Innovation And Entrepreneurship At Uber

Discuss about the Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Uber.

 

 

The previous assignment includes the management and business context about Uber. This discussion continues the previous assessment including an area, i.e. innovation and entrepreneurship. The organization can use this factor to improve its business practices and operations, as it is facing the issues related to intense competition, imitation of the business model, monetization, employee dissatisfaction and lack of loyalty between Uber and its drivers. This report examines the implementation of innovation and entrepreneurship at Uber. Furthermore, it includes the importance and benefits of these two aspects.

Uber is a company with high technology, which was established in the year 2009. It connects the transportation industry with the information technology using its app. It offered the services in more than 200 cities in 53 countries by the year 2014. Organization is valued at more than 40$ billion. The data shows that the value of Uber is more than full taxi industry in US (Willcocks, 2016). There are various reasons, why the people love to use Uber’s services; such as; it offers easier, more convenient and less expensive rides to reach their location.

From last few years, innovation has become a powerful force in shaping the competition and for the survival of the organizations in that competitive environment. Innovation and entrepreneurship are interconnected to each other (Wisdom, 2014). It is very useful tool for the entrepreneurs. It is a process, which needs considerable input and obligation from the organization. It is determined by the by the innovative potential of the employees. It is necessary that organization understands that what can drive the innovation and assist in simplifying it by using systems, strategies, forms of leadership and organizational culture. The entrepreneurs in the business require searching for the sources of innovation and their characteristics, which indicate the opportunities for implementing innovation successfully.

Entrepreneurship is not easy to define in few lines (Issac, 2014). This is a big concept and there are many arguments about that what the entrepreneurship is and how one can implement it in the operations. In general, entrepreneurship is the aspect, which includes the practices of entrepreneurs, like; their characteristics, activities and social and economic impact of their behavior. The entrepreneurs cannot be defined by knowing that who they are but they can be defined by knowing what they attain by making creative efforts. In the process of entrepreneurship, the people introduce, design and operate a new business or new start-up. According to a research, entrepreneurship is more than starting a new business (Willcocks, 2016). It includes the entire process in which, the people become more aware about the opportunities, which are there to allow them for developing new and creative ideas and taking initiatives and responsibilities.

Importance of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Innovation and entrepreneurship are very important for any organization. Both the contextual factors are interconnected with each other. Innovation is a wide concept, which includes the entrepreneurship. Innovation is necessary for the survival of entrepreneurs (Drucker, 2014). There are some examples of great entrepreneurs with innovation; like; Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft (Price, Stoica & Boncella, 2013). These people have shown that luck and money is not enough for the success of organization and entrepreneurship, but it also requires risk taking, creativity and organizational planning. They consider the innovation as a key action of entrepreneurship. The people with entrepreneurship use the innovation to find new opportunities and make changes for generating profits for their business. Entrepreneurship generates the financial gain and keeps the economy floating that raises the importance of innovation in the entrepreneurship. Innovation contributes to the success of the organization. In this competitive environment, innovation is very important to make yourself different from others. The organization should try to develop innovation and entrepreneurship by considering some success factors (Drucker, 2014). These factors are listed below:

• Organizational structure and systems
• Strategy and vision of organization
• Organizational aptitude
• New ideas and creative management
• Managing the technologies
• Leadership
• Risk management

Looking at the above-mentioned factors and identifying the value of innovation and creative entrepreneurship in the organization, the management can be optimistic towards the development and establishment of strategic thinking in an organization (Okpara, 2007). This strategic thinking on all the levels, i.e. individual and organizational levels, will help in developing better understanding about the organization and directs to continuous creativities by making consistency and foresight.

Application of the factors in Business practices at Uber

Innovation plays an important role in strategic business performance of any organization. Although Uber entered in the market with various innovative practices, but now there are so many competitors in the industry, so there is need of more innovation and entrepreneurship to enhance its business practices (McKissen, 2017). There are so many examples of this type of organizations, like; Apple, Inc., Proctor & Gamble and 3M. These are the organizations, which largely owe their excellent business success to a continuous record of successful innovation.  If the Uber Company utilizes the innovation and entrepreneurship in its operations, then it will benefit its business practices.

At Uber, Innovation is in the DNA. The company is thriving on finding the ways for improving and refining the technology to offer the reliable and safe rides to the customers. The application of Uber connects the drivers with the clients in the ways, which was not possible before five or six years. Uber is continuing to develop the technology to offer new services like; UberPool. This new service allows the customers riding in the same direction by sharing the trip. It assists to cut the costs of a ride and reduce the crowding overtime. Uber must use more innovative practices as the organizational value. It should hire creative people and place a creative culture.  Developing innovation and entrepreneurship in the organization will assist in nurture the effective leadership competency (UNSW Business School, 2010). The leaders will help in establish a creative culture. Innovation can improve the products and services and scale up the business of Uber. The management at the Uber, is considering some important factors for improving its business practices; these factors are given below;

It is the record of Uber that every day over 2 million people take the rides of Uber across 500 cities in the world. This shows that thousands of the people are opening the application of Uber and taking the rides and expecting that they will get reliable and convenient experience (Hunt, 2014). For this, the company has created a site reliability engineer’s team, which ensures the reliability by providing the people the peace of mind and convincing them that they will get the ride when they need the most. The team performs continuous tests on technology for maintaining the reliability.

Strong security begins with a great team in the organization. This is the reason, Uber has large and creative team of software developers, engineers, security officers, data scientists, and privacy management counsel and information security officers (Miller, Fern, & Cardinal, 2017). These people utilize both legal and technical resources to provide security to the information of riders and drivers. It is using technology in effective ways for improving the safety of riders. It is using various innovative and entrepreneurial plans; such as;

• Secure code
• Strong encryption
• Monitoring the access of data and information of riders and drivers

These practices are improving the business operations of the organization by increasing its customer base. If Uber adds values to these innovations, then it can be able to beat its competitors and cover a huge market share in the industry.

Disruptive innovation is the form of innovation, which creates a new value network and new market and ultimately disturbs existing market and displaces already established market leaders in the industry, products and services.  In this, the company establish in the market by using few resources (Dawson, P. & Andriopoulos, 2014). There is a controversial discussion that Uber is disruptive innovation. Some people have said that this company is using disruptive innovation because it had a large impact on the taxi or cab industry. The people are paying for cabs by using a simple app. Youth are using Uber to reach the places faster and saving their money (Horn, 2016).

Another argument says that Uber is not disruptive to the cabs and taxis as it does not meet the tests of disruptive innovation. This can be proven because it did not invent in low-end or new market position and it held on with the majority in a way that has been considered better than new entrants (Gil, 2014). The company is targeting the people, which are already using cabs many times. It has determined as more inexpensive than taxis, but it is not measured as inferior to taxi services. Thus, using this practice can enhance the business operations and practices at Uber.

Conclusion

From the assessment, it is concluded that Uber is facing various issues related to the customer relationship, technology and innovation and Supply chain management. So, the Uber should use the innovation and entrepreneurship in its operations for maximizing the growth. These two aspects can assist the organization in resolving these issues and enhancing its performance. Innovation and entrepreneurship will play a critical role in improving the business operations and practices of Uber. Thus, Uber should try to innovate and find new ways to serve its riders, communities and driver-partners. 

References

Dawson, P. & Andriopoulos, C. (2014). Managing Change and Innovation. Sage Publishing, London, U.K.

Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Routledge Publications.

Gil, E. (2014). Uber and disruption. Retrieved on December 19, 2014, from https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/19/uber-and-disruption/.

Horn, M. (2016). Uber Disruptive Innovation and Regulated Markets. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2016/06/20/uber-disruptive-innovation-and-regulated-markets/#7d2acef337fb.

Hunt, E. (2014). Uber's global expansion in five seconds. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/12/11/ubers-global-expansion/

Issac, E. (2014). Disruptive Innovation: Risk-Shifting and Precarity in the Age of Uber. BRIE Working Paper.

McKissen, D. (2017). Uber Really Isn't a Shiny New Thing. It's Actually the Same Old Story. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/dustin-mckissen/is-uber-an-innovation-or-another-example-of-technology-destroying-working-class-.html.

Miller, D. J., Fern, M. J., & Cardinal, L. B. (2007). The use of knowledge for technological innovation within diversified firms. The Academy of Management Journal, 50(2), 308–326.

Okpara, F.O. (2007). The Value of Creativity and Innovation in entrepreneurship. Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, Vol 3.

Price, D., Stoica M. & Boncella, R.J. (2013). The relationship between innovation, knowledge, and performance in family and non-family firms: an analysis of SMEs. Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Wisdom, J.P. (2014). Innovation Adoption: A Review of Theories and Constructs. Adm Policy Ment Health, 41 (4).

Willcocks, L.P. (2016). Business and management in a global context. University of London.