IT Portfolio and RBV Theory | Individual Report

Running head: VALUED OF INFORMATION
IT Portfolio and RBV Theory (Individual Report)
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

1VALUED OF INFORMATION
Executive Summary
In current years, the appearance of the multi-sided platforms will allow the peer-to-peer
networks to develop exponentially. The ride sharing is a shared occurrence allowed the
drivers as well as rider to use web based platform to match their demand as well as supply
sides in actual time basis. The paper is reflected in discussion of investigating industry
dynamics surroundings of the Uber Company, which is a global ride sharing company around
the world. Uber improved its business model to meet with unique business situation. The
competitive advantage for Uber as compared to its competitors is providing greater
convenience to riders as well as drivers. It also brings flexible services for the drivers as well
as low cost ride for the customers. Uber is facing strong competition in the market, but due to
its unique innovation, Uber is able to achieve the competitive advantage and raise its growth
in the ride sharing market.

2VALUED OF INFORMATION
Table of Contents
Executive Summary...............................................................................................................1
Introduction and organizational background.............................................................................3
IT portfolio theory......................................................................................................................3
RBV theory and VRIO analysis.................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10
Appendix..................................................................................................................................12
Business Model of Uber.......................................................................................................12

3VALUED OF INFORMATION
Introduction and organizational background
Uber was formed in the year 2009, and the founder of Uber is Garrett Camp and
Travis Kalanick under name of UberCab. Uber is an American multinational company,
offering services of sharing cab rides, ride hailing and others. The firm is mainly based in San
Francisco, besides operated in around 785 metropolitan zones all over the world. The
platforms of Uber are being accessed by using websites as well as moveable applications. As
of the year 2019, Uber is calculated as to take approximately 110 million of users all over the
world (Uber 2017). The ride hailing company is offering services such as peer-to-peer
ridesharing, ride services hailing, delivery of food (Uber Eats) as well as micro mobility
system with the electric bikes as well as scooters. In this paper, the selected service of Uber is
ride services hailing.
The business model of Uber is consisted Smartphone applications which provided
with on-demand facilities to the workers. It is connecting the enthusiastic travellers to the taxi
cab drivers. The taxi drivers used their individual cars at the time of providing taxi services as
well as Uber can get 20% of the fare from it. The total business development of Uber is
modest and listed Uber users those are requested for cab by means of using the Uber mobile
app (Mims 2018). The Uber driver can go to the location of the passenger as well as assist
with the passengers to reach their destination. The payment method for Uber cab services is
done through either cash, wallet as well as through credit card of the passenger (Bashir,
Yousaf and Verma 2016). The Uber app is consumer friendly as well as fast responsiveness
from the servers so that it can reach the passengers in some minutes. Calling a cab using
Smartphone is easier and the passenger can get advantage from it.

4VALUED OF INFORMATION
IT portfolio theory
Due to its multi-sided platform, Uber’s growth rate is increasing to one new city per
day. Almost around last 5 years, Uber launched in around 30 new cities, through some of its
launching are for regions included cities. By means of using the IT portfolio theory, there are
four IT assets that Uber has invested in last five years.
Transactional asset: Uber is a multi-sided platform and its value propositions come
from two sides such as from the travellers as well as drivers. About 75-80% of the entire fare
that the rider pays, is offered to driver while 20-25% of the fare goes to Uber (Smith 2016).
Uber is using its take for paying taxes, fees of credit card, sales and marketing, operating
expenses and others.
Informational asset: Uber analyses its data on each single trip to users take so that it
helps other passengers to predict demand of the cars as well as set fares. Big data is used by
Uber to measure driver’s incentive payments as well as predict in real time basis (Barney
2012). The customer’s ratings also help the passengers to know about the driver’s behavior
and riding experiences.
Infrastructure assets: Uber is joined with EE about 18 months before for providing
4G-equipped hand phones to the drivers. It will help the drivers to get additional functionality
that Uber is provided, included turn-by-turn navigation if needed. From the last 5 years, Uber
uses sustainable and long term options for the infrastructure operators to control of its
infrastructure assets. Based on the infrastructure asset, through more than 600 cities, Uber is
connected with its riders with more than around 500 airports (Srnicek 2017). It is a reason
why its customer base is growing faster as compared to rivals. On iPhone, Uber drivers
should use Apple maps for getting directions, but the drivers are using an Android based

5VALUED OF INFORMATION
device to get directions using Google Map (Ghosh 2018). By means of 4G, Uber should
connect with their users in faster way and help to bring down its average pick up time.
Strategic asset: One of the significant competitive advantage of Uber over its
competitors is that the company knows that focused on passenger ride sharing is not enough
to satisfy the investors (Weill and Aral 2006). Therefore, it offers alternative revenue from its
ridesharing is the food delivery business. Uber also provides with Uber Freight, a platform
which can bring the shippers as well as truckers together such that the business can transfer
freight easily.
RBV theory and VRIO analysis
Uber is not owning of their drivers or employees, while it can own assets which make
the experience of leverage. Uber is used of resource based view for securing the competitive
advantage to make control over resources or the drivers. The factors which keep Uber as high
variance to the customers are driver actually picks up from the location of the rider. The
driver is not screening the rider regarding where they are going and they are not checking if
the charge is valuable or not. The driver is offering modest service like removing of the
luggage from the trunk of the vehicle. Uber is increasing its perceived benefits by means of
improvement of output, therefore there is an increase in willingness to pay by the customers
(Sweeney et al. 2018). Uber has increased in its production by a decrease in its riding cost.
When Uber lowers the cost, then it can also low down its charges, to make their services
competitive in the market and make the clients happier.
Tangible resources Intangible resources
 App to provide services versus to
hail and to be rejected by cab
 Call an Uber with just few minutes
 Uber has fixed costs as well as
employed technology to gain an
economics of scale

6VALUED OF INFORMATION
ago before leaving the place
 Quality services are assured as Uber
drivers are being ranked based on
rating system
 Tips are included in the ride fares
 Uber has flexibility to change their
prices to gain competitive advantage
and gain market share by pushing
out the competitors
 Uber has improved its product
differentiation by integrating UberX
as well as UberSUV. Recently, Uber
integrates UberBoats, water taxis
Uber drivers are not required to look everywhere for the clients to hail it, while it
saves both fuel as well as timings. The company has fixed costs as well as employed
technology to attain its economics of scale. Uber is resource based as it creates its
competitive advantage from driver as well as rider. Uber’s huge collection of data will allow
the company to introduce its offerings like UberPool (Mims 2018). Almost 5 years back,
when Uber decided to pursue its UberPool, then Uber realized that its profitability is
important. Taking into account, Uber is determined which metrics required to see to make
UberPool economically supportable. The metrics are included trip match proportion and trip
count, trips heading towards same way by period of the day, different driver metrics and
other. Uber is also pursuing its dynamic surge pricing for time. RBV theory is that flow
which is predicted on block on a block basis earlier it occurs. The forecast is to be taken
based on sum of customers opening Uber app at some point of time (Gassmann,
Frankenberger and Sauer 2017). Dynamic pricing is useful for the drivers as it allows the
drivers to areas before the surge. The surge is to be updated on each 5-10 minutes intervals.

7VALUED OF INFORMATION
Based on VRIO analysis of Uber, it makes sure that the promotional activities are
translated into sales as the products are available easily. VRIO analysis provides a remarkable
opportunity for Uber to acquire competitive advantage in all over the world.
Resources Valuable Rare Imitate Organized Competitive
advantage
Positive
reputation in
the market
Yes Yes Yes Yes There is a
long term
competitive
advantage of
Uber.
Leadership
team
Yes Yes No Yes There is a
stronger
competitive
advantage of
Uber cab.
Brand
awareness
Yes No No Yes There is
sustainable
competitive
advantage.
High rating
from
customers
Yes Yes Yes Yes There is a
realized
competitive

8VALUED OF INFORMATION
advantage.
Valuable: The employees are a valuable resource to the business firm. It ensures to
provide greater revenues for the company, Uber. The resources such as positive reputation in
the market, leadership team, brand awareness, high rating of the customers are considered as
valuable resources (Heaton, Hafeez-Baig and Gururajan 2019). They are valuable as it helps
Uber to increase in its perceived customer’s values. It is done by decreasing price of their
fare. It is required to review values of the resources by changing in internal as well as
external conditions of Uber fare prices.
Rare: The resources those are acquired by one of few companies, considered as rare.
All the resources except brand awareness is not rare for Uber as other competitors are having
brand awareness. Uber has positive reputation in the market which is hard to achieve by its
competitors. Based on the VRIO analysis of Uber, the company can able to execute quicker
cab services to the riders (Srnicek 2017). Uber has a quick booking system through which the
rider can book cab services using a Smartphone.
Imitate: Leadership team and brand awareness is hard to imitate. The competitors are
facing hard to imitate at a positive reputation in the market and good customer’s ratings. By
means of Uber app, the reservation of cab becomes more efficient. Therefore, the amount of
time essential by the representative to get connected with the client would rise, hence creating
more pays (Sousa et al. 2019). It would also provide great experience based on travel
feedback of the rider.
Organized to capture value: All the resources of Uber are helping the company to
capture unique value in the market. Uber should organize its management system and
organizational structure to get potential values of the business. Based on brand awareness and

9VALUED OF INFORMATION
positive reputation in the market, Uber can attract drivers as well as passengers in new way.
The company makes a connection with restaurant, and flip a switch to turn on delivering of
foods. The possible customers can use current information stored in Uber app for ordering of
food items. The average customer rating of Uber is found as around 4.6 (Mims 2018).
Therefore with good customer rating based, the users are expected to book the rides in faster
rate, get it matched with better drivers as well as get exclusive bonuses in future.
Conclusion
It is concluded that Uber uses data for improving services and creating efficient
company base as well as impacting transportation as whole. Uber uses rider location
information to make a safe and reliable reach to the riders. The pricing strategic asset of Uber
is driving its competitive advantage as high as well as making transportation affordable for all
kinds of people around the entire world. In some of the countries, it is seen that there is an
explosion of the total number of customers. Uber is provided with a wide range of strategic
priced facilities for the separated users, groups and business.

10VALUED OF INFORMATION
References
Barney, J., 2012. Evaluating the firm’s internal capabilities, Strategic Management and
Competitive Advantage: Concepts, 4th Ed, Pearson (Boston).
Bashir, M., Yousaf, A. and Verma, R., 2016. Disruptive business model innovation: How a
tech firm is changing the traditional taxi service industry. Indian Journal of Marketing, 46(4),
pp.49-59.
Gassmann, O., Frankenberger, K. and Sauer, R., 2017. A primer on theoretically exploring
the field of business model innovation.
Ghosh, M., 2018. Customers' Expectations Meet Perceptions or Not: App-Based Ride-
Sharing Services by Uber and Pathao in Dhaka City. ASA University Review, 12(2).
Heaton, J., Hafeez-Baig, A. and Gururajan, R., 2019. Business model experimentation
through technology and management innovation using cloud computing. In 24th Annual
Conference of the Asia Pacific Decision Sciences Institute: Full Papers (pp. 1-9). APDSI
Asia Pacific.
Mims, C., 2018. Uber’s biggest problem: Its business model. Source Unknown.
Smith, J.W., 2016. The Uber-all economy of the future. The Independent Review, 20(3),
pp.383-390.
Sousa, M.J., Rodrigues, C., Martins, J.M., Negas, M. and Jamil, G., 2019. New Business
Models for Global Economy: Private Individual Transportation Services. In Handbook of
Research on Business Models in Modern Competitive Scenarios (pp. 83-98). IGI Global.
Srnicek, N., 2017. The challenges of platform capitalism: Understanding the logic of a new
business model. Juncture, 23(4), pp.254-257.

11VALUED OF INFORMATION
Sweeney, M., Bartel, E. and Valois, J.S., Uber Technologies Inc, 2018. Controlling
autonomous vehicles in connection with transport services. U.S. Patent 9,953,283.
Uber 2017. Uber Background Check: How Long They Take And What They Look For.
[online] Ridester.com. Available at: <https://www.ridester.com/uber-background-check/>
[Accessed 2 April 2020].
Weill, P. and Aral, S., 2006. Generating premium returns on your IT investments. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 47(2), p.39.

12VALUED OF INFORMATION
Appendix
Business Model of Uber
Business Canvas Model
Business Strategy
For drivers: Income group, flexible
working hours, comfort of joining, low
shiftless times
For riders: Faster preference up, low price,
estimation of fare, easier dealings, rating
system
Customer Relationships
Drivers in addition to riders
Public: Communal plus public
footprint
Regulator: Agreement, assessment
and transparency
Key Channels
Social media frequencies
Broadcasting
Word of mouth
Communication channels
Native campaigns
Key Resources
Network belongings
Venture wealth
Brand
Data in addition to analytics
Apps in addition to architecture
Skilled staffs
Customer Segments
Drivers: Socio-economic, situational,
demographic and behavioral
Riders: Usage patterns, demographic,
micro-geographic
Market strategy
Purchaser acquisition
Weighted average price of capital
Uber pool
Lobbying
Technology growth
Competitiveness of Uber
Avoid costly commercial insurance
Cost advantage
Technology advantage
IT assets
Transactional
Strategic
Informational
Infrastructural
Key Partners
Drivers plus Investors
Specialized providers of technology
Maps along with GPS
Payment
Specialized API
Insurances and others