First Class Facility, Third Class Mentality

                Last night, I unintentionally visited that “pity” Obike apps that I had not been using for more than a year. The server failed to be connected and this had raised my interest on what really happened to the Obike Malaysia. It was a shocking news when I discovered that the Obike Company in Malaysia had been shut down in June this year.

                Founded in Singapore, Obike Malaysia had been landing for more than 24 countries in the world. (Wikipedia, 2019) However, the Obike in Malaysia had been closed due to the insolvency. Some of the sources said that it is due to the poor management while some said it is due to the low demand in Malaysia (since the cars are common things in Malaysia).

Abandoned Bicycles

                I decided to search for the real cause of the shutting down of Obike Malaysia. Although in my heart, I had some suspected causes that I personally, think after I recalled the almost alike situation that happened in my University, around one and a half year ago when I read one article that comments on the factors that led to the insolvency.

                Looking back into the real situation that happened in my University, the Obike was once introduced in my University when on that time, the Obike just landed. I still remember that moment when the students were given offer price for using the bicycle service. That was the time when the students were busy registering for the Obike account in order to get the rewards.

                I myself also paid deposit for the service, it was around MYR19, if not mistaken. At first, everything ran smoothly as what had been planned by the Obike Company. Whatever complaints we made will be entertained in two three days and I was quite satisfied at the beginning. What happened afterwards was when I started to find the students taking the service for granted. Maybe due to lack of monitoring process, the Obike started to be seen everywhere. I could one time even found seven or eight bicycles along a 2km road, being abandoned by the roadside.

                That was the time when I think, oh my god, what happened to the Obike? I stopped using the Obike service when I once complained on the faulty lock, but it looks like there was no any improvements when I again, used the same bicycle. The number of bikes available here also reduced from 50 at the beginning to 3 at the end, which I personally, found that the service started to be inconvenience.

Malaysian’s Typical Thinking

                Would not it be a sarcastic case when the Obike Malaysia, stopped its operation, mainly not from the poor maintenance, but was due to the too much of bicycles being abandoned? The number of abandoned bicycles had created a huge cost to the company and this finally brought to the collapse of the company when the number became uncontrollable. Imagine that only in the University, there were already hundreds or even thousands of Obike being abandoned, everywhere except the place they should be parked. In the newspaper report that I read, the picture taken is really horrible when you can see, ten thousands of Obike bicycle which are broken, being dumped in just 2 years of launching.

                From here, we can see that it is no more the problem of the Obike Company in managing their service. Don’t you even wonder, why can the Obike survives in Singapore until now but collapsed in Malaysia in just two years? As what all we know, Singapore is really popular with their “kiasu” mind, or in English, “afraid to loss”.  Malaysians as what I observed, are famous with the lazy characteristics.

                Since we are lazy to park the bicycles back to their original place, we choose to abandon it by the roadside. Since we are lazy to report the failure, we choose not to do so. Since we are lazy to lock the bicycles, we let the bicycles unlocked until the action affects other users’ chance to use it. Since we are lazy to arrange the bicycles, we just put it at the original place and leave it even though it is at the “sleeping” position.

                This kind of attitude really needs changes. In Malaysia, we often said that, yes, we want to be a country that is modern. Modernisation needs a lot of technology, a lot of good facilities, an easier way of doing work and even a deeper knowledge in everything. Trust me, if we continue with the same kind of thinking way like what we did to Obike Company, that you may once abandoned it and ignored the faulty, the modern country will be just the dream that will never be achieved.

                “First class facility, third class mentality” is always the obstacle for a country to be modern. Start to change yourself for a better Malaysia.

2019-11-07

1.00 pm