CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Introduction

The objective of the study is to examine the involvement of UUM undergraduate students in
online food delivery industry. This chapter will discuss on the research objectives, conclusion of
this research, discussion on research implication and recommendations for future research.

5.2 Overview of Research study

The outcome of the studies, which include the research questions, the research objective, and the
recommendation of the whole research. The findings of this studies and the conclusion of the
research for this study. The role of qualitative strand in these studies serves to analyze the
involvement of UUM undergraduate students in online food delivery industry. This research
mainly focused on the factors that pushed the undergraduate students in UUM to involve in
online food delivery industry the challenges that they faced in this industry. There are many
companies in Malaysia right now which were actively involved in this industry. Many
restaurants also had a huge step in this industry due to the current situation. Many restaurants are
kept on involving in this online food business. This had made a call for all the online food
delivery company to keep on provide with the riders. Currently, companies like Foodpanda and
Grab food are actively involved in this industry. This research will be an encouragement and an
awareness study to online food application developers, restaurant owners, food riders and for
end-users of each online food delivery industry, for them to better understand the factors and
challenges face by the riders in this industry. Although this industry is very new in Malaysia
market, but this industry had placed a mark in Malaysia market. Fairly saying we can conclude
this industry had started to bloom tremendously during the MCO period and this had become a
lifestyle among the Malaysian currently. Thus, this research will help many students to get
involved in this industry as a part time. The data analysis of this research will be explaining the
determinations in a summarized manner which is obtained from this study previously. The
recommendation also will be discussed further in this chapter.
5.3 Discussion on Research Objective

In this research, there are two objectives that have been proposed to investigate the involvement
of UUM undergraduate students in online food delivery industry. The first objective is to identify
the factors that influence the involvement on UUM undergraduate students in online food
delivery industry. The second objective is to identify the challenges that are faced by the
undergraduate student of UUM in this industry. According to a past research which was done in
Thailand by Sheng Hao in 2020, about the food delivery industry, Technology application and
Job satisfaction is the main factors that drive the people there into this industry. The research had
pointed out many factors but as a conclusion the most important factors that bring people into
this industry is the technology application which was used by the online food delivery company.
While in the research done among the undergraduate students the researched had also
highlighted some important factors and the challenges faces in this online food delivery industry.
All the factors and the challenges wil be discussed below.

5.3.1 The factors that influenced the involvement of UUM undergraduate students in online
food delivery industry.

A summarized report is made for the first objective of the research which is the factors that
influenced the involvement of undergraduate students of UUM in online food delivery industry.
The first factor that play major role in this involvement of UUM undergraduate students is
Technology application. The application and technology that offered by the company is the most
important thing. This application had real impact among the riders. The application build by the
company is very safe and rider friendly. Safety of their personal data is very important for the
rider as they travel many places and meet many new people, this situation might lead to leakage
of personal data of rider to the customer. The only information that they customer get to know is
their name and their vehicle registration number. Even though when the registering process the
rider needs to submit the identity card number and many more highly secured data like their bank
account number all but till now there is no case like data selling or data hacking happen in this
industry. Besides this the application are very rider friendly too. As we all know the riders are
only allows two to three touches when they are riding motorcycle this application really meets
the requirements.
Apart from that, this technology efficiency in is very well displayed in their heat map. This a
kind of strategy that offered by the Foodpanda company to help the riders to increase their
income. This heat map offered will recommend the riders the spot where many orders are. By
indicating the rapid ordering area riders can easily go there and get their order to deliver and earn
more. The Application from grab food service offers some period where riders receive bonus
points from the application for every orders. Then the points can be redeemed as money where
surely will increase the income of the riders. Besides, that the application offered also will advise
the riders on which order should they follow for pick up and delivery. These features in the
application had made the life of the rider easier. Even though the are riders are new to the area
they will not face any difficulties as all the steps for pick up and delivery process are guided fully
with the help of technology. These are some strategies which were offered from the application
of this online food delivery companies to influence the involvement of riders. This shows clearly
that technology application plays a vital role in influencing the UUM undergraduate students
involving in online food delivery industry.

Next, the wage offered in this industry are quite higher compared to other industry in our
country. Here, even part time workers earn a good salary where its more than enough for their
needs and expenses. All the online food delivery company offers a good amount of delivery fee
for their rider. The average amount of a rider earns for per order is about RM 4 to RM 8 in all
company that they involved. While per day the average earning based on the hours they work
and number of orders they delivers is about RM 50 to RM 100 while the day they have classes.
This amount is quite luxury for them and according to them the earnings in this industry also are
very important despite the technology application offered in this industry.

Third factors that drive UUM undergraduate students into this industry are their job satisfaction.
As overall all the riders are very happy with their job that they are doing now. Some of rider
loves to ride motorcycle which lead them to this industry. Some of the riders love to explore new
food and new place. This interest in them had make them more satisfy with this job and working
without any hesitation. This kind of personal interest had led to a good satisfaction which then
become a factor influencing the undergraduate students in their online food delivery industry
involvement.
The fourth factor is the flexibility in time that offered in this industry. All the respondent
interviewed are still students in UUM. This factor had played a big role in their part time career,
comparing to the job which we need to focus for 8 hours which might clash with their class
schedule this job is more flexible. The respondent doesn’t need to worry about their class
schedule as they will be choosing when to work and how long they going to work. In this case
some of respondent said they can easily arrange their time when they had assignment discussion
and assignment. During quiz and midterm period also, they will be stop working to focus on their
test and after that they will be continuing with their job. They all agree with this factor saying
that the flexibility offered in this industry had really helped them a lot which influence them to
join this industry.

The final factor is the MCO effect. This industry had taken a huge bloom during this MCO
period. Due to the pandemic which hit the world badly, the customer who loves to eat in
restaurant had take a turn where they started to order online due to the government restriction in
restaurants. For the students during this MCO period all their classes had been change to online
where they can follow their studies in their home. When this kind of situation happens students
started to prefer continuing their studies in their home which they felt more comfortable and
convenience. This respondent had used this chance as their turning point to find some part time
job nearby their house. As this industry is blooming during this period many of them had decided
to join this industry. With all the factors started above respondent really feel comfortable joining
this industry where they can get a bit of extra income. As a conclusion this factors also
contributed to the involvement of undergraduate students in this industry.

5.3.2 The personal challenges face by the UUM undergraduate students in online food
delivery industry.

A summarized report is made for the second objective of the research which is the personal
challenges the that faced by undergraduate students of UUM in online food delivery industry.
Despite of technology playing a great role in influencing undergraduate students involving in this
industry the application also had been the challenges for the respondent. The main issue in this
technology application is the language used in the customer service side. As all the application
developed by the company is more on several countries use, they tend to use English as the only
language for the customer service side and this really had been as a challenge for the respondent.
The accent of English use by the customer service is very hard to understand sometimes. The
customer service option is very essential in this industry because whenever any emergency
occurred like accidents, they need to inform to the customer service, this situation had made the
process more difficult. All the respondents had agreed on this and if they are given a chance,
they will be upgrading this part they said in the interview. The respondent who works on grab
food also had commented about this saying that before this the procedure to contact the customer
service is very easy compared to now where they have many procedures. Despite this whenever
the riders confused with the delivery location, they must contact the customer service, in this
case the customer service can’t guide the rider properly as they don’t know about the geographic
and the road system in our country. This will cause many confusions among the riders, and they
can deliver it in exact location.

System crash also is one of the failures caused by the technology application where during the
crash period no riders will be operating and usually it will take about 4 hours maintenance time
needed. This period surely will bring a great loss for the riders as they need to be in work time,
but they will not receive any order. When there are many orders incoming via the application
then the percentage to crash is higher than usual time. Sometimes when receiving the higher
number orders system tend to cancel some orders which had been received by the riders. This
situation rarely happened but this will cause a great effect to the performance index of the riders
which then will affect their income. These are the types of challenges the respondent face from
the technology application. In other countries such as Europe countries the similar problem
occurred, but the country had different ways of handling them. One of the ways they handle this
problem is like upgrading the AI processor in the application and encourages the riders to use
phone with good processors (Teodoro,2017). Using a good processors and AI system tend to
help the riders and the customer to overcome this problem. This method could be implant in our
nations so that we can reduce the possibilities of system crash.

Regards of the technology application weather had been a great challenge for the riders
especially during rainy days. During the rainy days the riders really face the difficulties as they
need to look after their belongings like smart phone, their wallets, their money, and their
personal stuff. At the same time, they also need to have an eye on the food which were ordered
to maintain the quality of the food without any detects or damage. Besides, the rider needs to be
extra careful on the road because during rainy times the roads tend to be very slippery. Even
though they need to chase the delivery time, but they must be very focused on the road during
rainy seasons. The riders will be receiving many orders during the rainy seasons the percentage
of system hang also will be high as mentioned above. As a conclusion riders had to be very
careful during this period.

Safety of the riders and the risk that they need to face in this industry had been as debate in many
areas. Governments also had taken many precautions steps like introducing insurance policy all
for the riders but still accidents among the riders tend to happen every day nationwide. All
respondents agree on this statement as they said not only for students but for whoever willing to
step in this industry, they need to think about of the risk they might face before jumping in this
industry. Based on the findings from the respondents every day they will be updated about art
least one accident happens among their colleagues’ riders. This clearly shows that they risk they
must face on the road is very high compared to the income they received from this industry.

Finally, the respondents all agree handling customer with the different types of behavior is an
uphill task that they need to face. During rainy season riders are facing a huge lump number of
orders but sometimes when they are delivery they had to deliver till their doorsteps. Things
become more complicated when the customer lives at the apartment styles of living area where
the riders need to get the permission from the authority to get to their house and deliver it. The
riders need to all the way up to deliver it just because of the laziness from the customer side.
Some customers tend to quarrel with the riders as they delivery time become delayed a bit. In
this situation the riders can’t argue anything as the only thing the company had taught them is to
be silent because customer is always right. This is some problem occurred when the customers
had a very different behavior. Handling customer had been a problem in our country but in other
countries the awareness towards the riders is very high. This made the customer to tolerate even
there are some delays (Zhao, 2020). this research would surely help to create a great awareness
to the customer. The customer sometimes needs to understand the difficulty of being a rider and
delivering it on time. This awareness would surely help to solve this problem. Regard of this
being a problem in other hand this had help the undergraduate students to develop their soft skills
especially their communication skills. This skill is very essential for their future after their
studies.
Despite all the challenges faced by the respondents in this industry but all of them agrees to one
statement where they believe every career in this world had its very personal challenges that we
need to face. As riders the determination to face this kind of challenges makes them even
stronger and earn more in this industry.

5.4 Limitation and Suggestion for the future research.

The limitations of this research are focused on the involvement of UUM undergraduate students
in online food delivery industry. The main limitation and boundaries in this research are the time
concern to accomplish the research at the expected time. This is due to delay of collecting data
from the respondents. Due to pandemic covid-19 the respondent can’t be observed and
interviewed face to face because of conditional movement control orders in the respective
locations. To collect the data, it took few weeks to contact the respective respondent which are
still studying in UUM and involve in this industry actively to collect the data via online meeting
applications and phone call interviews. This is because of their class schedule, assignments and
some are impacted by the flood. Even the respondents busy still they can manage to provide data
and cooperated with the research. Moreover, the duration to finish the entire research is short as
3 months with limited time by don’t have a proper time to accomplish it. Even though there are
obstacles in this research study still manage to overcome smoothly with the objectives.

In addition, through this study the suggestion for the future research is to explore more
knowledge about online food delivery industry and the topics related for future benefits. By this
rather than knowing the knowledge from syllabus they can explore from outside information that
helps in improving their life to a better phase.
Government policies are very important in this industry as they must always protect the riders
from any possibilities. Many incentives can be taken by the government for the riders like
introducing new insurance policy just for the riders, introducing new loan scheme for them to
exchange their bikes and many more can be done for their comfortableness.
Online food delivery companies also can take some knowledge from here to improvise their
application which would make rider easier in their delivery process. This kind of update should
be done as soon as possible because it might make the life of rider easier and more comfortable.
The customers need to take some initiatives to learn more about the challenges that are faced by
the riders and the hurdles as an online food delivery rider. The customers need to go through
more research like this which can help them to be knowledgeable. This would wider the
knowledge of customer towards the riders. Restaurant’s owners also can take some knowledge
from here where it can be very useful for them in handling the rider process. This would make all
the all of them more committed to being more educated can play a significant role in the design
and development of the application.

5.5 Conclusion
To be concluding, the research has much space for enhance in future research. This study
contributes to the understanding about the factors that influence the students’ involvement and
the challenges faced in this industry. The research study does not affect the developers,
restaurants owner, online food delivery company and end users. But it is providing a good
starting point for improve their knowledge on undergraduate students’ involvement in online
food delivery industry and also further research. This research had highlighted that Technology
plays a vital role in overall Gig economy industries. As the analysis of data was collected on a
qualitative way of 5 respondents has shown that there are still some issues that need to be
considered before we can safely state that online food delivery industry can lead fully benefits
and a better life. The benefits of the study are enhancement in application technology which was
used by the online food delivery companies. There are many factors that influencing the
involvement of undergraduate students in online food delivery industry. Technological, the
amount of wage offered, and the flexibility factors are being the main factors influencing the
involvement in this industry. Finally, upgrading the technology aspect of this industry will attract
more involvement of the undergraduate students and the public too.