Strategy, Enterprise and Innovation: A Case Study on Grab Company

This report discusses the key drivers of innovation contributing to the success of Grab, different approaches undertaken by Grab in order to help its business model and entrepreneurial vision, and the application of Blue Ocean frameworks and tools such as Strategy canvas and value curves in order to compare Grab and its competitors. The report also evaluates the success of Grab's application of the Blue Ocean Strategy. The report is based on a case study of Grab, a South East Asia's leading transportation and mobile technology company.

Strategy, Enterprise
and Innovation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Appropriate Frameworks and Tools to Identify and Evaluate the Key Drivers of Innovation
Contributing to the Success of Grab.......................................................................................1
Critically analyse the different kinds of approaches which is undertaken by Grab in order to
help its business model and entrepreneurial vision as well with support of appropriate strategy
frameworks.............................................................................................................................4
Critically evaluate a statement: Grab's success can be attributed to the successful application
of the “Blue Ocean Strategy” . Apply in appropriate manner Blue Ocean frameworks and
tools such as Strategy canvas and value curves in order to compare Grab and its competitors
that is totally based on critical success factors for the industry.............................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Enterprise strategy refers to the mechanism and a relevant strategy process in order to
incorporate stakeholder and societal expectations, norms, values and standards within the
organisation's process of strategy development. Strategy enterprise is also helpful in terms of
innovation factor where organisation can implement these strategies so that innovation can
become impactful at organisational and market level as well. In the present report, a case study
on Grab company is taken into consideration (Adegboye and Iweriebor., 2018). . Grab is
basically a South East Asia's leading transportation and mobile technology company. This
company provides a different range of services which is on-demand and it includes ride hailing,
food delivery, mobile payments, and financial services as well. This company was founded in the
year of 2012 in Malaysia and established its presence in eight countries across South east Asia.
The present report will cover discussion about key drivers of innovation that contributes into the
success of Grab and also about different approaches undertaken by Grab in order to help shaping
its entrepreneurial vision and business model. In addition to this, the report will cover analysis
about application of Blue Ocean frameworks and tools such as strategy canvas and value curves
for comparison purpose.
MAIN BODY
Appropriate Frameworks and Tools to Identify and Evaluate the Key Drivers of Innovation
Contributing to the Success of Grab
Grab is a technological unicorn from Southeast Asia that was established in the year 2012 and
has gained a super strong foothold in the Southeast Asian market in recent years since 2017-18.
With increased advancements in technology and rapid growth of its demand in the current
situations around the world has led to the companies to innovate and revolutionise their strategies
in the market (Wang and et. al., 2021). Grab has emerged as a market leader in the on-demand
sector and started its many services across the Southeast Asian nations. Grab has started its
business from ride-hailing services and now it has expanded itself into various other segments
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such as food supply, renting facilities, etc. Grab is operating across multiple cities in various
countries and it has been growing as a platform that provides several on demand services under
one platform. The company's growth can be seen and witnessed significantly since many years,
starting from the year 2012 the company of drive hailing services under its brand name Grab-taxi
in Malaysia. In 2013 it expanded its business across Singapore Thailand and Philippines, in 2014
it expanded to Vietnam and Indonesia along with expanding its services by launching a Grab-car
app and Grab-bike app. In 2015-16 the company launched its services in logistic and delivery
services under the name of Grab-express and it entered into online payment services with the use
of Grab-pay and into food services with the help of Grab-food. In 2017-18 the company
expanded to mama and Cambodia along with acquiring Indonesian start-ups Kudo to reach and
extend across that country. In 2019 before the pandemic the company emerged as a super app in
Southeast Asian countries that facilitated services across many fields across various nations.
Grab used a mind map approach to reach and cover markets and innovative itself to get success
in its business. Grab was able to expand its operations to various business verticals due to the
technology and techniques it used to retain its customers and their loyalty.
The company used a mind mapping technique and algorithm to analyse the needs of their
customers in order to innovate their services and gain maximum control over the market (Taylor,
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2020). The mind mapping framework of grab has been listed below that help them to gain
advantage of the market and become trending super app:
Grab maintained its customer loyalty with the help of its services and by maintaining its image
in the eyes of customers. Grab provide services to its customers across many fields and the
customers sometimes feels dissatisfied with their services for which their valuable feedback is
taken by the company in order to solve their problems (Heminway, 2021). Even though grab
does not directly employs the drivers or delivery partners even though that take responsibility as
much as possible for the problems that are related to them and their customers. In order to satisfy
their customers the company maintains and shows its efforts towards developing and improving
the customer experience by enhancing the ability of their employees.
Communication is among those factors that could help and enhance the experience of customer
with the company that would help to understand the customers and their needs. Though most of
the businesses that have not considered using word of mouth (WOM) to promote their services,
grab made maximum efforts to communicate with its customers (Biancone. and et. al., 2020).
Grab utilised and Everest social media platform, email marketing and online marketing strategies
and tools to communicate with its customers to stay in contact with them regularly. The company
on every quarter or so has run through online and offline survey to track WOM among its
customers.
Making decisions that are most beneficial suitable for the company is essential to stand
competition and have foresightedness to expand in the market (Duan, Kotey. and Sandhu, 2020).
Grab went hyperlocal and provided its facilities across small towns or cities wherever it could
reach in order to engage local users. The focused on the brand awareness and offline marketing
campaigns to engage the common people and prospects to use their services. They also modified
their services in order to collaborate with local service providers and enhance the experience of
their users who are well aware of those local places.
Grab generated ideas that were centric to the customers in order to be exceptionally responsive
to its customers and their problems along with a huge brand name. Thus the company listen to its
customer’s feedback and take care of their issues and solve them in order to gain their loyalty
and improve their experiences so they stay connected with them (Ampuja, 2020). The company e
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provided user safety, by showing them the quality of their services provided and partnering with
professionals to offer the services that are listed on their platforms.
Critically analyse the different kinds of approaches which is undertaken by Grab in order to help
its business model and entrepreneurial vision as well with support of appropriate strategy
frameworks
According to case study, there are different approaches which are taken into
consideration for helping its business model and entrepreneurial vision as well. They have
focused on hyper local business strategy and also on building strategic partnerships as
well(Gardiner and Scott., 2018). Anthony and his team members are successful in terms of
managing to transform Grab from a taxi booking app into a market leading company with
diversified and growing portfolio. The company has competitive advantage in terms of its unique
and distinctive super-app which offers services on demand on the daily basis for millions of
consumers in South est Asia. The company has also used one of the approach in terms of
business model that places great importance on social impact, increased access, safety,
convenience, reliability in transportation etc.
Although company has achieved success but according to this hyper local business
strategy the target audience has limited the chance of company to expand themselves on large
scale. Through this strategy, they can only target small number of consumers who want to buy
from businesses near them(Gobble., 2018). The strategic partnership is also that kind of strategy
where interaction between countries is also based on certain factors. So this kind of strategy has
its dependence on political, social, economic and historical factors due to which there is no
guarantee of successful implementation of this strategy. If there is disturbance in these factors
then it becomes challenging to maintain proper interaction between different countries. So this
strategy is difficult to implement into positive manner (Selyutina., 2018). For implementing this
strategy into successful manner, they have always feared of market insulation in case of any
negative situation that will impact the brand image of the company.
According to appropriate strategy framework, porter's generic strategies can also be
implemented at organisational in order to achieve targets and objectives into positive manner.
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Porter's generic competitive strategies are those which help in terms of determining whether the
firm's profitability is below or above the industry average.
 Cost Leadership: Under this head, within the industry a firm set out to become the low
cost producer due to which Grab can attract large number of customers on large scale.
The sources of cost advantage depend and varied on the structure of the industry. It
basically includes proprietary technology, economies of scale, other factors and
preferential access to raw materials. The low cost producer have to exploit and find all
sources of cost advantage (Karpenko. and Voronzhak., 2017). Within the industry, the
above average performers are those firms who can achieve and sustain the overall cost
leadership.
 Differentiation: Within the industry, a differentiation strategy is that where firm seeks to
be unique along with dimensions which are widely valued by its customers. Within the
industry, there are many buyers perceived as important where it selects one or more
attributes and position itself in the unique manner. They are basically rewarded for their
uniqueness with a premium price. Grab has to come up with unique ideas and strategies
so that they can grab large percentage of market and attract large number of customers
and investors as well.
 Focus: Under this type of strategy, the focus is totally upon the choice of a narrow
competitive scope within an industry.
Within the industry, the focuser has to select a segment or group of segment and tailors its
strategy to serving them to the exclusion of others (Lei., 2021).There are basically two variants
of focus strategy and it has been defined into following manner
(a) Cost focus: Under this strategy of cost focus, a firm has to seek the cost advantage in their
segment of target.
(b) Differentiation focus: Under this strategy of differentiation focus, the firm basically seeks
differentiation in their segment of target. Both variants of focus strategy totally depends on
differences between other segments within industry and focuser target segment. The target
segments include those buyers who have not regular needs or else the production and delivery
system that best serves the target segment must differ from that of other industry segments
(McDowell and et.al., 2018). Cost focus are basically those which exploits differences in some
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segments of cost behaviour. Whereas differentiation are those who focuses on the exploits of the
particular needs of buyers in certain segments.
In the overall manner, when Grab company has implemented porter's generic strategies at
organisational level then it helps the company in which manner an organisation competitive
advantage across its chosen market scope. In order to command a higher price, the grab company
can either use lower costs or by differentiation strategy.
Critically evaluate a statement: Grab's success can be attributed to the successful application of
the “Blue Ocean Strategy” . Apply in appropriate manner Blue Ocean frameworks and
tools such as Strategy canvas and value curves in order to compare Grab and its
competitors that is totally based on critical success factors for the industry
In order to compare Grab company and their competitors which is totally based on
critical success factors of the industry (Ristyawan., 2021). The success factors can be determined
through Blue Ocean strategy and it can be implemented at organisational level in a very
convenient manner. This is a strategy which is a simultaneous pursuit of low cost and
differentiation in order to open a new market space and also create new demand as well. This is a
strategy which is all about capturing and creating uncontested market space by making the
competition irrelevant.
This is basically based on this view that industry structures and market boundaries are not
mentioned. It can be restructured through the beliefs and actions of industry players. Blue ocean
strategy can be implemented at organisational level through certain steps which include defining
the current reality through identifying key attributes of product and service in the industry. Next
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is about to identify a segment of customers who are only interested in and this is basically the
new target audience as well (Rinaldi, and et.al., 2018). After that alter those products and
services which are inferior on the aspects which are less valued through new target audience.
Under the last step, by realising savings in the previous step there is an opportunity to enhance
products and services that are based on what are the new target audience values.
There are certain frameworks and tools of blue ocean strategy which includes strategy canvas
and value curves it is defined into the following manner
Strategy canvas is that canvas which is a central diagnostic tool and also an action framework
which is captured into graphical manner in a single picture. It is a current strategic landscape and
future prospects of an organisation(Yang and et.al., 2021).
According to this graph the horizontal axis depicts about range of factors that an industry
competes on and invests in. Whereas vertical axis depicts about offering level that buyers receive
across all of these main competing factors. The value curve basically depicts about performance
of company in relative manner across its industry's factors of competition. This canvas basically
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Illustr
ation : Strategy Canvas
Source : Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne

allows an organisation to see in one single picture all the factors where the industry competes on
and invests in. It also depicts about what buyers receive and what are the strategic profiles of the
major player. This graph also depicts that in which manner similar players strategies look to their
buyers. It also reveals that in which manner they drive their industry in this competitive world.
This strategic canvas basically serves two purpose which include within the known market
space , it captures the current state of player. It allows that users have to see their factors in a
clear format where the industry competes and invest as well. It is also about basically what
buyers are receiving and about the strategic profiles of the main players. The second purpose is
that they reorient their focus from competitors to alternatives with support of users actions. It is
also about from customers to non-customers of the industry.
In order to give tough competition to the competitors of Grab Company, the blue ocean
strategy can be implemented at organisational level for purpose of achieving their objectives and
targets into positive manner. This strategy basically suggests that an organisation has to focus on
their main idea and needs to perform a blue ocean market research in order to find something
which is differentiated from the company from other propositions. It also contributes in terms of
creating an attractive tag line which communicates the products value as well. According to the
above given statement, it has been observed that for success of Grab company they have to
implement Blue ocean strategy so that they can focus on their main idea and can't be diverted
from its main focus. While implementing this strategy within organisation of Grab company,
they can't focus on other spectrum of an organisation and their whole focus is towards the main
idea due to which it hinders in the overall development and growth of an organisation.
Blue ocean strategy can't guarantee the success of an organisation because they work
towards the growing market and in order to succeed in this market they have to continuously
research the market into deeper manner. It is necessary for an organisation to understand their
customers into deeper manner and also need to evaluate about their tastes and preferences as
well. When this kind of strategy is implemented at organisational level, there is a possibility that
customers can't understand what basically business wants to sell to its customers. It is difficult to
communicate and give a understanding that how much your product is valuable for the market.
It can also be possible that business can't reaches up to that level where technology and
preferences can't be developed up to a particular extent. When this strategy implemented at Grab
company then it may confuses the company in terms of niches with new markets. Identifying
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niches and selling it to the right target market is also a challenging task for the company. In the
overall manner, up to a certain extent blue ocean strategy is beneficial for the overall growth and
development but it somewhere create challenges for the company to give a deep understanding to
their customers and market as well. So this statement is a positive statement and can be easily
implemented in terms of success of Grab Company and this strategy is helpful in terms of further
development of the company.
CONCLUSION
The report had been providing a discussion and analysis of strategies for entrepreneurship
and innovation of a business that operates through to the Southeast Asian regions. they had been
use of frameworks and strategies such as mind maps to evaluate an identify the key drivers of
innovation that contributes to the success of this organization. It has been identified that the
focus on customers and their needs helps the company to innovate ideas and new designs in
order to improve it services for its customers. Moreover there had been critical analysis of
different approaches that are used by the company in order to shape its vision for its enterprises
and creates its business model into success. The report had also been covering the analysis of the
strategies that are adapted by the company to evaluate competition in the business and stand
strong among the corporate industries that are surrounding the market. Further the report
evaluates statement of the organization and its "Blue Ocean strategy" cum framework or tool that
has to compare the company e and its competitor based on their critical success factors of both
the companies. At the end of the report covers strategy Canvas use to compare the organization
and its competitors with the help of porter's five forces which is an effective framework to
identify the various factors related to competition in the market environment.
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REFERENCES
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Literature. Empirical International Entrepreneurship: A Handbook of Methods,
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Yang and et.al., 2021. Resource slack, environmental management maturity and enterprise
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