Strategies for Uber to Enhance Its Market Position

Uber has revolutionized the taxi industry with a business model that emphasizes technology adoption and customer-centric services. This essay delves into the strategies Uber employs to maintain its competitive edge, such as intensive background checks on drivers, advanced technology use, and building trust among users to mitigate negative press effects. It also highlights challenges like legal issues and competition from other tech-savvy taxi providers. By focusing on innovation and strategic market penetration, Uber aims to sustain growth and customer loyalty in a dynamic industry landscape.

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Entrepreneurship in context
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Executive Summary
This report is a research analysis which contains an academic definition of
entrepreneurship and a brief history of Uber organization. The establishment, growth, and
development of Uber together with the challenges that the group has been facing has been
included in this report. An outline of entrepreneur school of thought that relates to the
establishment of uber concerning the book by Fredrick, O’Connor, and Kuratko (2013) is
analyzed. The emerging trends of either social, economic, political or technological nature that
may influence Uber’s growth has been looked into in this report and a provision of new
strategies that could be implemented for the growth of Uber’s market also provided.

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Contents
1. Executive summary………………………………………………………………….. 2
2. Introduction………………………………………………………………………….. 4
3. History of Uber………………………………………………………………………. 4
4. Growth and development of Uber…………………………………………………… 5
5. Challenges faced by Uber……………………………………………………………. 5
6. The displacement school of thought…………………………………………………. 6
7. The venture opportunity school of thought………………………………………….. 6
8. Emerging Trends that may affect Uber………………………………………………. 7
9. How Uber can improve its Markets………………………………………………….. 8
10. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………... 9
11. Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….. 10

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Introduction
Entrepreneurship is defined as the willingness and capability for one to develop, manage,
and organize a new business activity considering the risks involved in the decided business
debentures to make a profit. It can also have a definition as a mindset; it comes about from a
person’s way of thinking or acting. The person imagines new ways that existing problems can be
solved and values created.
Entrepreneurship is a mindset that enables an entrepreneur to have the willingness and
capacity to develop, manage, and organize a new business activity after they have considered the
risks that are involved in the business with the aim of making a profit.
History of Uber
The founders of Uber are Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick who founded the
organization in 2009 as UberCub. Garrett comes up with the idea on how he could reduce travel
costs after spending $800 on a private driver (Schneider, 2017, pp. 80). The thought of sharing
costs with friends was appealing as it brought about affordability. Garrett later built the first Uber
prototype together with his friends.
The organization's services were officially launched in 2011 in San Francisco and
changed its name from UberCab to Uber with a travel price that was way above that of a taxi.
Black luxury cars were the only allowed vehicles for hailing by users. The first employer was
Ryan Graves as a general manager. A programme later developed where drivers would use their
cars to drive for Uber and operated in 35 cities. This service option was known as uber x.

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Growth and development of Uber
An Uber carpooling service got launched in 2014 and riders traveling to the same
direction were matched in UberPool and were extended to New York City in 2014. Uber self-
driving cars got started in 2016 which had improved technology in them for genetic mapping and
utilization of landmarks. Helicopter services were also available. Uber has since partnered with
Dutch satellite Navigation Company for the provision of maps and traffic data to make its work
more accessible while picking and dropping their users using the mapping technology.
In financing uber, the founders invested $200,000 and later $ 1.25 million that was by
way of raised funds in 2010. Uber has also received funds Google Ventures, Chinese search
engine, Toyota, and even a connection with mapping applications. Uber has many users
subscribed to it with over 40 million riders using the service every month. The company
currently makes a lot of profits and holds a high percentage in the marketing industry in the
United States.
Challenges faced by uber
The first problem has been facing criticism from other taxi operating drivers. The
organization has been criticized for unfair competition because they used smartphone apps which
prevented them from being subjected to certain fees contrary to what other taxi drivers who had
to pay these costs experience.
The second challenge Uber is facing is physical violence against its drivers.Taxi drivers
are marking uber drivers and subjected to physical assault by the same taxi drivers with the aim
of instilling fear on the taxi drivers and stop them from operating Uber cars.

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The displacement school of thought
In this class of thinking, people will only pursue a venture during the circumstances
where such persons are restricted from participating in specific activities, or they have been
displaced from such events (Kuratko, 2016, pp. 15). Economic depression contains different
aspects that affect financial sectors resulting to depression and recession in the economy. The
effects could include bad times and experiences, job loss or even lack of capital which are
external factors that could influence an entrepreneur to venture into entrepreneurship. The
founder of Uber came up with the idea after a wrong time experience on New Year’s Eve after
he had spent $ 800 together with his friends on a taxi driver. He thought the amount was very
high and started brainstorming on how traveling cost could have been reduced to black car
service.
The venture opportunity school of thought
This class of view lays its primary focus on the development of new ventures and the
opportunities that are presented for these investments. The areas to pay much attention to are the
development of concepts, the search for idea sources, and the manner in which venture
opportunities can be implemented (Kurtko, 2016, PP 16). The entrepreneur should be creative
and well aware of the market they plan to operate in and for the venture’s success, the right idea
should be developed at the right time. The founder of Uber had concluded that for the travel cost
using black car service to reduce, the value had to be shared with friends who would result in
affordability of traveling. The idea of cost sharing developed to Uber. Garrett and his friends,
Oscar and Conrad then built the first prototype, and Kalanick introduced as the company’s
advisor.

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Emerging Trends that may affect Uber
The first emerging trends are the rise in lawsuits against Uber drivers. The service
providers face accusations of failing to observe safety measures when with their users. There is a
concern that some drivers use the Uber app during drives of their users during notification of
new pick-ups. Another allegation that is on the rise is that Uber drivers have been involved in
sexual assaults and other crimes. Their sophisticated app has also been alleged to be designed
both the passenger and the driver. The lawsuits can result to users seeking an alternative
transport making Uber lose its market penetration. Furthermore, Uber used a lot of funds during
these cases, the funds being used could be generated for further development in the organization.
Secondly, developing technology is another emerging trend. The technology used in the
travel industry has improved over time significantly. Innovations are being released in the
market, and these technologies are being adopted by different taxi industries (Chaston, 2017, pp.
10). The vast development in technology creates a motivation to many entrepreneurs who wish
to venture into to the taxi industry. The growth in the smartphone app has also attracted many
users who can now access taxi services from any service providers of their choice. The
development in technology that is adopted by other service providers causes a stiff competition
to Uber (Schaper, Volery, Weber, and Gibson, 2014, pp. 14). Uber is likely to lose its
subscribers to other taxi owners.
Thirdly, bad press is another emerging factor that could affect Uber service providers.
There are negative stories that are making rounds on the social media concerning Uber. A
customer’s behavior after being exposed to such stories can be affected positively or negatively.
The effect on the user’s response depends on the level of trust that has been established between

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them and their service providers. In that instance, the user may choose to ignore the stories on
social media if they trust Uber services well enough.
How Uber can improve its Markets
To reduce lawsuits against Uber, service providers should do an intensive background
check on their drivers before hiring them. The test should be to a certain whether the drivers can
be relied upon to perform with minimum supervision and observe all the set regulations or not.
The drivers should be law-abiding citizens who have not engaged in any criminal acts and show
no intentions of engaging in illegal acts in future. The drivers should further be able to establish a
relationship that is respectful. A good relationship between the driver and the passenger will
result in higher ratings which in turn attract more users thus creating a tremendous market
growth for Uber.
Uber should strive to adopt a technology that is way advanced than that of other service
providers to maintain their users and stay ahead of the competition (Drucker, 2014, pp.50).
Additionally, Uber charges are lower than that of other taxi drivers who serve as an advantage
for them. The more economical expenses and technology help Uber maintain its users and attract
other new subscribers to the service.
Establishing a high level of trust between Uber and its users is another strategy that can
help the organization experience growth in its market. High level of trust helps in boosting the
customer’s confidence in the service providers. The user will then be able to ignore lousy press
reflected in the social media. The people who air the negative stories on social media platforms
in most cases are nor even Uber subscribers themselves (Kirzner, 2015, pp. 18). The people on

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social media are mostly people who subscribe to other taxi services and only have the malice to
create bad publicity for Uber so that it can lose its subscribers. However, it is never easy for Uber
users to stop subscribing to Uber because Uber offers lower charges compared to its competitors.
Conclusion
To release a successful business, entrepreneurs have to pay keen attention and consider
every factor that may affect the daily business activities. Frequent innovations have to be made
to maintain the sustainability of the business and ensure that competition from rivals in the same
industry is kept at minimal. Business should strive to establish a substantial market penetration to
attract more customers. Entrepreneurs should be well aware and prepared for the risks involved
in the venture. Additionally, users and subscribers of services should be treated well to foster a
good relation and experience with the service providers and secure future markets for both profit
and non-profit ventures.

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Bibliography
Chaston, I., 2017. Entrepreneurship. In Technological Entrepreneurship (pp. 1-24). Springer
International Publishing.
Drucker, P., 2014. Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.
Kirzner, I.M., 2015. Competition and entrepreneurship. University of Chicago press.
Kuratko, D.F., 2016. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.
Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small
business.
Schneider, H., 2017. Conclusion: Entrepreneurship. In Uber (pp. 79-85). Springer International
Publishing.