BM627 Managing Innovation: UBER's Innovation Capabilities Report

This report assesses UBER's innovation capabilities and provides an action plan roadmap for future development. It identifies the changing trends in the car industry, especially in light of COVID-19, and the need for continuous innovation. The report details the capabilities and competencies required for UBER to operate in a dynamic market, addresses recent challenges faced by the firm, and suggests innovative techniques to enhance business operations. It explores the potential for expansion into new markets through electrification and artificial intelligence, emphasizing cost savings and the adoption of eco-friendly services. The analysis includes strategies for building future innovation capabilities, such as self-driven cars and Uber Eats, to sustain competitive advantage and capitalize on new opportunities.

Managing Innovation in
Business

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Purpose of report.........................................................................................................................4
The future of the industry 2021 and beyond...............................................................................4
The organisation innovation requirements 2021 and beyond.....................................................5
Building the future innovation capabilities of the firm...............................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Mobility as a service provides company with the opportunity to offer and provide their
employees or people alternative means of transportation so that they can easily travel wherever
they want. By adopting this facilities, the company can save on the overall cost of transport per
individual customer. To gain competitive advantage in online service and transportation industry,
firm needs to focus on adopting technology and improving mobility service. As people are more
concerned about eco-friendly services, every business needs to utilize user friendly and
environment friendly services and goods. As per the current trend, every business needs to
satisfy their customers by using automated facilities, new technology and keeping in mind about
the safety and security of people. They need to focus on cost savings using past data and
information about market strategy used by competitors in the industry of transportation and
mobility as a service. This industry needs to expand its business by using electrification methods
and artificial intelligence in order to attract more new customers.
The aim of report was identifying the changing trends in the car industry especially in times
of COVID where all the companies could only survive when involve in the continuous
innovative practices. Further, the report has identified certain capabilities and competencies that
is required by the UBER to operate in the market that is continuously changing. Also, in this
regard various challenges that have faced by the firm in recent times had also been explained in
detail so that corrective measure could be taken on time for the future improvement in the
operations. Also various innovative techniques that would be used the firm to increase the
efficiency in current business operations would also be identified under this report so that it
could perform better than its existing competitors in the market. Lastly, certain changes in terms
of new innovative practices has been identified so that the business would be able to expand into
new business markets.

INTRODUCTION
Innovation is key driver change for any firm as it helps in developing better expansion
policies of any firm. further, the present report is based UBER that is offered better platform for
it riders and eaters through better use of technology. Also, the particular topic is being chosen in
accordance with the growing concern of society in being innovative. Further, the study will
identify the future of car industry in delivering best of services to its customers. Moreover, the
report will closely identify the new organisational requirement in terms of innovation so that
companies are able to sustain in the market for longer time period. Furthermore, certain future
capabilities required in practicing the best innovative practices at workplace will also be
explained through disruptive model and process. Lastly certain challenges and opinions
regarding Uber in terms of operating into new markets will also be discussed in detail under this
report.
MAIN BODY
Purpose of report.
The main purpose of report it is to identify the future of the Uber industry that is able to
deliver high quality services to its customers within limited time period. Also, this topic is
chosen for the report so that the current requirements of innovation to remain competitive in this
industry would be closely analysed for the UBER (Ortiz-Villajos and Sotoca, 2018). Moreover,
certain future capabilities that could be used by the firm through innovation would also serve as
purpose for this report. Moreover, this topic is being chosen as lack of innovation has caused
losses in many business firms and in some major cases there is shutdown of the companies.
Thus, this measure need to be address immediately so that all resources of the company could be
utilised efficiently.
The future of the industry 2021 and beyond
Uber is the most popular company providing mobility as a service and transportation service
to customers, this is basically famous for its online booking for taxis so that people can travel
from one place to another. By using online website or mobile app of Uber customers can book
their destination and can have access to safety feature in the app. The future of this mobility and
transportation service industry is bright as people are using their mobile devices to book their
ride online. Thing are getting advanced and people using new updated technologies to satisfy
their needs and preferences. Due to corona virus pandemic, ridesharing and service industry has

faced a lots of challenges and no one denied that this situation can be faced by them in upcoming
years. The future of ridesharing and transportation industry is uncertain which needs to be taken
into consideration while making any big and informed decisions regarding business operations.
With the increase in demand of transportation service, the needs and requirements of people
also increases. The future of mobility and transportation service will present more affordable
transport options for the customers who wants to travel from one place to another (Reiner and
Nienhaus, 2019). They can make online booking on their fingertips with the help of mobile app
or online website. Due to corona virus pandemic, many people has faced a lots of challenges and
lost their jobs. Because of this unemployment rate has increased and people’s standard of living
also suffer. Their income level is low as compared to past data, now people are using public
transports or online mobility service of transportation such as Uber. Due to decreasing demand
of vehicles and cost of electric vehicles, high rise in petrol or fuels, customer will prefer to use
facilities like Uber. This has changes the demand of private vehicles too, it has change the
industry and encourage people to use transportation facilities provided by many new companies
like Uber and its competitors like Grab. By moving to a MaaS (mobility as a service)
transportation model, the newly launched mobility service company reduce the burden on people
to own their own vehicles (Broeckling and et.al., 2021). With the increase in population,
decrease in the income of people after covid-19, this reduce the number of private vehicles on
the roads because people like to commute to work via public vehicles like bus, train, online
services provided by Uber.
As people are attracted towards modern and advanced technology, it is important to use new
technology and shift transportation solutions to an on-demand service such as online booking
vehicles for travel like Uber does. This facility has provided offer to customers who wants to
travel whenever they want. As people are migrating ad will be start living in urban areas by the
year 2050, this will create challenges to people when they transport via roads and using their
own vehicles. The major advantages of this industry includes, focus on public transport
infrastructure, opportunity to recover costs of asset and others.
The organisation innovation requirements 2021 and beyond
As people are attracted towards modern and advanced technology, it is important to use new
technology and shift transportation solutions to an on-demand service such as online booking

vehicles for travel like Uber does. Thus, companies and start-ups needs to focus on advanced
technologies and strategies used by its competitors like Grab which is leading super app
established in southeast Asia providing everyday services like home deliveries, groceries and
food deliveries, sending parcel and mobility, investing, bike ride, financial services.
Nowadays, advanced technology which can inspire people to purchase their goods or
services, and the year 2020 pandemic compelled companies to adapt and innovate themselves in
the transportation and mobility industry. Companies who adopted disruptive innovation spends a
little bit more in the competitive market. with the help of innovation, companies in this industry
can transform again with speed in order to gain competitive advantages (Martínez-Díaz,
Soriguera and Pérez, 2018). With the increase in development of supply chain management, the
innovation of mobility service also increases. To compete in this innovative world, firms needs
to understand the market demand and should be knowledgeable about the web of emerging
technologies and advanced innovation. For this, unique opportunities can be found by them and
identify the needs of clients.
Uber innovation includes Taxi service through digital platform, the firm is using sustaining
innovation, as they represent only an incremental improvement with respect to transportation and
on the existing online vehicles/taxi industry.
In today’s era, people are becoming health and environment conscious, so it is important for
company to adopt eco-friendly products or services. It has been noted that the future of mobility
is shifting or moving to environmental friendly, personalized and connected commutes (Mobility
trends to watch out for in 2021, 2022). In order to stay on top of the mobility industry trends,
owners need to explore various ways to create smart automated vehicles. Companies needs to
build their vehicles in a most innovative way such as electric, hybrid models and new technology
and processes. In addition to this, trends like mixed reality and large scale electrification also
find numerous applications in the field of mobility.
Micro mobility is a method used by company in order to provide benefits to environment. It
is a powerful method to handle vehicular greenhouse gas emissions and improve access to
reasonable and cheap transportation (Bucchiarone and et.al., 2021). This method does not use
fossil fuel based energy which is beneficial to create eco-friendly environment. vehicles like e-
bikes and bicycles are popular among the urban population which help them to solve the problem
of transportation. Being faster and lightweight than bicycle, e-bikes are attracting more

customers to switch to a more convenient form of daily services or commuting. With the help of
smart infrastructure, people can attract more new clients. Start-ups improve and develop many
solutions for smart infrastructure and roads for the convenience of people so that they can drive
their vehicles without any issues and enable vehicles to communicate with their environment. By
adopting this methods, company can reduce the burden on drivers who wants to manage its
transportation service (Watkins, 2018). Using augmented, automated vehicles/cars and virtual
reality, artificial intelligence, company can improve customer experiences by allowing car
owners to remotely inspect their own private vehicles.
Building the future innovation capabilities of the firm
In the current era where most of the business are striving to gain competitive advantage
against some of the major competitors it is significant that companies lay down the importance
on the building new innovative solutions so that best customer experience could be given
(Peralta, Carrillo‐Hermosilla and Crecente, 2019). Also, for the company like UBER that has
large amount of capabilities in providing platform where all needs of the customers, eaters and
riders etc. are met timely through high end use of technology. Moreover, this technology has
allowed the customer to reach at their desired destination in fastest and convenient manner
without much difficulties. Furthermore, the future of Uber company is very vast as it has new
segments of delivering the favorite foods to the customers in just one click through app called
Uber eats (Rachinger and et.al., 2018). Also, Uber company gives the power to the customers to
easily go to their desired places without much dependency on others. Currently the quoted firm is
focused on developing the strategy where there would be self-driven cars that would allow more
flexibility an ease among its potential customers. Moreover, the company is always ready to
adopt for new innovative techniques so that it could sustain in the market for longer time period
that will also allow the firm to grab better opportunities and expand into newer regions where the
use of ride cars is very low or minimum (Yun and et.al., 2020). However, with the current hit of
pandemic the car industry has suffered a major loss as people were not allowed to go out.
Although in this situation too UBER eats have performed extraordinary well in delivering
the best foods services and proved to be major source of revenues for the firm in these hard
times. Furthermore, through operating the app through online smartphone app the quoted
company has been able to gain the large markets information such as driver ratings, cleaner
units, rate of services etc. so that timely and corrective actions id required could be taken on

time (Foss and Saebi, 2018). Hence this has been a major factor that has allowed the firm to gain
leadership in the market where the needs and wants are constantly changing. Furthermore, as
Uber is growing more in terms of best services many companies wish to integrate with the
quoted firm through supplying best processes and software that will allow the company to track
the overall sales and other company related information. Moreover, in 2018 company announced
that it has completed almost 10 billion trips that is big in terms of its level of operations.
In terms of culture it can be said that Uber company follows a very rigid working
hierarchy that does not allow employees to divert from certain roles and responsibilities even in
case of most challenging times like COVID -19 (Ibarra, Ganzarain and Igartua, 2018).
Furthermore, there are cases where the employees have faced issues regarding the work life
balance and remain stressed over much longer period. However, in spite of stiff nature of work
all the employees are given adequate amount of wages, incentives and promotions that keep
them motivated for any tasks. thus, it can be said that to become the highly innovative company
it is required that firm adopts the transparent work policy within the workplace so that better
suggestions and creative decisions could be developed in the future. also, the firm is driving
towards the innovation through developing the electric cars that are fuel efficient and would
reduce the cost of ride thus allowing more riders to generate revenues for the business.
Moreover, to implement such type of strategy within the workplace UBER has joined hands with
another company to make this innovative step a big success in various regions of the country
(Schiavone, Paolone and Mancini, 2019). Also, it could be linked to the disruptive innovation
model where new product with help of newer technologies conquer the rest of existing markets
of any firm. Thus if the said innovative technique provides success to the firm that it would be
gradually applied in the different regions based on the level of customer base and competitors
move. Also, disruption would allow the firm to continuously transform existing and old products
into newer ones so that it could work efficiently with the changing business environment
(Onufrey and Bergek, 2021). Moreover, there are certain steps that would be followed by the
UBER to launch new innovations in the company such as self-driving cars, electric cars and
much more.
Also, the first step in this would be idea generation that would allow the firm to think
about the launch of newer techniques at the workplace such as one described above. The next
step is one where the feasibility of the projects is analysed. Moreover, in the current situation

where people are more concern about using environmental friendly methods this innovative step
of the quoted company have the greater chances of success (Pieroni and et.al., 2019).
Furthermore, in next step is of experimentation where the current idea is applied into smaller
regions to find out people response. Thus, this step would allow Uber to facilitate further
changes within the exiting plan if required. Another one is commercialization stage where
certain specification related to the given idea are developed and the last stage is diffusion or
implementation where the innovative strategy is fully applied and communicate among target
groups for its success (Pang and et.al., 2019).
Thus it can be said that for the company like Uber that is operating on large scale it is
very important that new innovations are only brought up through using continuous trial and error
methods. Also, this would allow the firm to make necessary adjustments in exiting policy so that
brand value and customer loyalty could be maintained (Kraus and et.al., 2020). Moreover, there
are various types of innovative techniques that could be further launched by the Uber such as
installation of the sensor to inform customers about the wearing of seatbelts so that more safety
measures could be ensured in having the smooth drive. Moreover, Uber was the first company
that has taken the advantage of the emerging technologies such as mobile phones and through
adopting disruptive business model that has allowed the riders to book ride even late in night
without much dependency. Also, Uber expansion into new online grocery delivery system
especially during the times of Covid has allowed the firm to write success stories against one of
the biggest competitor LYFT (Jafari, Mohammadi Doorbash and Mirzaei, 2019). Moreover, with
early innovation drive by the quoted firm it has replaced many of the traditional taxi buyers of
which riders often complains that they are driving too fast or charging very high fees. Moreover,
this company has become more reliable in terms of its customers as drivers are asked to submit
all the personal details and are checked thoroughly for any kind of criminal backgrounds so that
maximum safety could be ensured to its users. Also, those customers that are unable to afford big
vehicles for travelling purpose could easily save money through simply booking ride with all
types of cars that are available nearest to the rider locations.
However, with the current changes in the working of the business it is seen that Uber is
facing several challenges such as frequent changes in law might force the company to raise the
prices of the rides thus it would create pressure among the existing riders to pay much higher for
the similar rides and challenges (Madsen, 2020). Furthermore, Uber drivers are facing problems

from airport authorities as it is charging extra fee charges from drives for picking up the
customers. Thus, this fees are charged from the customers that it becomes quiet expensive rides
for customers than the traditional taxi drivers. Thus, it is to be kept in mind that to introduce any
new creativity at the workplace it is essential that all systems and processes are checked
thoroughly so that there are no negative reviews of the firm on its official website of platform.
Moreover, there are cases where the Uber rides are cancelled without any notice that has further
impacted the growth of the business especially when new competitors like OLA, LYFT and
others have entered into the market (Di Vaio and et.al., 2021).
Thus to conclude it can be said that to build future compatibilities for UBER it is very
much required that new creative methods are been implemented both at the workplace and with
driving cars. However, the UBER is aiming to not being limited only to car driving sector but
also explores other areas where growth opportunities are higher to sustain in the market for
longer time (Phan, 2019). Also, Uber have now realized that in pressure to grow at the large level
the company would not develop system where too many offers and choices are made available to
the public as this will only lead to losses and create confusing environment for its customers
(Uber CEO: Our future won’t be just cars, 2022). Also, the company is providing the
completing the independency to its users about the ride experience so that present challenges
could be overcome easily.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be said that innovation is major driver for bringing about
positive changes within any firm so that better products and services could be offered to large
number of customers. Also, the report had identified UBER as the big technology giant that had
been successful in delivering quality services to diverse number of its customers. Furthermore,
the study had also analysed the changing future of the car and riding industry in terms of demand
and supply and in the current situations of the pandemic. Moreover, it had also identified that it
is very essential that every firm conduct full market analysis and research before offering any
kind of services in the market so that future losses and risks could be minimised.
Also, based on the future of the industry certain key points such as micro mobility and
use of electric cars as part of future innovative strategy by the firm had also been discussed in
detail. Furthermore, various organisations innovation requirements according to the changing
needs of the customers had also been discussed so that future business policies of the quoted firm

could be made than accordingly. Also, the study had identified that how several processes and
innovation capabilities could be built through following the simple steps of the innovation
process so that wastage of resources could be minimised and maximum efficiency could be
achieved for the quoted firm.
Moreover, the study had analysed certain challenges that are currently faced by the firm
in terms of maintaining low cost structure and what are the opinions of the CEO on the same.
Also, the report had done comparison of traditional taxi driver services with the current UBER
services that had allowed the customers to have best riding experience along with best safety
measures. Lastly, significance of innovation in achieving certain future goals of the UBER had
also been covered under this report in detail.

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Online
Mobility trends to watch out for in 2021. 2022. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/116047/mobility-trends-2021/ >
Uber CEO: Our future won’t be just cars. 2022. [Online]. Available through:<
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/15/17340064/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-interview-elevate-
flying-cars>.