Changing the corporate culture

Ike Señeres

THE chief executive officer of Uber, Dara Khosrowshasi, has vowed to change the culture of the company in order to turn it around. He was formerly CEO of Expedia, an American travel company that owns and operates several online travel brands. He also announced that he will take Uber public in 18 months. It is interesting to note that his focus is on the need to change the culture of the company, and not its policies and programs, much less its products and services. It is also interesting to note that Uber has recruited an experienced CEO who is also a travel executive, considering that it is also practically in the travel business, even if most people perceive it as a transport company.

In contrast, the new Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner Isidro Lapeña has promised to make some changes in the BOC, without making mention that he will change the culture of the agency. Unlike Khosrowshasi who is an experienced executive who was tapped from a similar online business, Lapeña appears to have no experience in the business of customs administration. To some extent, it could be said that he is experienced in fighting the illegal drug trade, but illegal drugs are just one of the many problems of the BOC, foremost of which is the graft and corruption in the agency. Curiously enough, Lapeña did not announce any significant business goal to take the BOC to a higher level, unlike Khosrowshasi who promised to take Uber public in 18 months.

There are no details as to how Khosrowshasi will change the culture of Uber, because in my opinion, it is that same culture that has gotten them into trouble everywhere, including in the Philippines. Perhaps if he is in search of ideas on how to go about it, he should go back to the basics by going back to what Uber is really supposed to be, that it is really supposed to be an online services company or an IT company, and not a transport company. Somehow, it might have been misled into thinking that it is a ride sharing company, but they lost track of that direction too, having been tempted by the promise of making more money from individual passengers rather than from ride sharing.

Hopefully, Khosrowshasi would eventually realize that the real business of Uber is to broker the conduct of business between the car owner and the passenger, in much the same way that AirBNB is brokering the conduct of business between the room owner and the guest. In a manner of speaking, AirBNB claims to be the biggest “hotel” in the world even if it does not own a single room. The truth however is that it is not really a “hotel” because it is merely an IT services provider that is focused on the service of brokering room rental bookings. Similarly, Grab claims to be the biggest “taxi” company in the world, even if it does not own a single taxi unit. In truth however, Grab is not really a taxi company because it is also an IT services provider that is focused on the service of brokering taxi ride bookings.

Perhaps the biggest defect in the old culture of Uber is that its corporate ego has become bloated to the point that it began to think that it is already so big, and being so big has already made them beyond the realm of their host countries, even forgetting that they are merely corporate guests in these sovereign countries. As far as I am concerned, that is precisely the reason why Uber found it so easy to disregard the transport regulation laws of the Philippines, thinking perhaps that it is above the law. It might have started with the gravitas of white men who are consumed by the superiority complex, but in the end it was their hubris that got them into trouble with local laws. If only in their humility they would have remembered that they are really an IT services company and not a transport company, they would not have gotten into trouble with the local laws.

As Lapeña settles into his new job, he should find a reason to announce that his objective should be to change the culture of the BOC. While doing that, he should come to realize that the function of the BOC is to raise revenues from customs tariffs, and not to enforce drug laws. In other words, he should already be announcing revenue targets, and not so much his plans on how to curb graft and corruption in the BOC. Certainly his objective should be to raise revenues, and one of his strategies is to prevent or reduce the haemorrhage of uncollected tariffs. As I see it, what is needed in the BOC is good governance, but as it should be, good governance should just be an outcome of a strong culture. Down the line, all policies, standards, systems and procedures should just be the derivatives of good governance.

E-mail: iseneres@yahoo.com