So how does an eight-year-old Southeast Asian company become ranked as one of the world’s top innovators? Grab has become a leader in innovation and credits its phenomenal success to a strong, value-based culture.
McKinsey & Co associate partner (Berlin) Philipp Hillenbrand speaks with Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan (read it here) to find out what it takes to achieve such achievements in such a short period of time. The full article is worth the read, but a quick summary of the key insights are:
- The more dynamic your market environment, the more important it is to identify and support the core factor in your success. For Grab, this is customer-centricity.
- A shared passion for your company’s core values is as important as the right technical skills in evaluating potential hires.
- Leadership must model the commitment and behaviour it expects from its employees.
- Staying agile through constant feedback and learning is critical in managing fast-paced growth.
- Commitment to a shared culture is the key to minimizing failure and bad decisions.
How successful have these strategies been? Well, Singapore-based Grab is Southeast Asia’s most popular ride-sharing company and has facilitated more than four billion rides since its founding in 2012. The Grab app has been downloaded onto more than 163 million mobile devices, and it also offers a wide range of on-demand transport, food- and package-delivery services, as well as payment and financial services, across 339 cities in eight countries. In 2019, Grab was ranked the second-most-innovative company in the world on Fast Company’s list of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.
Maybe there is something in having a values-based culture after all.