Transforming Blue Bird: Indonesia’s top mobility provider’s push for sustainable growth and digitalisation in the post-COVID era

• Main Authors: KUSNADI, Yuanto, Lim, Wee-Kiat
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: business models; competitive advantage; Digital Transformation; Environmental sustainability; corporate social responsibility; Business Model Canvas; Accounting; Asian Studies; Growth and Development
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/470; https://cmp.smu.edu.sg/case/5916
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Set in 2023, this case describes the digitalisation and sustainability journey of Blue Bird, an Indonesia-based taxi business established in 1965. By 2014, when the company was publicly listed, it had become the country’s largest taxi provider. In 2023, it had expanded its business to include car rental, car auction, as well as shuttle and chartered bus services. In 2022, Blue Bird announced its “multiproduct, multichannel, multi-payment” or 3M strategy to achieve its Mobility as a Service (MaaS) vision of a more efficient, sustainable, and digitally advanced company. Blue Bird had pressed on with its digitalisation efforts, despite its setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same year, it won the Top UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Award. This achievement followed the company’s announcement of its sustainability vision to halve its waste and emissions by 2030, and establish “3-Blues” – BlueSky, BlueLife, and BlueCorps – for driving its environment, social, and corporate governance goals. In 2023, Indonesia, along with the rest of the world, was still nursing the trauma of the pandemic. How should Blue Bird better drive its ‘twin’ and intertwined transformations of sustainable growth and digitalisation? What could be the trade-offs, particularly if the emphasis tips towards digital transformation? At the same time, what can we learn from Blue Bird’s experience in terms of corporate governance as a family business in Indonesia which practices a two-tier board structure? Students will be able to 1) use the SWOT model and the Business Model Canvas (BMC) framework to analyse a business; 2) learn how digital transformation and sustainability are enabled in a business strategy, especially in responding to fast-changing customer needs; 3) appreciate the prioritisation, trade-offs, and challenges across strategic choices and competing demands; and 4) understand the issues faced by family businesses in a country with a two-tier corporate governance mechanism.