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Lindsy Kubkowski

MAN3504

Week 3 Case Studies: Uber Technologies

January 24, 2018

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Introduction

This case study, titled Uber Technologies Inc, is from Chapter 1 from the textbook Operations
Management Sustainability and Supply Chain Management by Jay Heizer, Barry Render, and Chuck
Munson. Uber is one of the biggest technology platforms. Uber is a smartphone app that connects
drivers and riders. The app simply requests a ride using the rider’s current location and that is where the
driver picks the consumer up. The company is a $41 billion-dollar firm and in many areas is proven to be
the fastest way to find safe transportation.

In this case study, it is expressed some concerns that are arising with Uber. These concerns
consist of:

 The taxi industry is fighting back

 Regulations are arising
 “Surge Pricing”

Q1: The market has decided that Uber and its immediate competitors are adding efficiency to our
society. How is Uber providing that added efficiency?

The market is spot on that Uber and its immediate competitors, such as Lyft, are adding
efficiency to society. The efficiency is coming from the easiness of the app, the safeness of the drives,
and the prices that were placed when the app was first starting to run. A lot of the efficiency comes
from the ratio of how long Uber drivers are driving around without any passengers. “By contrast, for
Uber, the numbers are 64% and 55% for the two cities (Los Angeles and Seattle), respectively” (Hamilton
2016). With these higher percentages compared to taxis, Uber is being efficient of having cars in the
right areas at the right time.

Another way Uber is adding efficiency to our society is by adding flexibility to its employees.
Most drivers can work as they please and enjoy some extra pay when rides are needed during peak
demand. According to the case study, these peak hour prices are called surge pricing. Surge pricing is
characterized as ensuring consumers will have a ride available at unusual times.

Q2: Do you think the Uber model will work in the trucking industry?
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For Uber to work in the trucking industry, Uber will have to understand the process that truck
industries go though and the amount of money it will take to start that side of a company up. Before
doing some research, this was my opinion. After doing the research, Uber has an app called Uber Fright
that was released in 2017. The app is a trucking dispatch service that has predetermined and guaranteed
prices for independent truck drivers. “It’s not exactly a revolutionary service. Instead, it does what
Uber’s original service did: Make an existing marketplace more convenient for riders and drivers”
(Bhuiyan 2017). One of the biggest difference from the original Uber app, is that truckers can swipe
through a marketplace of loads to decide who they would like to book.

Q3: In what other areas/industries might the Uber model be used?

The Uber model shares a lot of efficiency models for having other industries make it easy to
think of new ideas. The areas that the Uber model can be good in is industries that are going to continue
to make consumers life easier like Uber does. This can be anywhere from house cleaning, day care pick-
up, or even shipping. Doing the collective research for this case study, the Uber model has influenced
various new areas of pre-existing areas such as:

 Laundry
 Shipping
 Health
 Meal preparation

I related to the most with health and meal preparation since this is what I do for a living. Meal
preparation companies such as AmazonFresh, have followed the lead of the Uber model by delivering
meals right the consumers doors. “But for those who want more than the raw ingredients delivered to
their doorstep, there’s a growing number of apps that will deliver hot meals for your dinner” (Murphy
2015). This distinct quote reminded me of Uber’s new app, UberEats! UberEats picks up meals from
participating companies and delivers it to consumers doors for a small fee.

Conclusion

Uber is still a growing company and they seem to know what to do by how many new apps are
approaching under their name. In America, convenience of a businesses resources is crucial to keep the
attention of consumers. With Uber being in over 40 countries and 240 markets around the world, Uber
sets a high standard compared to its competitors.
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Further recommendations for Uber would be to merge some of the apps together to help with
storage on consumers phones. If there were an easier way to access the Uber apps at the same time
would make consumers lives even easier. Especially the consumers are not great with the company.
With how good Uber’s efficiency is, this would sky rocket the efficiency even more.
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Reference List

Bhuiyan, J. (2017, May 18). Uber for trucks is here. Here's how it will work. Retrieved January 24, 2018,
from https://www.recode.net/2017/5/18/15657862/uber-travis-kalanick-trucks-freight

Hamilton, J. (2016, March 26). Uber Efficiency. Retrieved January 24, 2018, from
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/03/uber-efficiency

Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2017). Operations management: sustainability and supply chain
management (12th ed.). Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd.

Murphy, N. (2015, May 19). 5 Types of Businesses That Are Copying the Uber Model. Retrieved January
24, 2018, from https://www.cheatsheet.com/business/5-industries-the-uber-model-is-
completely-changing.html/?a=viewall