BidTaxi: An Analysis of IT Management Issues and Recommendations

This report examines the IT management issues of BidTaxi, an online cab service platform. The report begins with an introduction to BidTaxi, describing its business model and how it connects drivers and customers through a bidding system. It then details the business operations, including requesting a cab, connecting with the rider, the ride itself, and the payment and rating process. The report also addresses the maintenance and accounting aspects of the system. Recommendations are provided to improve the accuracy of pick-up locations, provide specialized services for vulnerable customers, and ensure data security. Furthermore, the report suggests strategies such as exclusive offers, enhanced customer interaction, and an emergency button to improve the overall customer experience and business performance. The conclusion summarizes the efficiency of BidTaxi's service mechanism, highlighting its certified drivers, communication features, and payment options, while emphasizing the importance of implementing the recommendations for competitive advantage.

Running head: IT MANAGEMENT ISSUES
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note:

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Task 1
Introduction
BidTaxi is a new form of online platform of booking of taxi service. This form of
service provides their customers and drivers with a unique way to connect with each other,
offer a fair service and a safe journey. Unlike the regular working of booking cab services,
the BidTaxi service makes use of a bidding service for their rides. In this system, the
customer decides the beginning and ending points of their journey based on which a projected
cost would be provided to the customer (Chen, Cui & Li, 2018). After the bidding has been
done by the customer, the drivers would then bid for their services within a certain period of
time. A wide range of tools would be provided to both the riders and the drivers, which
includes the estimated time of journey, distance of the route and toll costs. BidTaxi also
provides their customers to view the responses of the drivers at real time. Once the customers
selects their drivers, the cost would be locked and hence the allocated drivers would reach to
them within the appropriate time without any delay. The driver would receive the payment
after the entire journey gets completed (Ma, Zheng & Wolfson, 2013)
Discussion
Business Operation
The business operations that are performed by BidTaxi are described as under:
The First Step – Request a Cab
BidTaxi is an online demand service of transportation. It has a major role to play
within the taxi industry. This form of taxi service is primarily based on bidding for their taxis
by tapping on their smartphones. After the negotiations are made, the taxi would arrive to the
user within the minimum possible time. The first step of requesting a cab is an important and
demanding step within the cab booking process (Bernstein, 2015). With the help of the

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BidTaxi application, the customers can bid for a taxi. He would select the starting and end
point of the journey, number of passengers and the exact time of journey. The details should
be properly entered in order to get the appropriate price of bidding. After the details are
properly entered, the rider would see a number of prices of bidding. He would need to select
the most appropriate bidding price in order to get a taxi service within a given time. After the
rider confirms the affordable price within the given period of time, he would have to wait for
the driver to confirm his request. The BidTaxi cab service makes a great use of a dynamic
model of pricing. The riders are quoted a range of prices that they would have to bid before
requesting a particular ride. The prices could vary depending on the projected time, time of
the journey and the demand of supply of cabs at that time at the current location of the rider
(Rouges & Montreuil, 2014).
The Second Step – Connecting With the Rider
When the rider quotes his price, the price would be displayed to the drivers within the
nearest location of the rider and within a selected time. The driver would select the best price,
which would be suited for the benefit of the customers. When the exact price gets matched
with the quoted price of the rider, the algorithm within the application matches and connects
the driver with the rider. When the deal gets confirmed, both the parties would receive a
notification the ride would commence within a given time. The driver needs to accept the
request of the rider after which the rider would be asked to wait based on the location of the
driver (Posen, 2015).
The Third Step – Riding with BidTaxi
When the request is accepted by the driver, the customer would get all the details of
the taxi such as the taxi number, exact location of the taxi and the estimated time within
which the taxi would arrive. These details would be displayed on the screen of the

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smartphone. The riders would be get to know the details of which licensed driver would
collect them after the confirmation of the booking. The application would provide the driver
with the best navigation routes, which would help him to take the customer to the desired
location within the proper time and with the best shortest possible route.
An algorithm within the application would provide the mechanism “Real-Time Check
of ID”. It would request the drivers to share their live location with the customers. At the
same time, the riders would also be able to share their live location with the drivers. The
mechanism of live tracking is very much useful feature within the BidTaxi application.
Riding is considered to be a very important aspect of the business model of BidTaxi. Hence
the driver has to ensure that the ride should be safe and comfortable for the customer.
The Fourth Step – Payment and Rating
When the ride is completed, the fare could be paid through cash or some online
payment methods such as credit/debit cards or other methods. The customer has the privilege
to rate the driver based on his performance, travelling experience, conversation and many
other factors. A good rating provided by the rider would be highly noticed and appreciated by
other customers on the BidTaxi application. On the other hand, drivers would also be able to
rate their customers based on the short wait time, courtesy of the customers and many other
factors. Passengers would be able to view their ratings on the application (Rayle et al., 2016).
Maintenance
The system of BidTaxi is extremely flexible and advanced. This is due to the fact that
both the parties are able to share the personal information. These details would be managed
by BidTaxi using their services of command software. This software helps in making the
BidTaxi system to be robust and much more reliable. The information that would be shared
between both the parties would be completely secured by BidTaxi.

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Accounting
This operation would be helpful to bring transparency within the automatic
accounting system. This section is also responsible for client handling, the invoice
management of the client/driver and the documents of the driver that would be only visible to
the BidTaxi system. This would be helpful for the customer in knowing the car and the rating
of the particular driver. With this approach, many more customers would be able to bid over
the application that would bring several improvements in the business model.
Recommendation
Based on the business model of BidTaxi, there would be some recommendation that
should be implemented by the BidTaxi service.
1. There should be some improvement in the accuracy of the pick-up location of the
riders. Hence the GPS related services should be improved. This could be done by
mentioning the name of the building, any nearby landmark or the exact name of the road or
street. This would be helpful as the riders would not be able to wait for a long time to avail
the service. The GPS should also provide the real time location of the rider so that the driver
should get notified about where the rider would be waiting for.
2. There should be an independent service for old people, women and children. The
safety of the customers should be the topmost priority for BidTaxi service. They should
ensure that the cab services should be provided to these people at the earliest. This would
help in the higher rating of the cab services, ensure better quality of customer handling and
establish a better relationship with the customers.
3. BidTaxi should ensure that the data provided by the customers within the
application should be completely secure and stored in an encrypted format. Safety should be

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the topmost concern for BidTaxi. The BidTaxi system should also provide recommendations
to the rivers about which trip would be the most profitable for them (Zhang et al., 2013).
Conclusion
Based on the above discussion of BidTaxi services, it can be concluded that the new
form of cab services is an important step towards the transportation system. BidTaxi has an
efficient service mechanism. They provide their customers with the best ever facility of cab
service in the city. The drivers of this cab service are certified and highly experienced.
BidTaxi provides both parties to communicate with each other in a proper way and they can
rate each other. A star rating besides the IDs of both the parties ensures that they are verified
by the company. The BidTaxi service also provides their customers with to book taxis and
make payments with the help of their website who do not possess smartphones. They should
also implement the recommended options, which would help in making the cab service much
more efficient and also help to stay ahead in the competitive market.

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Task 2
Based on the business operations of BidTaxi cab services, there would be some
suggestions, which should be implemented in order to improve the business of cab services in
BidTaxi.
1. Provide Exclusive Offers to Customers
The BidTaxi services should offer exclusive offers to their customers on various
occasions. This would help in attracting customers to their website or application. Customers
always look for advantages that would make their ride at cheapest cost. BidTaxi should look
for advantages within this and thus provide better offers and promotional codes. These offers
would grab the attention of the customers and thus would engage their customers by
providing them with rewards for choosing their cab services (Rayle et al., 2014).
The promotional codes should be posted on social media accounts of their customers,
which would help them in viewing the codes easily. New users should get additional benefits
so that the customer base of the company remains intact. Existing customers should also be
able to provide referral code to other new customers. On referring the application and after
proper installation of the application, the existing customer would get a referral bonus. This
would impress the customers and thus would be helpful in retaining the base of the
customers.
Attracting the customers towards their application is a strategy, which should be
followed and they have to implement new ways to apply the strategy towards their business.
This would attract the customers towards their service and thus they would be able to gain
maximum profits (Venkatesh & Easaw, 2015).
2. Improvement towards Customer Interaction

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BidTaxi should improve the customer support service within their application. They
should be entirely dedicated towards providing full satisfaction to their customers. They
should keep a close look over the activities of their customers during their entire journey and
thus resolve any issues, which needs to be addressed. They should ensure that the customers
can get the best services without any delay. Customers are an important concern for the
company.
BidTaxi should integrate an ‘emergency’ button within their application. This would
be an extremely important step towards the goodwill of the company. The emergency button
would help the passengers during the commuting journey. They would be able to report in
cases of emergency. A helpline number would be provided within the application. On
clicking on the emergency option, the user would be able to connect to the customer care
executive in order to report any unanticipated circumstance.
Many customers are habituated with on-the-go service. This means that the mobile
application should be properly and well-designed in order to serve the customers better. As
there are several customers who are much accustomed with smartphones, hence the BidTaxi
application should be user-friendly and should support the customers at every step of their
journey. The company should also provide email receipts after the end of the ride. The receipt
should provide all the basic details of the ride such as the starting and end point of the
journey, the time of the journey and the fare breakdown. Hence these services should be
improved so that the customers could get a seamless experience and would prefer to choose
the company for the next time.

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References
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