The Grab dilemma

 

Multinational super app company, Grab seems to be at a pivotal moment.

News that Chloe Tong, the wife of company founder Anthony Tan, recently made a social media posting about how much their family loved Israel immediately sparked massive controversy and widespread calls for a boycott of Grab.

Such incidents underscore the difficulties of navigating murky political waters in today’s day and age.

While all companies of this size have a massive corporate communications department and are adept at more standard, corporate-flavoured crisis communications, navigating this particular issue calls for a different set of skills and experience.

While there is no changing the original social media post, exactly how Grab and the individuals involved handle this crisis moving forward could have far-reaching implications for the company’s future.

If Grab wants to avoid severe backlash regarding this issue, it is vital that they navigate the next few days and weeks informed by a comprehensive understanding of the context, its landscape, the risks faced and be guided by the right principles.

Context

Grab not only has to worry about sentiment in Muslim-majority Malaysia, but also in Indonesia, which is the world’s most populous Muslim country.

Muslims throughout the world disagree on many things regarding politics, culture, and so on; but the one single issue which may passionately unite Muslims all around the world is support for the Palestinian cause.

Navigating this crisis thus, requires a deep understanding of just how angry Muslims (and many non-Muslims as well) are in regard to what is happening in Palestine.

If one is not properly attuned to the right kind of social media channels, and has the right kind of immersive background with regards to the communities involved, it may prove difficult to fully understand the intensity of emotion behind these calls for boycott, and to make the right kinds of decisions regarding what to say or do, and what not to say or do.

Grab was founded in Malaysia but moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2016.

We must regretfully admit the degree to which Malaysians have been conditioned for decades by politicians to see everything through a racial lens, and we are forced to acknowledge that those with a grudge against Grab - from competitors to disgruntled customers or workers - may look to leverage this situation, either overtly or covertly.

They may spin this story as one of the children of Chinese tycoons making it big in Malaysia, and then transferring all the success and wealth generated here over to Chinese-majority Singapore.

It doesn’t help that within the region, most perceive Singapore as being by far, the most sympathetic country to Israel.

Some think of this relationship as being due to both countries being one small “island” of non-Muslims amongst a sea of neighbouring Muslim countries - subtly exacerbating this idea that Grab is somehow some kind of “non-Muslim” entity, ripe to be targeted.

Grab’s relative monopoly in the areas in which it operates in Malaysia also leaves it vulnerable. Every customer dissatisfaction with high prices and every (presumably Muslim majority) rider’s grouse about low earnings has burst to the fore.

The situation in Palestine has left many people angry, frustrated, and without a channel to express those frustrations.

One can deplore how these frustrations are being totally misdirected, and issue endless denials, but successfully navigating this crisis will require more.

This battle will not be fought or won around questions of what is “just” or who is “right”.

This situation is exacerbated because many Muslims feel so angered about Palestine, but lack ways in which they can channel or express their frustrations.

Hence, this new boycott may make Grab the latest and biggest lightning rod and punching bag.

Another powerful tool that is commonly used to respond to situations like this is to simply keep one’s head down, and ride an issue out until something else comes to dominate the news cycle.

Unfortunately for Grab, it is highly unlikely this tactic can be employed here, given how this conflict is not going to suddenly disappear in days or weeks.

Given all the factors pointed against them, people in my line of work may be scrambling to “advise” what few competitors there are to Grab left as to how all these vulnerabilities can be exploited.

Do’s and don’ts

A boycott of Grab will undoubtedly affect many Malaysians. If Grab and the people in their orbit really do want to demonstrate a commitment towards respecting the sentiments of its customers, it has to navigate an extremely narrow path - as difficult to achieve as a camel passing the eye of a needle, as it were.

First, the list of “don’ts”. A number of words in the statement issued by Grab (especially those like “suddenly”, “maliciously”, “hatred”) may come across as overly defensive and an “attack” against those who are being critical.

This can consciously and subconsciously cause even greater public backlash, and bring about accusations of self-centredness, ignorance and privilege blindness.

It may even subtly or not so subtly feed into those who may attempt to exploit racial angles.

A natural instinct (especially from a “Singaporean perspective”, as opposed to say a Malaysian or Indonesian one) may be to appear “neutral” regarding this conflict.

A proper understanding of public sentiment on Palestine, however, would be aware that “neutral” is not going to cut it.

Obviously, fully immersing themselves in the polemic will not succeed either, but those who understand the landscape enough can sketch out a way to be appropriately empathetic without crossing certain lines.

There are many workers who would very much like to avoid a Grab boycott. However, unless Grab leads the way in a constructive way, these people alone will not be able to buck the massive storm of discontent surrounding Palestine.

The most recent news is that Grab has made a RM1 million donation to Mercy Malaysia and another RM1 million through BenihBaik.com in Indonesia to assist the Palestinians in Gaza.

While the money will surely help, doing so in a vacuum, without a human face, and not as part of a more comprehensive response, runs the risk of looking like it is merely trying to buy its way out of trouble. Already on X (Twitter), we can see that the public response has been less than glowing.

To make a long story short, moving forward, a company like Grab would have to choose its words, actions and all the precise, exact ways those two things are expressed, with infinite care and sensitivity.

They would have to be guided by an understanding of the different types of influencers in this space, and what makes which kind of content effective either in Grab’s favour or against it.

The standard corporate communications approaches, all of which are designed, shaped and forged in the fires of more “normal” corporate crises may not fit an issue as deeply emotive and political as the one currently faced.

If Grab’s response is sufficiently informed by true empathy and input from those who are immersed in the socio-political and cultural nuances surrounding the Palestine issue, they may have a chance of ensuring the Grab ecosystem and all its related livelihoods survive. - Mkini

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Nathaniel Tan is a strategic communications consultant. He can be reached at nat@engage.my.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.