Uber Case Study: Business Model, Strategy and Future Growth

This case study analyzes Uber Technologies, examining its business model, strategies, and the challenges it faces in a dynamic business environment. The report explores Uber's competitive advantages, particularly focusing on its smartphone application for ride-sharing, fare calculation, and payment options. It delves into the company's organizational overview, SWOT analysis, and external environment using the PESTLE model. The study assesses the impact of digital disruption on Porter's five forces, including the bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, and market rivalry. It also provides recommendations for future growth, addressing potential threats and challenges faced by Uber. The analysis covers Uber's global operations, competition from local companies, and the need for strategic adaptation in the ride-sharing industry. The research also investigates the sharing economy business model and its implications, along with the regulatory changes impacting Uber's operations. Finally, the report offers a comprehensive overview of Uber's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, providing insights into the company's long-term performance and strategies.

Running Head: UBER CASE STUDY
Uber Case Study
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Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Case Study Context..........................................................................................................................4
Research aim and Objectives...........................................................................................................5
Research objectives.........................................................................................................................6
Research rationale............................................................................................................................6
Literature review..............................................................................................................................7
Platform for change......................................................................................................................7
Biggest Impediments to growth...................................................................................................8
Requirement for regulated change...............................................................................................8
SWOT analysis of global organizations and their importance..................................................10
Impact of digital disruption of business on the five forces........................................................11
The beginning power of buyers.................................................................................................12
The next aspect of this model is the bargaining power of the suppliers....................................13
Rivalry between existing competitors........................................................................................13
Organizational overview of Uber..................................................................................................14
SWOT analysis of Uber’s strategy based on the adage of “move fast and break things”.............14
Strengths.....................................................................................................................................14
Weakness...................................................................................................................................16

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Opportunities..............................................................................................................................17
Threats........................................................................................................................................18
External environment of Uber’s emergent technologies for overcoming the competitive rivalry:
the PESTLE model........................................................................................................................19
Political factors..........................................................................................................................19
Economic factors........................................................................................................................19
Social factors..............................................................................................................................20
Technological factors: Growth factors of Uber.........................................................................20
Analysis of the challenges facing the organization.......................................................................21
Porter's five forces analysis of Uber..............................................................................................21
Potential threats of new market entrants: First big challenge....................................................21
Threat of substitute: Second biggest challenge..........................................................................22
Supplier bargaining power.........................................................................................................22
The threat of buyers: third biggest threat...................................................................................23
Current market rivalry................................................................................................................23
Recommendations for future growth of business of Uber.............................................................24
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................25
Reference List................................................................................................................................27

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Introduction
Uber Technologies have been working in a considerably dynamic business atmosphere and in
respect to that it becomes considered important for the company to come close with considerable
plants that can help them in elevating the organisation to the standard of competitive advantage.
In the long run, it can be understood that the dynamism in business will be of utmost importance
in realization of the business goals. This report aims to provide overall performance of
technology by making a close scrutiny of their business model. The entire report has been
constructed in context to the Uber case study provided.
Case Study Context
Uber Technologies is a Smartphone application that provides opportunity for ride sharing. This
application has the advantage of calculating the fair for the customers which helps them to
speculate the budget of their right along with a prior notification of the estimated time by which
the car would be arriving. Latest advantage provided to the customers of Uber is fares splitting.
Different Riders, who would be travelling in the same direction, can split the cost of a single
ride. More importantly, Uber provides opportunity of paying in cash or digitally after the ride has
been completed (Prassl and Risak 2015). Nevertheless, Uber has come up with this fresh concept
when older taxes have been utilising the concept of ride sharing, informally, for a long time. The
difference, as highlighted in the case study is in branding, packaging and presentation of this
opportunity to the customers. Initially the scope of business of Uber was small and their
popularity started to rise since the year 2007. After that, the organisation took about one decade
to spread their business across the world (Cramer and Krueger 2016). Simple mechanisms of
their business along with an indexed business model have been helping the organisation to gain
popularity throughout the world.

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In this context one of the most important facts that has been highlighted in the case study is that
Uber have been facing significant competition from local companies all around the world. They
have in several organisations who tried to imitate the business model of Uber, locally. In spite of
the fact that still faces competition from local organisations it is still the most preferred taxi cab
application (Li, Hong and Zhang 2016).
The provided case study had been published in Harvard Business Review in 2017 and provides
an all encompassing view of the business environment where uber operates. In this context it
should be highlighted that the origin of the organisation has been well study and the way in
which the application of Uber works, the model of employment of drivers with Uber and the way
in which the organisation tackles competitive rivalry has been well reflected in the article. In
context to the scenario in case study, the most recent problems that over faces including the
battle relating to publications as well as Public Relations that is generally faced by all big
corporations around the world would be discussed in this report. The case study has provided a
basic outline which context to which the critical analysis of the business model and business
performance of Uber can be conducted in this report. The forces that impact the business of Uber
around the world having evaluated and the future projects that the organisation needs to
undertake in order to maintain the competitive advantage over the local and internationally
growing organisations of the same industry has also been highlighted in this report. The
researcher would also try to analyse the fundamental strengths of the organisation highlighted in
the case study and developing upon them the proximity of success of Uber in the future
endeavors will be analyzed and it will also be highlighted how the business of Uber will grow
with specific recommendations in this regard (Chan et al. 2016).
Research aim and Objectives

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The aim of this research study can be analysed as reason pertaining to which the overall business
Strategies and growth model of Uber Technologies have been examined in order to highlight
how the growth strategy will help the organisation in the long run and they will provide
recommendations for strategic and sustainable growth of the organisation.
Research objectives
Research objectives are as follows:
 Analysing the business model of Uber Technologies
 Examining the way a rivalry should be addressed by uber
 Critical analysis of growth strategy of uber
 Research, identify destination of the critical challenges that has been faced by this ride
sharing industry.
Research rationale
Study is one of the primary reasons why the research has been carried out and also highlights
usefulness of this research study. The primary objective of this report is analyze the nature of the
business growth of the organization and their by highlight how the organization has been
performing recently. This is the reason why the research is being carried out by the end of
development of this research study the researcher would expect a clear analysis of long-term
performance of the organisation which will help in determination of the ways in which river
should develop their long-term strategies so as to ensure organizational efficiency and staying
ahead of competitive rivalry. The name of the research is also to make a critical analysis of every
business aspect of the organisation and the operational efficiency of the name of the research is
also to make a critical analysis of every business aspect of the organisation and the operational

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efficiency of the organization would also be reviewed based on which the recommendations in
this report would be provided.
Literature review
Analysing The Sharing Economy business model
Right sharing businesses has brought about a destruction in traditional businesses which has been
implemented for various centuries. In the initial past, transfer decision was horse driven comma
but still that business model was unregulated until 1635. The taxi industry took over the horse
driven transportation and the companies like Uber and lyft having turning around the business
again with the help of mobile application service and integration of the application with the
driver and passenger (Cohen et al. 2016). Nevertheless, this business is also unregulated and
concerns regarding regulation in this new business model are gradually rising high.
For evidence, taxi regulations have been into practice in USA since 1854 and because of this
regulatory Frenzy clashes between taxi operators as well as other Transporters have been
observed in Toronto in 1920 which led to the infamous taxi war (Sales et al. 2017). The taxi
metre which was invented in 1891 changed this ride for share business model. This kind of
regulation is needed in the new ride sharing business model also which have been pioneered by
Uber and lift and the emergence of regulation in the shared economy can also mean inclusion of
external stakeholders into the operating field of the existing players in this business domain.
Platform for change
The shared economy will lead to the future of digital governance. The underlying assumption
regarding the digital ride sharing platform is to improve the efficiency of the existing business
process so that the free flow of labour as well as capital can be facilitated. This is because

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matching of supply and demand is very important and this platform has the potential of driving
down cost for the consumer if the business operations are more transparent than what it is now.
In the current journals published by Dreyer et al. (2017), the ride sharing business model has
been described as a prospective contemporary business with a range of primary features. These
features are that the business is tech driven, peer-to-peer, corporate governance and so on.
In this context, the difference model of ride sharing companies can be described as adopting
proprietary Technology for accumulating the demand of lift seekers and ensuring that they are
able to be in touch with lift providers. One of the primary features of this business model is that
the ride shares are adjusted on the basis of market conditions. This model enables the owners of
private cars to transform their vehicle from private ownership to public service provision and
also provides opportunity of work flexibility to the drivers allowing them to select where and
when they want to work (Viswanadham 2018). The stakeholder to stakeholder transparency is
maintained by the technology of trip tracking as well as driver rating. Nevertheless, the basis on
which the customers are charged are not verified on several instances and this has been a
persistent grievance regarding the organisations operating in the ride sharing business. Another
important plane is that the entire business model is profitable and recent, for from saturation,
overburdening in in context to service providers is a typical fat in this business where exorbitant
licensing, registration fees as well as tariff fulfilment are essential (Heiskala, Jokinen and Tinnilä
2016).
Biggest Impediments to growth
Requirement for regulated change

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Regulations in this new age digital shared Economy business are a complex aspect. On one hand
the transportation network organisations like Uber, Lyft, ola and so on have been bringing about
disruption in their business modelling which has worked well in favour of these organisationson
one hand and on the other hand caused several social issues. The number of taxi drivers has
increased and with the constant growth of this business model, dispatches in taxi service have
been regretting their Business expansion because they feel severely threatened by this new
business model (Poulsen et al. 2016).
Research analysts like Means and Seiner (2015), who have been observing this ride sharing
economy, ambiguous about the economic device that is brought about by the implementation of
this new business. Some of the car owners providing for the ride sharing cause which is allowing
more people to reduce environmental impact since they are sharing individual ride. However on
another hand a data has been provided which highlights that this right sharing is helping in
Environmental causes which is promoting More ideas to start as well as and their journey at the
public transportation hubs. Because of which they are travelling hours are becoming larger and
the carbon emission and fuel combustion rate is increasing at a large rate. Considering this
factors, it can be highlighted that shared cab drivers have been infused with entrepreneurial spirit
as well as disguised to enter the gig economy (Smith 2016). On one hand we observe that from a
consumer’s standpoint this provides more choice for the ride hailers. This helps in making cab
rides more available and payment for the rides more efficient. Value proposition of this shared
Economy business models also needs to be considered. One popular business aspect in this
relation is that this model has resulted in reducing the wait times for cabs and allowed people to
use premium cab services at a low or average rate. These are in sharp contrast with the
conventional taxi services. Nevertheless, the researchers who are in strong argument favoring

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that legislation should be developed in order to bring in regulation in the business are actually
guided by the Schaller consulting (de Oliveira and Cortimiglia 2017). For evidence the flag
services like that on Local Street or the bus terminal or airports can be locally legislated. In fact
the dispatched services can also be legalized in the states.
SWOT analysis of global organizations and their importance
SWOT analysis one of the significant business tools that helps in assessment of the current
situation of an organisation so that the futuristic business strategies can be developed in
alignment with the current business issues facing the organisations or the current competitive
rivalry that has been hampering the business growth of the organisation in the respective
industry. Hence, it can be argued that in case of analysis of the business model of the currently
flourishing ride sharing business model, it would also be a key element for analysis of strategic
development. SWOT analysis will help the company under focus in this report to predict their
future prospects as well as understand the financial and socio economic as well as social political
environment where they would be operating. In this context it can also be highlighted that
SWOT analysis helps the researcher as well as organisation based on which the analysis has been
done to develop critical as well as specific decisions for planning strategic objectives based on
smart goals (Remane et al. 2016). SWOT analysis is also associated with determination of the
future difficulties or problems that might impede the growth of the organisation. It is notable in
this context that Lema et al. (2017), has highlighted that it helps organisations to get instant view
of the personality or career growth of stakeholders as well as the organisation, in itself. Apart
from these factors there are other several reasons regarding which an organisation might need
SWOT analysis. On various instances SWOT analysis can be recognised as a problem-solving
tool, which has a large role to play in decision making, planning, workshop session,

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brainstorming meetings, product evaluation and also in the professional development planning of
the organisation in future (Yang et al. 2018).
SWOT analysis generally makes an evaluation of the internal factors that the organisations
operating in the ride sharing economy might be experiencing. There are four factors that are
included in a SWOT analysis. These are strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats facing the
organisation.
Impact of digital disruption of business on the five forces
The first force is the market entry of the new competitors. Digital business nature is actually
changing the competition in markets today. It is not only the traditional competitors in the market
but also the new entrants who are entering into the industry from outside, with equipments like
new digitally based Business models as well as value propositions. In the context of the
implementation of the new ride sharing business model, the digital business model is
implemented with the mobile application that has been developed by these companies and the
value propositions include conveyance of information regarding the car, details of the driver,
sharing location of the ride with other people as well as a pre-estimation of the price of the ride
(Cheng and Edwards 2019). Nevertheless in this context it is observed that startup organisations
as well as Technology Giants develop new business model from the ground up approach
bingham powered by new platforms for Digital business implementation. As highlighted by
Viswanadham (2018), this is more emphasized by leveraging of the familiar social, political,
mobile as well as cloud Technology along with addition of person as well as context and
intelligence of automation into these aspects. This collaboration helps in development of internet
of things and also meets the cyber security concerns which enhance the value propositions of
these digital mobile applications for ride sharing companies.

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The next aspect of of porter’s five forces model is the threat of substitutes. All the threat of
substitutes is low in this context, it might come from somewhere only digital substitute like
hybrid digital or physical substitute of digital business. For evidence if the taxi service is also
digitalised someday, or the innovative applications like Easy taxi involves third party digital
platform providers to make taxi service digitalised, it can be a disruptive intrusion in the business
model and a threat for current market players like Uber or Lyft.
Again Davidov (2016), observed that mobile application based automation has been observed
mostly in the domain of ridesharing. This kind of automatic Technology can also be
implemented in other context like personal fitness home automation and so on. In the long run
when the revenue stream of mobile applications can also be generated from digital servicing in
home and in the physical contact, the grace for development of mobile applications for ride
sharing platforms only will be satisfied. This is very important for bringing about stability in the
competitive level of this industry.
The threat of substitutes becomes important considering the fact that switching costs in the app
based digital industries are higher and the buyer propensity to substitute to new brand in this
digital platform, which has been operating on a different level for so many days is difficult.
The beginning power of buyers
The strongest industrial competition will be provided by the buyers since they are the biggest
drivers of digital transformation in business. It is the needs and expectation of the buyers which
are satisfied through the disruptive implementation of digital technology.
The factors like instant Access for information, insights as well as social media incorporating the
access to review as well as feedback low switching costs through digital channels, price