The story of Uber began on a cold winter’s night in Paris in 2008, when Garrett Camp and Trent Kalanick had trouble hailing a cab. In true entrepreneurial style, rather than complain about the problem, the two men developed an idea for a limo timeshare service that would be a mobile, fast, and upper-class option for travelers. Camp thought the idea would accomplish his goal of developing an iPhone app to help with the taxi issues in San Francisco. Camp began to work on the app in March 2009, and by mid-2009, Kalanick joined the firm as Uber’s chief incubator. The first test run was conducted in New York in 2010 and the app was officially launched in San Francisco on May 31, 2010. Garrett Camp could not have known that his prototyping of an iPhone app would revolutionize the transportation business, and impact what is known today as the “sharing economy’. Little did anyone imagine that the COVID virus would have a significant impact on Uber’s strategic plan.
Uber created a disruptive technology in the for-hire customer transportation industry. Read the case study and, using a CURRENT SEC FORM 10K, prepare an analysis of Uber addressing the following issues:
– Characterize the effectiveness of Uber’s competitive strategy
– Discuss the outside forces affecting Uber’s performance
– Identify the key elements of Uber’s customer value proposition
– Discuss the company’s financial performance using profitability measures
– Identify the strategic issues that should concern Uber management going forward
