Overlap in Gojek and Tokopedia services suggests possible redundancy

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Last week, Gojek and Tokopedia officially announced their merger, effectively forming the GoTo Group. The merger combines Gojek’s expertise in mobility and lifestyle apps, GoPay’s prowess in finance, and Tokopedia’s strength in ecommerce.

However, while the companies have formally joined hands, their services (a number of which overlap) haven’t – at least for now.

The most obvious intersections come in both companies’ financial services offerings. Gojek’s pay-later service Findaya, for instance, has been placed under the new GoTo Financial entity. But Dhanapala, Tokopedia’s peer-to-peer lending service, is still operating under Tokopedia.

The same goes for Tokopedia Keuangan, which offers insurance and investment services from third parties. It hasn’t been moved under GoTo Financial unlike Gojek’s similar services GoSure and GoInvestasi.

Another area that Gojek and Tokopedia have tapped into is creating solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with initiatives like GoBiz, GoStore, Mitra Tokopedia, and TokoCabang. For now, these solutions are still separated between GoTo Financial and Tokopedia.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Not only do some of these services overlap, but one segment in particular may see Gojek and Tokopedia platforms go head to head after the merger. Halodoc, the healthtech startup that Gojek integrated, operates an ecommerce service for medicine – something that Tokopedia also offers.

The overlaps suggest that consolidation may be in the offing, which might inevitably lead to staff transfers or even redundancies and layoffs.

It’s not yet clear how the organization will evolve beyond this point. According to Nuraini Razak, Tokopedia’s vice president of corporate communications, all of Tokopedia’s platforms will still operate independently under the leadership of Tokopedia co-founder William Tanuwijaya for now. However, she says GoTo as a group will “use their scale” to accelerate financial inclusion in Indonesia.

“We hope all sellers and buyers in Tokopedia can keep getting access to solutions provided by GoTo Financial,” she tells Tech in Asia.

Along with the business growth of the new entity, GoTo may also need more talent as time goes by, the vice president adds.

This proves that while it’s natural for a merger to consolidate similar services to pursue efficiencies, GoTo’s magnitude means the changes will be gradual. A likely first step is for Tokopedia to change its default payment method from Ovo to GoPay.