Introduction:Uber is a privately held company that was founded back in the year 2009, that is exactly 8 years before from present time and the company is headquartered in San Francisco which is in California located in US (Uber.com, 2018). There are more than 633 cities around the world that are served by the company and the main services that it provides to the customers are transportation services as well as the food delivery services. There are more than 12000 employees that work under the company and as of 2016 last quarter; there total revenue amounted to US$ 6.5 billion. There are different prices at which the customers of the company can take a ride in Uber and there are four kind of pricing strategies that have been adopted by Uber which goes in the name of pool rides, that is the lowest pricing when an individual hires a cab and the person who hires this ride has to share his cab with another 2-3 persons. The second one is premium rides which are the highest in the category while the economy pricing is not much high and also not as low as pool rides (Ahluwalia, 2017). There is another pricing strategy that is followed by Uber and that is accessibility ride which is for the disabled people and they can communicate with the driver using sign languages. There are a variety of departments at Uber which helps theorganization to reach its objective and fulfill the expectations of thecustomers. The customers always looks forward to get the lowest price in themarket for the rides they take and with the help of following a variety ofapproaches, the operations department of the organization helps in achievementof the objective and tries to provide the lowest price to the customers. Theoperations department always strives to reduce the price of rides with the helpof reducing the cost of the organization and me being an employee of theoperations department, it is also my duty to contribute towards making theorganization operate in a price effective way. Uber is one of the fastestgrowing companies in the world and it is the aim of the operations departmentof Uber to contribute towards the rapid growth of the organization with thehelp of the operational activities (Dudley et al., 2017). The logistics and theoperations roles of Uber are interconnected and the most significant task thatis performed by the operations department is ensuring the supply in the marketfor their service is constant so that the satisfaction of the customers can begained and the most important function that is to be performed by theoperations department is analytics which will help them to use the data aboutthe drivers in order to understand the driver behaviors with the passengers anddesign strategy how the communication between the driver and the passengers canbe improved. Moreover, the operations department also designs the incentiveplans for the drivers and also develop as well as optimizes the process. Thereare several other functions that the operations managers of the company performwhich will unfold itself with the progress of the assignment. Main Body:Transportation is one of the oldest industries in the worldand there are many changes that took place in this industry with the coming upof the technology (Centobelli et al., 2017). Due to the globalization of thebusinesses all around the world, the technology of the companies have developedand that have increased the demand among the customers. The transportationindustry has viewed many ups and downs and Uber is nothing but just a companyborn out of technological development of the globalization. Ubers business model:The business model of Uber is very simple and the passengerscan simply request to hire a cab based of their choice by selecting thelocation of the place they are in and additionally, they can also select thetype of cab that they are looking forward to hire (Cannon et al., 2014). Thereis also sharing of cab facility that has been kept available by Uber and thishelps the customers to reduce the price of the booking as other passengers whowill be going on in the same route also travels with the same cab. The driversthose who do not have booking are matched with the help of the system and thenthe drivers are then sent request to pick up the passengers with the help ofthe system but before that it is mandatory for the drivers also to accept therequest. There is also satisfaction provided on the part of the customers withthe help showing the customers the real time position of the drivers who arecoming to pick them up. Moreover, the drivers also receive direction with thehelp of Google navigation the real location of the customers who are waitingfor to get picked up. When the driver reaches the place of booking of thecustomers, the customers are sent notifications with the help of app and alsomessages that the diver has reached the location and thus the customer hiresthe cab and after the journey is completed the fare of the ride is calculatedwith the help of the app based on real time travel and the user is charged topay money either through credit card, debit card or through cash in somecountries (Bashir et al., 2016). Moreover, the customers are also able toreview about the drivers whether their ride was great or they have sufferedinappropriate behaviors from the drivers. This helps the operations team of thedrivers to take actions against the drivers and do analytics of the driverbehavior. The demand of the customers:The main demand of the customers of the company is providingthem with the lowest price for the purpose of travelling from one place toother. Due to the increasing of rate of inflation in many countries across theworld and the value of many currencies going down with the developing countriesbeing more developed, the demand of the customers is to lower the fare for therides they take with the company and thus in order to meet the customer demand,Uber focuses upon lowering the price of the rides (Rogers, 2015). Additionally,there are countries like India, Pakistan, and Nigeria, where the rate ofunemployment is more and thus in order to serve those customers, lowering theprice of the cab fare is mandatory as the customers demands more discount ontheir rides. There are also a variety of types of customers who always look fordiscount on their rides and some customers who prefers to travel alone. Thereare also some customers who look forward to travel in a luxurious manner andalso use Wi-Fi facility during the journey. Thus there are four ways oftravelling that has been introduced by Uber for the purpose of travel. There isUber Pool service introduced for the people who like to travel in cab at thelowest fare and people travelling in the same route are made to share theirrides with those passengers (Geradin, 2015). There is also economic pricingthat has been introduced by the company which allows the travelers to travelalone or with their family but there are no benefits of Wi-Fi or spacious carsoffered to the customers like in case of premium bookings. Thus in order to meet the demand of the lowest fares of thecustomers, the operations team of Uber focuses upon lowering the cost of theoperations of the organization with the help of lowering the driver fares pertrip. At the time of the launch when there were very less drivers who adoptedthe Uber model and for satisfying the customer demand, more of Uber drivers orthe owner of the cars were paid with higher fares, but nowadays, the scenariohas changed and Uber has become a huge company with huge number of cars workingunder them and thus in order to provide more discounts to the customers andcharge them less, they have made a price cut upon the salary provided to thedrivers or the money provided per trip to the owners of the cars (Bernhardt,2016). Operations Objectives:Thus the demand of the customers of Uber is met with thehelp of a few objectives of operations as mentioned below:Firstly, the quality of the design and the quality of theservices is focused upon by Uber and improved by them so that they are able toensure more customers attracted towards the company.Secondly, they also focus upon improvement of theflexibility of their operations which can help to improve the operations of thecompany by being flexible with the changing demand in the market (Wirtz et al.,2016).Thirdly, customization of the services in some countries accordingto the demands of the customers also helps them to satisfy the demands of the customersin the market.Fourthly, Uber also focuses upon the customers who aredependable upon them and increases the dependability of the services with thehelp of providing them with options to rate their trip and thus if the reviewsare low and comments are negative, they focuses upon increasing those areas andimprove the dependability of the customers. Lastly, reduction of the cost or expenditure of the company canalso help Uber to satisfy the demands of the customers by providing them withlower prices and also provide them with discounts. Meeting the Operations Objectives:There are a few ways that can be implemented which helps inmeeting the objectives of the operations of the company. Some ways of meetingthe operations objectives of the company are mentioned below:Meeting quality of design:There are some customers who demand luxurious services formthe part of the company as well and in order to meet the demand of thosecustomers, there are high models of cars used for the services (Caranza et al.,2016). For instance, Uber uses BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz for the luxurioussegment customers. The drivers that are also offered to the customers areprivate drivers and the inputs that Uber makes upon the services is of veryhigh quality. Meeting quality of services:The quality of the service that is provided by Uber isanother objective of the operations team and the design of Uber promises toprovide reliable services to the customers. The demand of the customers is toget reliable services from the part of the organization and in order toincrease the service reliability, Uber helps to view the customers with thereal time location of the drivers and also texts the number of the drivers tothe customer mobile numbers so that the customers can call the drivers and knowthe exact location of the drivers and communicate with the drivers regardingthe trip (Wallsten, 2015). Improving flexibility of operations:As the number of population is continuously increasing inthe world, the numbers of customers that are demanding the services of Uber arealso increasing in many countries where the company serves. Thus, there isrequirement for Uber to become flexible in the market and cater their servicemore in the countries of their operations. As Uber hires professional andlicensed drivers, they are able to meet the customers demands with the help ofthat and also with the help of improvement made in the level of technology,Uber is able to focus more upon the changes that are taking place in themarketplace and technological developments are also helping them to increasetheir flexibility as well as their capacity in the marketplace. Improving service customization:There are also customers who look forward to customize their services and Uber being a technologically developed company, focuses upon the customization of the services. In some countries there are customization of the services under the brand names like Uber Taxi, UberX and Uber black which focuses more upon meeting the demands of the customers (Miller et al., 2017).Improvement of customer dependability as well as accountability:The customers also want the dependability of the servicesthat is provided by Uber and for that reason, the customers are told to ratethe services of the drivers and thus the dependability of the services isimproved. Accountability is another aspect of the service that isprovided by Uber and in order to improve the experience of the drivers andpassengers, the real time feedback has been implemented and this helps thecompany to respond quickly if there are any problems or issues that are beingfaced by the passengers as well as the customers (Moon, 2015).Cost or expenditure reduction by Uber:The organization also focuses upon reduction of the costwith the help of implementation of minimum regulation to become a driver withUber. As the regulations that is implemented by the company is of minimumamount, any person who is above the age of 21 years can become a driver andalso any person having the driving license can driver for the company. Alsohaving a car with four doors is enough to drive with Uber and the person shouldhave a minimum amount of personal insurance to become a driver. But it ismandatory that the person should not have any criminal background and therecord of accidents should be clear. Thus, the minimizations of the cost ofUber are supported by the company with the help of employing the drivers withminimum requirements (Gabel, 2016). Hindrances in achievement of operations objectives:There can be hindrances that can be faced by Uber in meetingthe above mentioned objectives due to some of the external and internal factorsof the organization (Schneider, 2015). The external and the internalenvironment of Uber are full of threats and these threats can hinder Uber tomeet the objectives of the company. Some threats that can cause hindrances arementioned below:Firstly, the prices in some of the economies where Uberoperates are rising and this can cause the petrol prices to rise and thus thedrivers and the car owners who are provided with low return per trip with Uberwill not be able to work with the company which can cause Uber falling short tomeet the demands of the customers.Secondly, there are complaints faced by Uber that drivers forceup the surge pricing of the rides and this causes the customers to pay more whichis a negative side of the business and if this continues, Uber will soon losetheir markets. Thirdly, there are rivals of Uber in some countries andthose organizations sometimes in order to increase competition with Uber offermuch lower prices to the customers in the form of promotion, which shifts the demandof the customers form Uber towards other companies which provides similarservice in much lower price (Ng, 2016). Fourthly, there are sometimes very rude behavior complaintsthat are faced by Uber against the drivers of a few trips. The customerlaunches complaints and posts those in social networking sites which are viewedby other followers of their page and thus they lose the market as the customersdo not get enough confidence to ride again with them.Lastly, model of Uber is easy for other rivals to copy andthus in the countries where Uber is not present and is thinking of entering themarket, the model of the company can be copied by other organization which canmake the company suffer in their expansion plans. Conclusion and Recommendations:Thus, from the discussion above, it can be stated thatthough the operations department of Uber tries to provide better services tothe customers with the help of improvement of the company operations, there arestill some threats that the company is required to fight against so that theyare able to satisfy the customers of the organization (Colangelo et al., 2017).The customer satisfaction is the main motive of any kind of business thatexists in the real world and Uber is also not an exception. Thus in order tosatisfy the customers of the organization, they are required to overcome theorganization threats with the help of improving their efficiency of theservices that they provide to the customers. Sometimes when the customersprovide negative reviews about the drivers, Uber is reluctant about it and thiscauses the drivers to do the same mistake over again. So, Uber should takestrict actions against the drivers who have been provided with negative reviewsand should leave them with warning for the first and time and if the driveragain receives same kind of review for same mistake, Uber should not behesitant to fire that driver. Additionally, Uber should also work against thedrivers who are forcing up surge pricing and should work accordingly to reducethis. The Uber drivers keep their apps off for a long period of time; makingthe customer and the company believe that they are not available for duty andthus they force up the surge pricing (The Telegraph, 2018). So, company shouldimplement tracking devices in the cars and make sure where the drivers arelocated so that they can reduce surge pricing that is forced up by the Uberdrivers. Moreover, there are various competitors of Uber in some of thecountries and those competitors eats up the market share of the company byfollowing the model that have been implemented by Uber as it is very easy tocopy. So, in order to reduce this, Uber should follow a more complex model sothat they are able to reduce their model being copied by other rivals and eatup their market share in return. Also, as there are some economies where thefuel prices are rising high and it is causing the company to increase the payof the drivers and per trip, Uber can make it mandatory for their clients todrive electric operated cars and this will help them to reduce the cost of thebusiness as well as at the same time meet the demands of customer by providingthem with low fares (Nistal et al., 2016). Thus, implementation of the abovementioned strategies can help Uber to be successful in the marketplace and alsohelp them to meet the demand of the customers. References:Ahluwalia, R., 2017. CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF UBER BUSINESS MODEL UNDER GIG ECONOMY. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (IJMSS), 6(2), pp.62-65.Bashir, M., Yousaf, A. and Verma, R., 2016. Disruptive business model innovation: How a tech firm is changing the traditional taxi service industry. Indian Journal of Marketing, 46(4), pp.49-59.Bernhardt, A., 2016. Its Not All About Uber. LERA For Libraries, 20(1-2).Cannon, S. and Summers, L.H., 2014. How Uber and the sharing economy can win over regulators. Harvard business review, 13(10), pp.24-28.Caranza, V., Chow, K., Pham, H., Roswell, E. and Sun, P., 2016. Life Cycle Analysis: Uber vs Car Ownership. Environment, 159, pp.1-19.Centobelli, P., Cerchione, R. and Esposito, E., 2017. Environmental sustainability in the service industry of transportation and logistics service providers: Systematic literature review and research directions. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 53, pp.454-470.Colangelo, M. and Maggiolino, M., 2017. Uber: A New Challenge for Regulation and Competition Law?.Dudley, G., Banister, D. and Schwanen, T., 2017. The Rise of Uber and Regulating the Disruptive Innovator. The Political Quarterly.Gabel, D., 2016. Uber and the Persistence of Market Power. Journal of Economic Issues, 50(2), pp.527-534.Geradin, D., 2015. Should Uber be allowed to compete in Europe? And if so how?.Miller, J. and How, J.P., 2017, May. Predictive positioning and quality of service ridesharing for campus mobility on demand systems. In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 1402-1408). IEEE.Moon, Y., 2015. Uber: Changing the way the world moves. Harvard Business School, Case, (9-316), p.101.Ng, S., 2016. Uber Technologies Inc. as a Disruptive Innovation.Nistal, P.D. and Regidor, J.R.F., 2016, August. Comparative study of Uber and regular taxi service characteristics. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Transportation Science Society of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines, August (Vol. 8).Rogers, B., 2015. The social costs of Uber. U. Chi. L. Rev. Dialogue, 82, p.85.Schneider, A., 2015. Uber Takes the Passing Lane: Disruptive Competition and Taxi-Livery Service Regulations. Elements, 11(2).The Telegraph. (2018). Telegraph. [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk [Accessed 9 Jan. 2018].Uber.com. (2018). Sign Up to Drive or Tap and Ride. [online] Available at: http://www.uber.com [Accessed 9 Jan. 2018].Wallsten, S., 2015. The competitive effects of the sharing economy: how is Uber changing taxis?. Technology Policy Institute, 22.Wirtz, J. and Tang, C., 2016. Uber: Competing as market leader in the us versus being a distant second in china. In SERVICES MARKETING: People Technology Strategy (pp. 626-632).Get Help With Your EssayIf you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!Find out more
