Uber Case Study: Issues, Analysis and Recommendations

This report deals with the issues and the respective recommendations for solving the same issues faced by Uber. The report includes qualitative and quantitative analysis of Uber's growth and issues, decision criteria, and recommendations.

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Uber Case Study
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1UBER CASE STUDY
Executive Summary
Uber has been one of the fastest growing firms in the transportation services industry in
the last few years. However, the firm has always faced a lot of challenges which have been
exposed and needs to be addressed with concern. A careful evaluation of the scandals and issues
facing the firm show that all od these problems can be solves primarily by using better means of
secured technology and better human resources. Other problems require better investment
decisions and well informed decision making. This report deals with the issues and the respective
recommendations for solving the same issues.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Issues Faced.....................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the problem...................................................................................................................4
Qualitative Analysis.....................................................................................................................5
Quantitative Analysis of Uber’s Growth and Issues....................................................................7
Decision criteria...............................................................................................................................9
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

3UBER CASE STUDY
Introduction
Uber though using the greatest and best forms of technology for different purposes is
majorly operating in the transport sector. It is not completely a technological platform. The
major service provided by the firm does not involve information services but only transport
services at large. It was initiated in the year 2009 as both a technological and transport firm but
recently, Europe’s top court has been successful in dismissing the claim of the firm to be a
technology platform (Jordan, 2017). It initially started off with a capital funding of around
twenty two billion dollars. Headquartered in California, the firm deals with transport services
that allow the user and the driver to get connected in an easy and technology driven manner. It
eases up the process of travelling without private vehicles. Even though the firm has managed to
provide steady services to the users over the years, recently it has been facing a number of issues.
These issues and scandals have in turn harmed the reputation of the firm and caused the
resurgence of concern among both employees and consumers of the service provided. These are
studied in detail in this report with the help of detailed analysis and recommendations are
provided for the same.
Issues Faced
The issues faced by Uber as a firm are not trivial and so the impact of the same on the firm
has been detrimental at large (Windekilde & Henten, 2017). Almost all the issues facing the firm
boil down to the problem of dishonesty and breach of trust among the employees and the
customers as well (Cannon & Summers, 2014). It has been reported that the firm has been
reluctant to provide a safe and transparent working environment among the employees. It has

4UBER CASE STUDY
also not been able to deliver timely and well-equipped services to the customers. the major issues
faced by the firm include the following:
 Firstly, the firm has been charged with legal charges of not providing timely and efficient
services to many of its customers. A particular case has been that of denying service to a
woman suffering from cerebral palsy.
 Secondly, the workplace culture which forms the most important pillar of efficient
operations and working of an organisation, has been reported to be hostile for not only
the existing employees but also the new employees. It is reported that the employees are
using unreliable and inefficient solutions to particular problems. This in turn is causing
the up rise of major problems in the long-run. The main cause of this problem is being
reported to be the lack of transparency and unity among the top level and management
level employees with the employees at the bottom levels of the organisation.
 This in turn has led to the initiation of another inevitable problem related to the under
payment and unfair payment practices for the Uber drivers.
 Problems have also been reported in the context of sexual harassment of the female
employees. Reports assert that a female engineer has been sexually harassed and then
been threatened to be terminated. This event in particular left the management of the firm
affected to the extent that the CEO, Mr. Kalanick had to resign from his position.
 Further, there was also the problem of underpayment of taxes, as the company was
depending on the overseas firms to reduce the amount of taxes to be paid to the
government.
Analysis of the problem

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The problems and issues facing Uber as a firm as mentioned earlier are substantial in
nature and need a detailed evaluation and analysis so that proper recommendations and solutions
to the problems can be formulated. This will also help the firm to realize the strategies that needs
to be implemented using the existing resources at hand and not having to be financially unstable.
The entire scenario of scandals and issues are looked into from both a qualitative and
quantitative point of view. In the qualitative section problems related to the breach of trust and
dishonesty are discussed in detail and in the quantitative analysis portion, the financial problems
are evaluated.
Qualitative Analysis
In the aspect of the breach of trust and dishonesty, the most scandalous and detrimental
act that took place was in the year 2016 when the personal data of around fifty seven million
users and drivers was hacked and accessed. This caused widespread concern and uproar among
the potential users of Uber. The firm tried to keep this issue well covered and under wraps by
making attempts that required a lot of money play. As a matter of fact an amount of $100,000
was also paid to the attackers. The cyber security system being used by Uber was so useless and
inefficient that personal information including, names, phone numbers, email addresses of
around 50 million users all over the world.
The next problem that deserves attention and is not only gruesome on the part of the firm
but also irresponsible was the act of employing drivers who either had records of criminal
offense or were drivers with vehicle offenses. The company was charge a sum of around $8.9
million for allowing around 57 such drivers to work with the firm. This in turn represented the
callousness of the firm in hiring employees without efficient measures of background check and

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scrutinising of information provided by them. In fact further investigations have revealed that in
one such cases of the drivers assaulting the users, the driver dragged the rider out of the car and
physically abused the passenger. Later the firm had to hand over the records of such drivers and
remove all such employees from the firm.
The third such scandalous act carried out by Uber is using a program or system to hide
themselves from the government. This attempt was primarily carried out to hide the illegal
activities of the firm in breaking the local rules and regulayions of the cities in which it wad
providing its services (Chin, 2018). The program is known as the GreyBall Program and this
program actually had a system in place that would prevent the firm from not only carrying put
illegal activities but also prevent the contemporaries from getting to provide services to the users
of multiple transport applications (DeBruyne, 2017). This program would make attempts to show
a few or no cars on the app to the users so that they are not able to use the app although the firm
was actually providing services to the users illegally in cities where it was officially not allowed
to (Lazzaro, 2017). On being pressed with such charges the authorities of the firm reported that
such methods were being use to protect the drivers working under Uber from violent attacks
from the other cab drivers and unions existing in a few countries where the firm operates.
In the context of social responsibility also, the firm has failed to cater to the needs of the
society and the community in which it is operating and extending its services. Reports claim that
the firm was already suffering from having a bad reputation (Sidel 2015). It is because of this
that the Transport for London rejected the firm from getting a new license approved. According
to the Transport for London, the firm was deemed fit as a private car operator (Sheppard &
Chowdhry, 2005). Thus, the cars will operate in the city only as long as the old license is not
expiring after which the operations in the city will gradually reduce and finally stop. The

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Transport for London has also asserted that along with the lack of responsibilities in the context
of corporate social responsibilities the firm also is responsible for detrimentally affecting the
employees and the consumers by getting involved in gruesome scandals. Instead, the firm is
responsible for sending out negative signals to the society in which it is operating.
Quantitative Analysis of Uber’s Growth and Issues
It has been reported that despite the issues concerning breach of trust and responsibilities
in the social realm, the company has managed to accrue continuous increases in growth over the
last few years. The total revenue earned and generated by the firm is being reported to be at a
level of $2.9 billion (Dudley, Banister & Schwanen, 2017). This is on account of the feature of
adding UberX. In the very next year (2015) the company managed to increase its total revenue
generation to a level of $10 billion and double this in the next year(2016). However, at the very
same time reports also assert that in that very year, Uber underwent a financial loss amounting to
a total of $800 million in the third quarter of the year. After this the firm had managed to gain
back momentum and make up for most of its loss. However, the selling off of the Chinese
subsidiary cause the firm to still suffer a loss of around $2.8 billion.
In the quantitative context, the income of the Uber drivers and the length of time for
which these drivers continue providing services to the firm also need better evaluation and
analysis. It is reported that on an average, an Uber driver earns fourteen dollars for each trip that
he undertakes in the United States (Yadron & MacMillan, 2015). Reports also assert that the net
amount paid to the Uber drivers is not sufficient as the drivers are made to pay for a number of
requisites on their own. These include repairing of the cars, the fuels used, the maintenance of
the cars and even the insurance renewal and other such factors. The firm has been imposing cuts

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on the total amount of earnings of the Uber drivers, which has reduced the wages from $21.07 to
$15.80. The net earnings of the Uber drivers for an hour after payment of all types of costs is
reported to be at a level of $10 per hour. This in turn has an impact on the retention power of the
firm. The drivers and other employees of Uber do not tend to essentially continue for long
periods of time.
Even though because of the absence of strong and long lasting competitors and flexibility
in the working hours, the number of employees has always been either stable or increasing, the
retention of the employees has always been difficult for the firm (Nkwabi, 2018). Especially, in
case of employees who are old and have been working with the firm for a number of years, the
probability of continuing to work with the firm keeps on reducing. The reasons behind this low
retention power is deemed to be the low wages, improper distribution of work, lack of
transparency, lack of a proper cyber security system and most importantly, the inefficiency of the
firm in conducting a background check of the new employees. The most pragmatic way of
answering as to why retention of the employees is a big problem is to understand that in the short
run the employees are able to put up with the behavioural and indecisive biases of the firm.
However, in the long run with the availability of increased opportunities and understanding of
the internal working structure of the firm, the employees find it viable to leave the firm and opt
for other options of earning which will earn them better security and financial benefits as well.
In addition to these issues related to proper financial operations of the firm, the addition
of the option of share riding has led to even greater losses for the firm (Kupriyanovsky et al., 2017). It
is reported that the business increased initially and then reduced drastically because of the
improper management and technological expertise which led greater duration of the rides and a
lot of harassment for the riders as well as the drivers employed by the firm (Kuhr et al., 2017).

9UBER CASE STUDY
Decision criteria
The decision criteria for any firm consists of a set of variables and parameters on which the
firm needs to work to better the situation the firm is facing and solve the problems that the firm
is facing too (Graham, Harvey & Puri, 2015). As Uber as a firm is primarily faced with issues
that are involved with breach of trust and code of conduct and improper management leading to
widespread financial problems, the following variables are the basis of the subsequent
recommendations provided:
 The first and most important variable is the concept of transparency of information across
all levels of hierarchy in the firm.
 The second most important variable that needs to be checked and re-evaluated is the use
of well informed decision making
 The variable that will essentially help in monitoring the first two variables is the
technological innovation being used by the firm
 The fourth important decision criteria is the use of proper strategic human resource
management by the firm
 The fifth decision criteria that firm needs to focus on is the corporate social responsibility
towards the communities in the various countries where the firm is operating.
Recommendations

10UBER CASE STUDY
Based on the major issues faced by Uber as a firm operating primarily in the transport sector
and the consequent analysis and the decision criteria helps in formulating and building the
following recommendations:
 Firstly, the company should implement the use of smart devices and data for evaluating
and synthesizing information so that there is better functioning of all departments of the
company. It will help in ensuring that the firm is ahead of its competitors while following
the rules imposed by the government at the same time
 Secondly, there should be restructuring of the hierarchy of employees at the firm so that
the goals and values of the firm are reformed and made clear to employees operating at
all levels of the firm
 Thirdly, there should be a better form of strategic human resource management so that
there is efficient screening and background check of the employees before and after
hiring.
 Fourthly, the company should be well informed about how its services affects the
societies and they can set goals to better the way in which they serve the community in
which they operate
 Next, is the channelizing of resources in an efficient way which will enable the firm to
pay the taxes and royalties to the respective governments in which the firm is operating
and extending its services instead of having to illegally operate in a secretive way.
Conclusion
In order to conclude, it can be asserted that Uber needs to channelize and use their
resources efficiently so that there is reduced issue in terms of breach of trust. The operational and

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management strategies used should also be transparent to better the hostile situation existing in
the workplace. The hiring process should also be enhanced. All of the above solutions will have
to be worked upon with the use of better decision making in the form of investment decisions as
well as use of better forms of technology.

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References
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Cannon, S., & Summers, L. H. (2014). How Uber and the sharing economy can win over
regulators. Harvard business review, 13(10), 24-28.
Chin, J. (2018). Engineering Company Culture Change: Regaining Public Trust After
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Elliott, Rebecca Elaine (2016). Sharing App or Regulation Hack(ney) ?: Defining Uber
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