...Introduction Lyft is a ridesharing company that has recently launched a new offering called Driver Destination, using technology-enabled carpooling service, matching passengers with drivers traveling to the same destination. The following examines cities in Canada and a market segment analysis of three target segments. Recommendations include the most attractive city and market segment as well as an example of a customer persona for Lyft’s new service. Test Market City The test market chosen for Lyft Driver Destination is Calgary. Table 1 of Appendix A shows the factors considered in the test market analysis. A higher disposable income is an indicator of higher spending on entertainment related activities outside the home (New Strategist Publications, 2010; Turnbull, 2009), where a rideshare service may be sought, particularly when these activities are during peak times of customer demand such as the end of concert, hockey game, and Friday or Saturday nights. Commuting time to work is important as one of the peak times of demand for Lyft’s service will be during weekday rush hours. Longer commute times put a strain on taxi services during peak times as customers will engage drivers for longer periods of time, creating an opportunity for increased supply to the market during peak times. Furthermore, although dated, it has been shown that there is a higher propensity to carpool among long distance commuters (Hwang, 1990) and that commuters taking public transit have longer travel...
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...VISUAL ANALYTICS PROJECT (OPIM 5501) Project Report on FUTURE OF CARS Team 3 Project 2 Members: Ankit Agrawal Mownika Chalichama Phanindra Musunuri Long Phan 1. INTRODUCTION AND DATA Future of Cars visualization project shows the story to predict the future generation of cars. Ten years from now, in 2025, cars will be different, the drivers will be different, the market will be different, and the producers will certainly be different. The team believe that these changes will affect billions of people – from soccer moms to automotive executives, from taxi drivers to investment bankers. The data tells us that consumers are demanding greener, safer, more convenient and affordable cars. Most of these new consumers will come from emerging markets like China and India. Consequently, new trends will force car producers to modernize their supply chain, become more competitive and make lighter cars. Moreover, technology will play a huge part in changing the overall automotive landscape. Self-driving cars, car-cab services (Uber, Lyft, etc.), car pooling and the Internet of Cars all seemed like science-fiction will not remain not so long ago. Now many of them have become reality. There were a lot of data available online since countless research is being carried on cars. Major data source was data.gov for example, the website had an entire section on transportation data. Unsurprisingly, cleaning the data took a lot of time. Most of the data came from many different...
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...INTERNAL CONTROLS Assignment U03A3 Joseph A. Mendoza MBA 6014 Capella University Introduction When a company becomes public, opportunities open up for such company to grow, expand , and have global presence. With these opportunities, come responsibilities toward the shareholders. Those who choose to invest based on the strength and possibilities of the company. For years, markets were shrinking responsibilities, and shareholders suffered through investments made on bad information. Regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley were passed to make sure internal controls were defined to bring accountability into the boardroom and executive suites. (Volcker 2004) Cost Benefit of Internal Controls Cost of regulatory compliance and the consequences of a mistake continue to rise. Companies are willing to do what it takes to make sure the organization is in line. Although there are two sides to regulation, one side pushing for less of it due to the increasing expense to stay compliant, while the other side feels it is unnecessary. The trend is to comply however, is to comply, because the cost of non-compliance is still higher that the cost of compliance. Companies are placing more emphasis on internal controls since the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance of 2002. They are in search of a higher level strategic accounting officer. This is a clear response to the dynamic changes in regulation that continue to be brought upon organizations. Since 2005, the number of large...
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...Individual Research - Uber | Arika GraberMGT410_VAOctober 15, 2015 | Introduction Transportation is a matter that is always changing, from different and newer car model designs to faster subway and railway systems. Taxi services have been around for many years, and they have always seen a demand for that service. As times change, businesses have to be able to adapt to new technologies, geographic areas, culture and behaviors or new business plans will be introduced to the industry. One company that has been recently introduced to the taxi service industry is Uber. Uber is a transportation company that is internationally known but based out of California. Uber is a trending company that provides almost anyone a job, and anyone a ride at a new convenience. This new convenience is in the hands of its users, literally. Uber has based its success off of a mobile application that gives individuals easy access to drivers in their area that can assist them to their desired location. Uber was developed and launched in San Francisco, California, in March of 2009, and today the application is used all over the globe. Developers of Uber, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, were in the streets of Paris and couldn’t get a cab, this is when the idea of Uber was born, to solve a problem. From then on they based their actions off of a simple phrase, push a button, and get a car. There are many things about this company that sound appealing. Living in smaller towns growing up, there...
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...talent retention. Our proposal to support Bradley Stonefield new business of Limousines services will be centered on diverse aspects of employee performance management. Mr. Bradley, many companies fail to align their business strategy with their workforce strategy but our recommendation will avoid this pitfall. Let us revisit the key business strategies of Stonefield Limousines Company. First, your exclusive use of a fleet of Hybrid and electric cars is a testament to your desire to have less impact on the environment and save the earth for future generations. Second, the use of technology as a way to secure rides helps Stonefield Limousines stay competitive in a market dominated by powerful ridesharing applications like Uber and Lyft. Third, the use of metrics to grade every single ride is a strategy at the heart of your customer service approach because the more data your business can generate, the stronger your business analysis capabilities. In addition according to the US census data (2013) website, 33.34% of Austin, Texas population annual income is $100,000 or above which means that a great number of people have disposable income for the use of Limousine service. According to Kinicki and Williams, the first law in business is to “take care of the customer”...
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...1. Introduction Uber is an organization that has come up with a technological startup to provide transport services through facilitating linkage between the drivers and passengers. It functions through worldwide smartphone application which integrated with Google maps (Rahul, 2014) The employment of this application has enabled the company to operate in many cities and made it possible for customers to interact with drivers very effectively, as customers can request and track rides and also provide up-to-date feedbacks. (Hall and Krueger, 2015.) In recent years, Uber had been witnessed a rapid development as it provides convenient and affordable service compared to conventional taxi services, but this company does not stop here, it is also in the process of expanding into separate services. For instance, Uber had ventured into food delivery industry, and they have launched an app named UberEATS, which offers food delivery services to customers within a short period through collaborating with local restaurants. (Huet, 2015) Nowadays, Uber has launched its services in over thousands of cities around the world, and this company had also been valued at over 40 billion dollars, which means its value is more than the full US taxi and limousine industry. (Makos, 2015) what is undeniable is that Uber has turned into a firm that cannot be looked down. 2. Strategic analysis Globally, there is increasing concerns about how to implement proper strategic options to cope with strategic...
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...West Coast Forum Research Work Group Sustainable Consumption & the Sharing Economy Summary of Research Findings and Gap Analysis Topic: How state and local governments are promoting sustainable consumption and engagement in the sharing economy RESEARCH QUESTION(S) • What is the state of knowledge about sustainable consumption? How is this defined or framed? What are the emerging trends? What potential roles can municipal and state governments play? • What barriers have been identified and how might these be overcome? • What strategies, techniques and policies are effective at promoting sustainable consumption through reusing, renting, repairing, and sharing products and materials? • What GHG reduction benefits can be achieved through these activities? • What strategies, techniques, policies and innovative approaches have not yet been tried but have been proposed that are considered to have greatest potential? Note: This research summary builds on the findings of a previous literature review “Changing Consumer Behavior” presented at the 2012 annual Forum meeting. Many of the issues and key findings related to sustainable consumption are addressed there. Sustainable consumption is a rich and nuanced topic for which extensive literature exists. While not the primary focus of this review, the concepts around sustainable consumption provide a context for exploring specific activities of individual consumers such as renting...
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...CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION Customer loyalty is both an attitudinal and behavioral tendency to favor one brand over all others, whether due to satisfaction with the product or service, its convenience or performance, or simply familiarity and comfort with the brand. Customer loyalty encourages consumers to shop more consistently, spend a greater share of wallet, and feel positive about a shopping experience, helping attract consumers to familiar brands in the face of a competitive environment. Types of Loyalty To understand customer loyalty one must recognize there are different types and degrees of loyalty. There is monogamous loyalty and there is polygamous. There are also behavioral and attitudinal aspects. A look at these concepts will clarify what “customer loyalty” really is, and this is important because having a solid understanding of the concept is critical if one hopes to design a reward program where loyalty enhancement is the primary objective. Monogamous vs. Polygamous Loyalty We live in a world of polygamous, not monogamous loyalty. For example, a person might shop at Safeway, Thrifty Foods and Save-on-Foods and unfailingly shop at all three. The person is then loyal to them, but not to others, and yet 100% loyal to none. In their book Loyalty Myths, Keiningham et al. (2005) suggest that “loyalty can in part be thought of as the probability a customer will purchase a brand on any particular purchase occasion. For example, a customer...
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...BUS 2240 News Article Assignment Tap to hail In ever more cities, smartphone apps are reshaping the taxi market Oct 19th 2013 | LONDON AND NEW YORK |From the print edition * * All hail the quick, reliable taxi SINCE last month the citizens of Johannesburg have been able to hail and pay for taxis through SnappCab, a local start-up. A tap on SnappCab’s smartphone app summons a cab; a driver accepts on his own phone; and the passenger sees the driver’s name and photo, so he knows whom to expect and when. At journey’s end, he can pay with another tap through a pre-loaded credit card, or in cash. The idea is simple: the app makes it easier to bring together drivers, whose cabs are often empty, and passengers. Time and fuel are saved. Money is made. In many other cities taxi apps have taken off rapidly. Hailo, founded in London by cabbies and techies three years ago, says 60% of the city’s black-cab drivers are now on its books. Several cabs are decked out in Hailo yellow. It has spread to 14 places, most recently Osaka in Japan. Uber began in 2009 in San Francisco, which has a shortage of taxis but a surfeit of geeks looking for problems to solve. Now it can find you a ride in 49 cities in 19 countries. GetTaxi, set up in Tel Aviv in 2010, has reached London, Moscow and New York. Local apps can be found in cities from São Paulo to Singapore. Besides SnappCab, Johannesburg has Uber and Zapacab (which also started in Cape Town earlier this year) plying for trade. Apps...
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...Case Study: Economic Analysis of Gogo’s In-flight Wi-Fi November 2, 2015 Introduction Gogo pioneered and now dominates the in-flight Wi-Fi business, which allows passengers to access the Internet during their flights. In recent years, consumers have grown from anticipation to dislike towards Gogo’s services due to its steady increase in fees and rapid decrease in speed. Through a dynamic pricing strategy they hope to relieve congestion which indeed have effect, but will not last in the fierce competition of an oligopoly market structure. Unlike its monopolistic position before, Gogo now faces at least three companies—ViaSat, Global Eagle Entertainment, and Panasonic— swiftly eroding its market share with cheaper and faster in-flight Wi-Fi services using satellites instead of antennas. Gogo’s own next-generation technology 2Ku, to come online in 2016, uses satellites that hopefully would achieve better prices with higher speed. To analyze the market for in-flight Wi-Fi and the pricing strategies of Gogo, our paper will discuss five core areas: The price elasticity of demand for Gogo’s service, and how it varies with price levels The market structure Gogo is operating in Its dynamic pricing How the demand for in-flight Wi-Fi has changed over time, technological changes over the past 15-20 years that has affected demand Technological factors that affect supply, how congestion affects pricing and our recommendation Price Elasticity of Demand...
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...Public Policy Concerns with the Ride Sharing Industry in British Columbia Introduction The commercial ride sharing industry is presently headline news in the province of British Columbia, particularly in the city of Vancouver where the company, Uber, has been trying forcefully to tap into the city’s passenger transportation market. “Commercial ride sharing is an arrangement where for profit, taxi-like services are provided by private drivers, using technology like smartphone apps. GPS is used to connect drivers with people seeking transportation, and payment is made online” (TranBC, 2014). Uber is an App based company that networks passengers with drivers that transport them to their destination for a fee. UberX is Uber’s low cost option in which the company’s only requirements for drivers are to be over the age of 21, have a valid driver’s license, personal auto insurance, and a four door automobile which has had a vehicle inspection within the first 30 days of partnership with Uber (Elliott, J., 2014). The drivers also need to have a police background check done, and that’s it. These bare bone prerequisites have lead UberX to be scrutinized by the provincial and municipal governments, as well as the taxi industry. The scrutiny comes from Uber refusing to abide by the rules and regulations set out by the Passenger Transportation Board and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), as they say the Passenger Transportation Act is archaic, and does not...
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...anything new and it must be calculated and weighed to ensure it is worth the risk. One financial problem that will come up with launching the new service is deciding what percentage to pay the dog trainers and what to charge the dog owners to make sure it is a fair price for both parties involved. If the company decides to charge the dog owners too much, then the service may not be enticing to the dog owners and therefor will stick with the current service. Since there is driving involved for the dog trainers the percentage must be fair enough to cover the cost of gas. The percentage has to also be fair enough that the employee can live off while still making enough profit for the company. The fact that this is a service that is like Uber and Lyft, WAG! Will have to follow their examples. Another potential risk for WAG! could be the research of cities to map out where locations have suitable dog parks and the availability of those dog parks. This is unique since dog parks have differing requirements and hours of operation. Some dog parks only allow big dogs or small dogs while some divide the two up and others will include every dog in one area. Also, which ones are grass and which ones might be all dirt. The research involved would take an extensive amount of time and money. Given each area that this service wants to operate in WAG! will have to be willing to sacrifice that time and effort. This is where weighing the cost of research will come into play. A big risk that WAG! Will...
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...Robotics 104-1 Final project: A self-driving mobile platform Lou, Seddik, Benjamin Derville and Chun-Kan Gary Chow Abstract— In this paper, we present our work on building an autonomous car. We first describe our choosen approach and the reason behind this choice, we then describe what we manage to implement and then we finish by reviewing our work done. I. INTRODUCTION Autonomous driving is maybe the most popular current project in machine learning, and especially deep learning. Billions of dollars are assigned to create self-driving car. Google lead the movement with their Google Car created from their lab Google X, followed by Tesla who manage to quickly catch up with their big fleet of cars driving on the roads at each instant. Uber just created a research center for this work, GM partner with Lyft, George Hotz, an americain car made his own home-made simple self-driving car and even Nvidea created a demo. In this sense, this work is not really original or innovative. We however thought this work was not yet popularized to students projects. This works is also interesting because it’s not ’achieved’ even by the current state-of-the-art, there are still lots of works to be done. II. T HEORY will be very hard to distinguish between them and not useful for a long-term solution. Additionally we would encounter a major problem when defining the color and shape of a car. So instead we design an machine-learning algorithm which uses a similar approach...
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...15-1310 Gary Business strategy Premier Inn Table of Contents 1 Introduction and Background 1 2 Task 1: Process of Strategic Planning 1 2.1 Role of Vision and Competencies in Strategic Planning 1 2.2 Factors To Be Considered While Formulating Strategies 2 2.3 Effectiveness of Techniques Used for Strategic Planning 4 3 Task 2: Formulating New Strategy 5 3.1 Organisational Audit 5 3.2 Environmental Audit 6 3.3 Significance of Stakeholder Analysis 7 3.4 Possible Strategy Suggestions 8 4 Strategy Evaluation and Selection 8 4.1 Appropriateness of Present Strategies 8 4.2 Justification for Strategy Choice 9 5 Strategy Implementation 11 5.1 Roles and Responsibilities 11 5.2 Resource Requirements 11 5.3 Contributions of SMART Targets 12 6 References 13 7 Appendices 17 7.1 Appendix – 1: PEST Analysis 17 Index of Figures Figure 1 - Ansoff Growth Matrix for Premier Inn 3 Figure 2 - BCG Growth Share Matrix of Premier Inn 4 Figure 3 - Strengths and Weaknesses of Premier Inn 5 Figure 4 - Stakeholder Analysis of Premier Inn 7 Figure 5 - SAFe Analysis for Premier Inn 10 Introduction and Background This paper examines various factors related to strategic planning, such as the process of strategic planning, approaches and theoretical models linked with strategic planning, and the implementation of strategic plans by taking Premier Inn as the case study organisation. This paper shed light into how strategic planning models...
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...UBER In the last few years technology has drastically changed the way some industries do business. The newest company changing the essential nature of their industry is Uber. Uber’s company mission confirms this ambition. They want, “to evolve the way the world moves by seamlessly connecting riders to drivers through their apps”. Uber’s aim is to make cities more accessible, open up more possibilities for riders, and provide more business for drivers. This desire to change the nature of the ride for hire business has challenged the regulatory framework of the taxi industry and has caused a substantial amount of controversy for the company. This controversy hasn’t harmed the company’s bottom line. In fact, Uber is so loved by its users that it has grown to a billion dollar company on word of mouth alone. As Uber launches into each new market, these controversies are played out in the court of public opinion, and the power of Uber supporters and the quality of the experience, create a large amount of defense for the company from the local community. This support has changed laws, helped make easy transitions for Uber in new cities, and through local and national media has reached even more potential customers who would use an innovative new company reinventing a transportation experience that is nearly universally disliked by people everywhere. Uber has been an outstanding innovator who is experiencing great growth and success. This unique ability leads to the question, what...
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