On Passion

As I entered transjakarta on my way home from work, I heard a familiar voice: "Be careful if you're leaving the transjak, double check your belonging, and make sure you're not losing any of it!" At the next station, I heard the same phrases. And then again, it makes me wonder who. . .

When I looked around, it was the transjak's conductor who announce it. And I recalled correctly that day was not the first time I saw the conductor and heard his voice. It is the same conductor who always remind everyone to be careful, make sure that everyone is safe, and not losing their belongings.

Then I thought, "Man, this guy really takes his job seriously."

As a conductor, he does not have to do it. So many other conductors do not even bother to remind everyone to be careful, moreover repeating that same phrases over and over again on every station. And he does not stop there, when he was asked questions by commuter, he answered it with smile. His job is not the fanciest job, he does not get any credits by taking the extra mile. Yet, he really does it with passion because he wants to.

Not a fancy job, no credit, maybe not many people even care about what he is doing. Then it stroke me: "If I were in his position would I do the extra mile? In everything that I do, have I done it with that much passion?"

Luke 16:10a - “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much"

Bluebird - Classic Story of an Outdated Business

 
Earlier today a total of 500 bluebird taxi (largest taxi in Indonesia) did a strike in Jakarta, their complain: taxi drivers' income decreased by whole lot because of tough competition from Uber and Grab Taxi. There is no surprise that their income is decreased but they demand to ban Uber and Grab from streets in Indonesia.Not just for living things, the concept survival of the fittest applies as well to business.

We have witnessed plenty of similar stories before, one of the most recent story is Nokia and Blackberry. Their failure to adapt and innovate to follow the business trend causing them to lose their market share, income, and most likely to fail.

Here is the problem with Bluebird taxi: Even though they are not the only taxi provider in Indonesia, they monopolized the market for a long time due to lack of competition. There are two issues I would like to point out here:

1. Competition is good for consumer. I am a believer of free market, I believe that government at this point should not intervene by banning online taxis from operating. These online taxis are healthy for the taxi market as consumer now have more competing business to serve the market. With the competition so far, we can see the trend that if regular taxi does not innovate or have changing strategy, it will be hard for them to survive. Only the one preferred by customers going to survive, just like iPhone and Samsung over Nokia and Blackberry.
2. Innovation is required for regular taxi especially Bluebird to survive. There are several ways for them to adapt, and one of the way is redefining their pricing scheme. Price war might not be inevitable to survive in the market. 

My only suggestion for government is not to intervene so that regular taxi and online taxi is going to adapt to better serve customers. For regular taxi especially Bluebird, there are two options: to adapt or to suffer.



photo credit:
http://mobilinanews.com/post/blue-bird-vs-uber-taxi-mana-yang-menguntungkan/