College of Business and Economics

Birzeit University

Subject: UBER
(Assignment #2)

Course: Operation Management

Instructor: Dr.

Prepared by:

Abdelrahman shaikh. (1185253)

Date: 8/10/2020
  About UBER:
It’s an innovation platform offers vehicles for hire, food delivery (Uber Eats), package
delivery, couriers, freight transportation, and, through a partnership with Lime, electric
bicycle and motorized scooter rental. The company is based in San Francisco and has
operations in over 900 metropolitan areas worldwide.1

It was able to create value for all parties in community (Value shared). It connects
people who are willing to pay for transportation services and are looking to get a more
decent, convenient and cheaper (usually) alternative to taxi with people who are willing
to drive people within a city and make money off of this.2

UBER explosive growth and constant controversy made it one of the most fascinating
companies to emerge over the past decade. The firm, founded in 2009, soon grew to
become the highest valued private startup company in the world.3

Uber Business Model

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber
2
Sayar, Ozan, 2015, Uber creates value for everyone
3
 BLYSTONE, DAN , 2019, The Story of Uber, Investopedia.
  Operations strategy:

Performance objectives:4

o Quality:
The quality of the service that is provided by Uber is another objective of the operations
team and the design of Uber promises to provide reliable services to the customers. The
demand of the customers is to get reliable services from the part of the organization and
in order to increase the service reliability, Uber helps to view the customers with the real
time location of the drivers and also texts the number of the drivers to the customer
mobile numbers so that the customers can call the drivers and know the exact location of
the drivers and communicate with the drivers regarding the trip.

o Speed
Uber relied on the use of technology mainly in providing its services, which contributed
to the implementation of carrying out its operations at a high speed. It was able to
connect between the driver and the customer through an application, and with one click
of a button the customer will be able to get his service.

o Dependently:
The customers also want the dependability of the services that is provided by Uber and
for that reason, the customers are told to rate the services of the drivers and thus the
dependability of the services is improved.

o Flexibility
As the number of population is continuously increasing in the world, the numbers of
customers that are demanding the services of Uber are also increasing in many countries
where the company serves. Thus, there is requirement for Uber to become flexible in the
market and cater their service more in the countries of their operations. As Uber hires
professional and licensed drivers, they are able to meet the customers’ demands with the
help of that and also with the help of improvement made in the level of technology, Uber
is able to focus more upon the changes that are taking place in the marketplace and
technological developments are also helping them to increase their flexibility as well as
their capacity in the marketplace.

4
UKEssays. (November 2018). Operations Management at Ube
 o Cost
The organization also focuses upon reduction of the cost with the help of implementation
of minimum regulation to become a driver with Uber. As the regulations that is
implemented by the company is of minimum amount, any person who is above the age of
21 years can become a driver and also any person having the driving license can driver
for the company. Also having a car with four doors is enough to drive with Uber and the
person should have a minimum amount of personal insurance to become a driver. But it is
mandatory that the person should not have any criminal background and the record of
accidents should be clear. Thus, the minimizations of the cost of Uber are supported by
the company with the help of employing the drivers with minimum requirements

Q1)
Bottoms Up — You can start from the vision of the company and come up with the set of
activities that you can choose to undertake.

Base use case — “Transporting people from point A to point B,

Taking the bottoms up approach here, we can start from the base
use case and try and think about features across several
dimensions that would further augment the base use case.

1st Dimension — People

The base case targets people who otherwise would have been using their own
cars/cabs, can this be extrapolated to people who do not use cars, but still need to
be transported from point A to Point B.

 Office Shuttles

 Auto-Rickshaws

 School Buses

 Ambulances
2nd Dimension — Transporting people

The base case targets transporting people, can this be extrapolated to other things
that need transportation.

 Food

 Packages

3rd Dimension — Point a to point B

The base case targets transporting people from Point A to Point B, can this be
extrapolated to multiple points.

 Point A to B, C, D, E

4th Dimension — Safety

What are the other ways we can make the ride safe?

5th Dimension — Reliability

What are the other ways we can make the ride reliable?

I feel strongly that culture needs to be written from the bottom up. A culture that’s pushed from
the top down doesn’t work, because people don’t believe in it. So instead of penning new values
in a closed room, we asked our employees for their ideas. More than 1,200 of them sent in
submissions that were voted on more than 22,000 times. We also held more than 20 focus groups
with representatives from our Employee Resource Groups and our international offices.

There were some common themes: many people liked how the spirit of the previous values
encouraged problem-solving and speed, but they wanted to see more around inclusion, teamwork
and collaboration. They also wanted to make clear that we will put integrity at the core of all our
decisions, and that we’re unafraid to admit mistakes when they happen.

We’re also calling these cultural norms, rather than values, because we fully expect them to
evolve as Uber continues to grow. Uber has always been a company that embraces change, and
going forward we’ll approach our culture in the same way. We certainly don’t expect these norms
to change overnight, or every year, but we always want to take stock of who we are, who we want
to be, and move accordingly.
These norms preserve the best of the founding Uber culture that built one of the world’s most
valuable and important companies, while recognizing that we must adapt to become a great
company where every person feels respected and challenged, can contribute in his or her own
way, and learn and grow as an individual and as a professional. At the same time, these norms
will take us forward and will hold each of us accountable as we continue to change Uber for the
better

Uber’s Cultural Norms

We build globally, we live locally. We harness the power and scale of our global operations to
deeply connect with the cities, communities, drivers and riders that we serve, every day.

We are customer obsessed. We work tirelessly to earn our customers’ trust and business by
solving their problems, maximizing their earnings or lowering their costs. We surprise and delight
them. We make short-term sacrifices for a lifetime of loyalty.

We celebrate differences. We stand apart from the average. We ensure people of diverse
backgrounds feel welcome. We encourage different opinions and approaches to be heard, and
then we come together and build.

We do the right thing. Period.

We act like owners. We seek out problems and we solve them. We help each other and those
who matter to us. We have a bias for action and accountability. We finish what we start and we
build Uber to last. And when we make mistakes, we’ll own up to them.

We persevere. We believe in the power of grit. We don’t seek the easy path. We look for the
toughest challenges and we push. Our collective resilience is our secret weapon.

We value ideas over hierarchy. We believe that the best ideas can come from anywhere, both
inside and outside our company. Our job is to seek out those ideas, to shape and improve them
through candid debate, and to take them from concept to action.

We make big bold bets. Sometimes we fail, but failure makes us smarter. We get back up, we
make the next bet, and we go!
when Uber executives sat down to redefine the new, much-needed #UberCulture, they
approached the process with their “customers” (employees) in mind first – not from the
traditional “top down” sense but, rather, from the “bottom up” – empowering employees to
have a voice in the direction as Uber enters the next phase of its growth. Uber employees
submitted 1,200 ideas for the new company culture, all of which were voted on (22,000 times!)
to ultimately decide the new company guidelines. While they’ve gotten a bit of
criticism for sounding too much like Google or Amazon, they’ve also made a huge leap
forward, toward a more cohesive culture. On words alone, they’ve gone from mantras like “toe-
steppin’” and “principled confrontation” to “celebrate differences” and “act like owners.” And
even more so, Uber (and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi) deserve kudos for engaging with their
employees like customers to quickly get everyone aligned and to move to the next stage.

We can learn a lot from this bottoms-up approach to culture. Ultimately culture is more than
words on a page, or a well-crafted vision and values statement – it is the way people interact and
engage with each other in a natural and organic way. By allowing employees to be a part of
shaping the culture at the onset, Uber hopefully can keep them motivated, engaged and energized
to contribute to the company’s future.

As we think about defining a “bottoms-up” culture, below are a few ideas to keep the momentum
going:

 Get personal: Just as Spotify customers love when the company sends them a personal playlist,
employees want to feel like they are more than a cog in a wheel. Personalized notes, thank yous,
shout-outs and, even, employee-driven recognition are great ways for people to feel recognized
by all levels, and appreciated for the work they do.

 Provide an authentic, transparent, open, ongoing forum for feedback: Employees who

 Welcome the not so positive: Similar to allowing for public commentary on a company

 Focus on the employee “experience”: Just like customer “experience” is the hot topic
for marketers today, employees equally want to be a part of the company experience.
This means not only allowing for two-way communication but, also, giving employees
opportunities to experience your brand through new technologies, forums for idea
exchange and interaction, story-telling, content creation and open dialogue. Employees
 want to feel that the brand on the outside reflects the brand on the inside, and that they
see themselves in the company experience.5

5
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bottoms-up-ubers-smart-approach-company-culture-kathy-bloomgarden