DEPOK (eNBe Indonesia) - As investors increasingly demanding improved bottom line or at least clear roadmap to profitability, tech startups are forced to make their operations ‘normal’ like conventional companies.
GoTo Gojek Tokopedia, which can’t considered ‘startup’ anymore (over 15 years in operation but yet to make money), for example, has reduced further its workforce by 600.
Downsizing is one thing, but in the case of GOTO, the company needs to convince investors about its investment decisions in companies like Matahari Putra Prima (MPPA) and Blue Bird (BIRD), where they suffered unrealized losses.
Shares of Gojek Tokopedia (GOTO) fell 3.1% to Rp125 on Friday last week (March 10), to make market capitalization of Rp128.58 trillion. The stock actually gained 34.4% so far this year, after deep correction in 2022, peaked at Rp404 June 15, 2022.
GOTO is a holding company and digital platform provider integrating on-demand services, e-commerce and digital products and financial technology services, directly or indirectly through entities within the Company.
GoTo Group Corporate Secretary Koesoemohadiani explained that said policy is a strategy to build a company as sustainable, profitable, and to have a long-term positive impact on millions of people. Well, investors’ can’t wait for too long.
GOTO made some adjustments, including the consolidation of businesses and teams within the ecosystem, to deliver a leaner organization that is better equipped to respond to market demands.
“We restructured the offline merchant business at GoTo Financial and brought together two offline merchant teams. Adjustments like these will help us provide better service to merchants, while reducing costs,” Koesoemohadiani said.
Apart from consolidation, Koesoemohadiani added, GOTO is also reviewing priorities, and will reduce the scale or postpone business activities and initiatives that are not core services.
“We will reduce some parts of Mitra Tokopedia’s services, so that the company’s resources can be focused on activities that will drive greater impact,” he said.
GOTO also performs automation to make business processes more efficient. An example is in the on demand service (ODS) business. The use of technology in the sales and operations function has changed the data reconciliation process from manual to automatic.
Even though there is downsizing the organization, GOTO ensures that the quality of service to customers will be maintained. This policy also does not affect GOTO’s partnership relationship with drivers or merchants.
In November 18, 2022, GOTO began to lay off employees, some 1,300 employees (12%) were laid off. Referring to the financial statements, as of June 30 2022, GOTO has 9,630 employees, increased from 9,044 per December 31, 2021. However, per September 2022, GOTO employees increased to 10,541 permanent employees.
GOTO earlier said it has further accelerated its profitability timelines. The Company expects adjusted Ebitda to become positive in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2023. The Group contribution margin is set to become positive in Q1 this year. The faster the better.
