Uber

Strategic
Submitted By: (Group 10)
Rahil Mehta (271152)
Alliances
Rajagopalan Ganeshan (271154)
Rohit Varma (271156)
Sagar Dua (271157)
Sandeep Thakur (271159)
Strategic Alliances and Acquisitions
● Partnership with Starwood hotels, offering opportunity for members tp earn Starpoint
for Uber rides
● Partnership with HBO and Game of Thrones in New York, giving a chance to order
rides on a replica of the Iron Throne
● Facebook planning to integrate Uber services in Messenger, enabling Uber to reach a
wider customer base
● Driven Brands entered a strategic partnership with Uber to give drivers of ride sharing
services with access to exclusive benefits for preventive maintenance, paint and repair
● Launches new services roping in Autorickshaws in India and a breathalyser in Canada
● Collaboration with CMU on robocars
Strategic Alliances and Acquisitions
● Yellow pages partnerships to bring cars to your door
● Partnership with GrabOn for discounts
● Partnership with Foursquare to combine local search and transportation
● Partnership with Zopa to help drivers purchase cars
● Partnership with Safetipin in New Delhi to get information about neighbourhoods
● Partnership with Foodpanda and ZO Rooms in India, offering discounts of rides and
food deliveries
● Partnership with Capital One to provide cashbacks and free rides
● Uber and Spotify got into a partnership for personalised in-taxi listening
● Partnership with American Express to enable people to pay using reward points
● Partnership with FleetCor for fuel cards
● Baidu purchases a portion of Uber
Taxi Market in India
● Unorganised with a robust growth over past 5 years, with largest growth in metro
cities
● Radio taxis charge higher rates than unorganised taxi services but with a better
service
● Less number of players in the organised segment due the unavailability of cabs
● Radio cab segment has over 15000 cabs with 3 big multi-city operators Meru, Easy
and Mega Cabs accounting for 70% market share
● The radio cab functions have no central monitoring systems and all the functions
including GPS tracking are managed individually by the organisations
● They are known to use the franchise model for expansion
Radio Taxi Model
● The taxi industry has undergone a tremendous change over the past few years.
● With the introduction of taxi-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, people don’t need to wait for hours to
board a taxi or public transport
● The way these on-demand taxis are providing us the ease of moving is remarkable
● While we enjoy booking cabs anytime on demand, there’s another player in the transportation industry
that is joining the mobile app trend to manage its already established manual dispatch process - Radio
Taxis
● Today, most of the radio taxi services have adopted radio taxi dispatch system and rely on mobile apps
for their operation
● In India, the radio cabs made their way during the mid-1990s in various metro cities like Delhi and
Mumbai
● Different Indian players and international players joined in the business which was ultimately
transformed by the likes of Uber and Ola
● Various private players joined the radio taxi business, and the industry began to experience high
demand and growth
● In fact, radio cab service became to be the top growing business in the Indian transportation sector
● Various companies such as Easy Cabs, Meru Cabs, Mega Cabs, and others introduced their own fleet
of cars and many drivers signed up with the promise of high earnings
Uber’s Business Model
● Offering an app as a centralised medium to connect the drivers and the
passengers
● Passengers are billed based on the distance of their travel and uber charges
commision on the ride’s total bill
● Uber plays the role of matchmaker and does not own any car and provide
convenience to ride seekers
● Uber uses analytics to efficiently forecast and provide the passengers details
on the arrival of their cabs in real time and generate real time pricing
Adaptation in Uber’s model over the years
● Adding driver’s and customer information, SOS(Emergency) button to
address trust and safety issues
● Leveraging technology to improve background checks on drivers for
enhancing trust
● Capping surge pricing to control excessive fares
● Introducing ride insurance for covering accidental legal issues
Criticism to Uber’s Business Model
● Not following rules and fare schedules of current taxi market
● It aims to become monopoly in business
● Not ensuring that the drivers and cars are insured and are safe
● It has a tendency to invade the privacy of its customers
● Not acting against the discrimination by drivers and passengers
● Undermining the compensation and working standards of its drivers