Ge Healthymagination Case Study

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• Over the years, Uber has earned the dubious reputation of skirting the government regulations for operating taxi services. Uber has drawn a lot of flak for this attitude from governments and the regular taxi operators and has also been forced to pay fines several times. Uber is vulnerable to the restrictions that could be brought in place by new legislations passed by governments.

• Drivers working for Uber have often voiced their dissatisfaction regarding the unfair percentage split on each ride between the driver and Uber. For Uber’s business to be successful, Uber cannot afford to offend their drivers since they form a critical role of its business model

• Despite the novel concept that led to the company’s success and the app’s innovative design, Uber’s business idea is easily imitable increasing competition in its marketspace

3. Uber’s surge pricing policy

The surge pricing algorithm used by Uber creates a lot of customer dissatisfaction since it hikes the price of a ride by several times when compared with a normal cab ride. This leads to tarnishing the reputation and brand value of Uber. The likelihood of a person who used an Uber cab with more than 5x surge pricing to use Uber again is very minimal, therefore unreasonable surging leads to loss of customers. However, there are ways in which surge pricing can be done without offending the customers:

• Fix a cap for the surge multiplier (for example 5x) and assure customers that surging won’t go beyond that limit even at peak times

• Do not allow fluctuation of prices to occur drastically within short spans of time since that breeds customer dissatisfaction in the pricing

• Explain benefits of taking the price surged ride to customers by explaining time they have saved by choosing the price surged ride

4.Short term strategy

• Demonstrate their adherence level to government regulations in their various areas of operation, which would boost their brand image and value

• Introduce more transparency into their price surging technique and fix a cap for the surge pricing to avoid facing flak from customers

• Introduce benefits like health insurance coverage, retirement, disability etc. for drivers to entice more drivers and retain existing drivers

Long term strategy

• Focus on introducing the concept of UberPOOL to developing nations within Asia where the demand for such services will be high because of the high population density of middle class people in those demographics

• Since Uber’s success can be more attributed to its success as a technology firm as a cab service operator, Uber needs to focus on constantly reinvent itself in terms of technology – Fix budgets for R&D; Acquire technology firms that are of business interest etc.