Victoria Taxi and Innovation

This article discusses the innovations and strategies of the Victorian Taxi Association to improve their business operations and compete with their rivals. It also covers the internal and external factors affecting their business, including their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Running head: VICTORIA TAXI AND INNOVATION
Victoria Taxi and Innovation
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1VICTORIA TAXI AND INNOVATION
Introduction
Business organization refers to the group of individuals that work together in order to
achieve the same goals and objectives. In order to increase the productivity and growth of the
business, business organizations come up with new innovation strategies that would be
effective to improve the business operations (Newstead et al., 2015). The assignment will
elucidate on the innovations and strategy of the Victorian Taxi Association that would also
focus on the internal and external factors of the business environment.
Discussion
The Victorian Taxi Association is composed with important taxi businesses that aim
to provide taxi services to its customers twenty-four hours a day and also including the public
holidays. The Victorian Taxi Association is regarded as the public transport mode that was
regulated and operated by the Victorian Government under the act “Transport and
Miscellaneous Act, 1983.” With the help of this act, the Government ensures the safety and
service delivery of the customers and ensures that drivers should provide better services to
the customers of Victoria (Chan et al., 2016). In order to operate the business, the taxi drivers
hold accreditation in respect to the Government in order to drive taxis in more than one
license areas in Victoria. Apart from this, the Victorian Taxi Association consist over 95% of
the taxi drivers and the members within this association are eligible for holding many
accreditations that include permit holders, taxi license and more. However, the corporate
service of Victoria is associated with the VTA, in order to provide advice and support for
improving the business structure (Robinson et al., 2016). It also has a separate Marketing
and Stakeholder Engagement Team that communicates with the public and with other

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stakeholders regarding any issues that might arise in the public domain. The Legal and the
Regulatory services mainly composed of two separate teams that include Legal Teams and
the Enforcement and the Fraud Control Team that deals with the legal procedures.
The Internal factors of the business organization will help to identify the impact of
success and major threats and opportunities within the business. The Internal factors of VTA
are as follows.
Strength: The Victorian Taxi Association is a well recognized brand in Australia, as it
provides high standard of values and services to its customers (Ledesma & López, 2018).
Moreover the operation cost of VTA is very low as it mainly relies on the direct interaction
between the customers and the drivers.
Weakness: One of the major weakness of the Victoria Taxi association is thee low customer
satisfaction that results in the decline in the business growth rate. Moreover, it also has
insufficient support for the drivers, as many poor skilled drivers are hired who have less
knowledge about their job role.
Opportunities: Rise in the number of more drivers helps in reducing the estimated time of
arrival of cabs and customers do not need to wait for longer hours (Hemmings & Park, 2017).
With the introduction of the electric cars, the VTA can reduce their operational cost and at
the same time could increase the profit margin of drivers.
Threats: The major threat the Victoria Ta\xi association receives is from the Uber cabs in
Victoria and accordingly increase in competition will decrease profit margin. This would
discourage many taxi drivers from joining the association.
The external factors of the Victoria Taxi Association are as discussed below:

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Political Factor: With various policies and regulations imposed by the Victorian
Government, it becomes difficult for Victoria Taxi Association for operating its business
(Thakur, Kinghorn & Grace, 2016). Moreover, The Government imposed industry-wide
changes, but the taxi drivers were critical with Government compensation as it would not
cover the amount they paid for licenses.
Economic Factor: The VTA has been facing major losses from the past five years and
moreover, instead of reaping profits from previous losses, it is focussing on expanding
business in new market.
Social Factor: Easy availability of services makes it popular among its customers and direct
interaction of customers with the drivers makes it easy and simple (Yang et al., 2016).
Moreover, on experiencing rides, customers also share their ride experiences on social site
that enables the Business to improve its strategy.
Technological Factor: With the help of advent technologies, customers are able to book
their rides and accordingly could share their experiences.
In the recent times, the Victoria Taxi Association is facing major risk from their
drivers, when the customers started complaining and sharing their horrible ride experiences
on social sites. It has been stated that customers faced sexual harassment by the driver
during their on-going ride, sometimes the drivers felt asleep while driving. This risk factor
has a negative impact on the business as it reduced its growth and profit from the past few
years (Zhang et al., 2015). Apart from this, with the increasing rise from its competitors
such as Uber, the business is facing major challenges such as majority of the customers
started preferring Uber than Taxi, as this had reduced the number of customers. Prior to that,
with the implementation of various rules and regulations by the by the Victorian Government,

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such as increasing the tax rate of the driver, has lowered the margin profit of the taxi
drivers.
In order to incur from the risk factor, the Victoria Taxi Association came up with
innovative strategies so that they could get back their potential customers and at the same
time could also increase their profit and growth (Thakur, Kinghorn & Grace, 2016). The
VTA introduced training session for their taxi drivers so that they could be aware of the
results of misconduct with the customers and apart from them, training would be provide to
enhance the driving skills and knowledge of the customers. However, in order to increase
their growth and revenue, The Victoria Taxi Association implemented loyalty program, that
means customers who are loyal to the business would be provided with the best drivers, and
accordingly the loyal customers will be provided with gift cards and vouchers. Online loyalty
program have also been incorporated in order to boost the retention of customers, for the
benefits of the business organization (Chan et al., 2016). The most important strategy of the
Victoria Taxi Association is an Omni-Channel Approach that makes its services seamless,
so that customers can enjoy every moment of their rides.
In order to remain competitive in the business market, the strategies mentioned above
would help them to increase their business growth. However, the Victoria Taxi Association
could also expand their business market if they thrive to work only with the committed
drivers that would help them to keep their service level high. Apart from that, the taxi
business should introduce the current tool for operation so that customers could directly
communicate with the drivers (Newstead et al., 2015). For instance they can introduce
TaxiStartup Solution that would provide continuous update to the customers regarding their
rides. Moreover, for the taxi business their local market is their main target, therefore they
could provide better discounts offer, to bring back their targeted customers.

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Conclusion
From the above essay it could be concluded that in order to increase their business in
the competitive market, the Victoria Taxi Association should implement those strategies that
would help them to bring back their targeted customers. Moreover, providing proper training
to the drivers will tend to reduce major risk and accidents, and the Taxi association should
also focus on safety of the customers to provide better services to its customers.

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