Uber Ecosystem: immense potential
Uber is working towards developing its own ecosystem in order to increase customer loyalty with positive implications on company’s revenues. The development of Uber ecosystem has integrated the following key milestones:
1. Request API
The development of Request API (application programming interface) has been viewed by industry analysis as the first step towards developing the ecosystem.
It has been noted that “Request API gives third party developers the ability to integrate their application into Uber. So if you’re an airline or a restaurant booking application, you can create a situation whereby your flight delay was automatically notified to your Uber driver so that your pickup is correctly rescheduled.”[1]
2. Uber Eats
The launch of food delivery service by the company as UberFRESH in 2015, later renamed as UberEAT in 2015 was an important move for the ride-hailing giant to expand beyond ridesharing. This is a major difference between Uber and its main rival Lyft. Specifically, when Lyft was concentrating solely on taxi services and ride-sharing for a long time before doing anything else; Uber senior management sought to differentiate the business using the same platform early on with positive implications on its ecosystem.
3. Uber Feed
The update of app on November 2016 paved a way for further development of Uber ecosystem. Nowadays, Uber app learns from routines of users and scrapes their calendars for the address of their meetings across the town.[2] Particularly, Uber Feed is an important feature and it intends to gain customers attention during the ride.
Uber Feed presents a stack of services Uber thinks customers might find useful during their trip. Customers can swipe left on Uber Eats to see which restaurants can deliver to their house in synch with their arrival time. Alternatively, if customers are running late to their destination, they can use Snapchat card with custom fields on Uber Feeds updates dinner data on their ETA. There is an immense potential for the ride-hailing giant to further develop its ecosystem via Uber Feeds and in many other ways.
4. Uber Cash
Development of Uber Cash is a timely and strategic move that further strengthens ecosystem of Uber. A “closed-loop payment network that lets consumers easily add funds to its stored value account”[3] Specifically, Uber Cash card is positioned as repository for company’s rewards, credits and gift cards, a stored value account with balances that can be spent on services inside the Uber ecosystem. It has been assigned an instrumental role to motivate customers to spend more within the ecosystem. It can be forecasted that Uber will continue its coordinated efforts to emerge into an advanced transportation ecosystem on the global scale.
Uber Technologies Inc. Report contains the above analysis of Uber ecosystem. The report illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis, Ansoff Matrix and McKinsey 7S Model on Uber. Moreover, the report contains analyses of Uber leadership, business strategy, organizational structure and organizational culture. The report also comprises discussions of Uber marketing strategy and addresses issues of corporate social responsibility.
[1] Kepes, B. (2015) “Uber Encourages Its Own Third Party Ecosystem, The Disruptor Disrupts” Forbes, Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2015/04/08/uber-encourages-its-own-third-party-ecosystem-the-disruptor-disrupts/#4c4fd66c7262
[2] Gonzalez, R. (2016) “A Radical Redesign Makes ‘Uber Feed’ The Center of Your Ride” Wired, Available at: https://www.wired.com/2016/11/radical-redesign-makes-uber-feed-center-ride/
[3] Uber Ecosystem Expands Into Uber Cash (2018) PYMNTS, Available at: https://www.pymnts.com/news/ridesharing/2018/uber-ecosystem-mobile-digital-payments/