach while responding and understanding their needs?
Consumers are now spending less because there’s no splurging on Fast food and entertainment but we are experiencing a surge in essentials items such as groceries and medicines etc. To avoid going out or standing in queues, many are opting to have things delivered at their doorstep.
In order to ensure the safety of everyone involved, we’ve provided our driver partners with masks and sanitizers while introducing strict SOPs in accordance with Government’s directive. We even introduced a feature where a customer can see the temperature of the assigned driver partner. This is all being done to ensure safety and security of all the stakeholders involved.
We are further making improvements to the existing features for payments as mobile wallet top-ups, bill payments and money transfers are experiencing a similar surge to home deliveries.
- With reference to the current lock-down, what recent initiatives have you taken to support and maintain business continuity?
The Bykea app itself has been updated and now we show our customers the temperature of our riders. This allows our customers to have peace of mind regarding the person that they are interacting with.
Rider earnings as a component of the total fare has been increased to 99% as this will help them make more money per ride to protect them from the downturn in business. Lastly, we are partnering with NGOs and engaging them in ration delivery and community work to help give back to the society
Finally, our main responsibility in these challenging times was to our employees. We have implemented work from home policies and equipped our people to be productive remotely.
