Solving the governance challenges in Uber was Dara Khosrowshahi’s top priority when he took over the company as CEO in August last year, according to his statement in an interview at the Code Technology Conference. Others were the management culture and setting up strategies for the company’s success.
Currently investing in product rebranding to clean off its previous mess, Uber which launched a new driver app last month said the drivers were fully involved (consulted) in building the app which has nearly 40 new features. A huge part of the revolutionary process going on in the ride-hailing provider is to improve the benefits of the driver partners [currently over 3 million globally] as the future of Uber service.
When asked about the company’s commitment to ensuring the safety of drivers, Khosrowshahi said: “Today, for example, we rolled out a 911 emergency button for riders. We are doing the same thing for drivers as well. In general, we are trying to get much better in identifying and raiding our community, and that includes flagging unsafe riders just as we are flagging unsafe drivers as well.”
The company’s investors are very much curious to see Uber strive better and it seems they have found a path to get through. Below are six (6) takeaways from the interview with Uber CEO.
Six takeaways from the interview with Uber CEO
- Having rolled out an insurance feature last year, Uber is focusing more on recruiting more drivers by economically building partnership benefits to compete with regular jobs. The company strongly believe that the number of drivers it has determines how profitable the company would strive aside from product branding.
- Uber’s perception about autonomous driving has changed from seeing it as a threat to a means of building a sustainable hybrid ridesharing network. The ride-hailing provider has more priority in partnership models to incorporate self-driving fleets. The company plans to integrate human and machine drivers in their ridesharing network infrastructure.
- The company wants to innovate to lower cost, not necessarily by reducing the service cost. The company is sourcing carpooling (express POOL) as one of the feasible ways of reducing cost indirectly by efficiently matching more riders. Also, Uber wants to adopt alternative forms of transportation such as bus network, metro, bikes, etc. through partnership, just like Amazon’s system of services to make that happen. In that way, people will have options to choose their most suitable way of moving.
- Freight and UberEats are two areas the company is focusing to improve its profit margin in a few years. Taking advantage of Uber’s brand and customer base, the company is modeling UberEAT to sustain its position as the world’s largest food delivery network with the exception of China. They plan to achieve this through an internal startup that would utilize the local infrastructure in every city. The company is relying on the hardcore execution of deliveries speedily as a means to grow UberEAT and not necessarily acquisitions.
- Selling Southeast Asia was a strategy to focus more and win the largest market in other regions such as India, Middle East, and Africa.
- Uber is setting up every arrangement necessary to go public in the second half of 2019
