Interviewed By Bonnishikha Chowdhury, MBR Team

MBR: What changes have you noticed in the business performance of all the delivery verticals after the pandemic started?

Mr. Hussain M Elius: Startups are playing a transformative role in changing consumer lifestyles and in building a Digital Bangladesh. Homegrown technology companies such as Pathao, a digital platform built by local founders, have changed the way over six million people move, eat, buy, and engage in their everyday lives. Pathao has several business verticals which were affected in different ways. Worst hit was our transportation business - which was temporarily suspended due to COVID for over five months. Since the suspension was lifted, our ride-sharing business is on a steady path to recovery. As the pandemic results country wide lockdown, initially there was a steep decline in the demands of the delivery services. However, as the weeks passed by, business picked up quite quickly. This was because as more people were staying home due to the lockdown, they relied heavily on the delivery services. With the reintroduction of Tong and Pathao Health, our users got an instant goto service for essentials as well as medicine. With the launch of our ecommerce marketplace i.e Pathao Shop, we noticed a sharp increase in orders for non-essentials and that too was because many shopping places around the country was closed. Our users needed a more versatile and wider shopping palette that they could buy from, from the comforts of their home - and that’s something Pathao Shop provided. Our Courier and Parcel verticals also grew quickly as overall ecommerce industry started to grow.

MBR: What new measures did you have to adopt in order to adjust with the shift in the market dynamics?

Mr. Hussain M Elius: Even before the coronavirus pandemic caused a country wide lockdown - we were able to see what was happening in other markets, and we started taking action before the government declared a lockdown. In times of crisis, we believe in being swift and decisive. And we took actions to rapidly diversify and bring products and services that would add value to the lives of our customers. Our highest priorities are protecting the safety and wellbeing of our community, and continuing to serve our customers.
Work-From-Home: All our employees, with a few exceptions, have been working from home with a secure connection. We had cancelled all nonessential company travel and events.
Re-Introduced Pathao Tong: Users can now order groceries and essentials from Pathao to be delivered in less than 40 minutes.
Introduced Pathao Health: Both Prescription and Non-Essential medicines could be delivered using Pathao Pharma. We had also partnered upwith Digital Health, Praava Health, Labaid, Maya and others to provide telemedicine and home corona testing facilities.
Pathao Parcel: Our users could send and receive packages between anywhere in Dhaka without ever leaving your house with the new-and-improved Pathao Parcels.
Pathao Shop: When shopping malls and stores were closed, we brought forward our eCommerce marketplace to provide our customers a convenient way to shop online.
Contactless Delivery: We have been training our riders to provide contactless delivery for the safety and security of yourself as well as the rider. Supporting our Riders We have been distributing protective gear to our riders to make sure that they stay safe while serving you. Collaborating with the Government and the industry: We continue to work with ICT Ministry, a2i, other government bodies, e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (eCAB), and other industry colleagues to ensure that critical supply chain is maintained. 

MBR: What major challenges are you facing while providing delivery services in this “new normal” situation and how are you dealing with it?

Mr. Hussain M Elius: As a team, Pathao is immensely mission driven. Everyone starting from our employees to our riders are extremely passionate about making a change and working for our country. That being said, the pandemic has made us change a lot in how we work and how we provide our service.

The first focus is our employees. We have implemented work-from-home policies before the official lockdown and it is something that we are continuing to this day.

Second is our focus on educating and enforcing health and safety standards. Pathao took the initiatives and worked collaboratively with e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (eCAB) and formulated safety guidelines for our drivers, our foodmen and our delivery agents. We are providing training, ensuring the use of safety equipment (we have also given away face masks, hand sanitizers, disinfectants, hand gloves, etc) and moved to monitor them for enforcement.

That being said we have faced challenges in
(a) Acquisition of new delivery agents - because of the pandemic, many blue collar workers had left Dhaka.
(b) Disruption in the middle-mile - because of area wise lockdown vans from one city to another couldn’t move very freely. That being said - those problems have largely been resolved now as the lockdown in place.

MBR: How was the response when you reintroduced “Pathao Tong” and what is your future plan or strategy regarding it?

Mr. Hussain M Elius: Reintroduction of Pathao Tong was a big success among our consumer body. An online grocery service was much needed during the initial days of the pandemic when the lockdown was on full swing. People were not going out - and a service which brought essentials to the doorsteps was something people craved. The introduction was not without its challenges. A large part of our delivery agents also went out of the city and we did not have enough delivery agents to carry on the work. For the ones that remained, we had to retrain our delivery agents to attend to the safety protocols and carry out contactless deliveries. Many shops were also closed early and that meant we could not serve customers who would order at different times. However, over time the challenges were solved as lockdowns were relaxed and the demand growth became more stable instead of erratic. We plan to continue investing in Pathao Tong to make it the essential on-demand platform for all our users.

MBR: With the introduction of a streaming service, a gaming platform, two digital marketplaces such as pathao shop and pathao tong, pathao has morphed into an essential lifestyle platform, what are your plans regarding it in the future?

Mr. Hussain M Elius: At its core, pathao is not simply a ride sharing company or a food delivery service, it is to become an essential lifestyle platform for the people of this country. We plan on continuing to invest in understanding the market need and providing services that customers want - at scale.