Advantages Of Uber Business Strategy

I love the book Playing to Win! As I mentioned last week, the authors have taken this whole complicated idea of business strategy and broken it down into five simple, yet brilliant choices. On the surface the questions or choices seem rather elementary, but it is when you really delve into the heart of the questions that you get the answers and the information that can lead your business to success. It is the act and thought process behind each choice that really speak to your overall business strategy, although business owners must not fall into the dangerous temptations of failing to choose, trying to buy your way out of a choice or accepting that an existing choice is permanent.

In looking at the Uber case, I think it is evident that they

While they implemented user friendly features, they didn’t do appropriate background checks to ensure customer safety and they didn’t protect customer data and privacy. Uber also made a choice in where to play. They started their operation in the black car market – a small niche area of the transportation industry. Once they were successful in that market, they quickly realized emergent strategies for the other markets such as Uber X, Uber SUV, Uber Luxury, etc. When it comes to the choice of how to win, Uber certainly adopted a low cast strategy to get into the business. They could offer better service at a lower price than existing competitors, giving them a winning strategy. Although we haven’t completely gotten into the remaining two questions in the book for core capabilities and management systems, I will base my answers on my knowledge up to this point. For core capabilities, Uber has a good understanding of their core capabilities and they have used to grow and expand into other market areas such as Uber Eats. By understanding their core capabilities, they were able to sense and seize the opportunity in front of them. In order to be successful in the future, I think they

The old saying goes failure to plan means planning to fail. I look at strategic management as the utmost process in planning for business success. Firm leadership has the ultimate responsibility for strategic management. They must be visionary and capable of setting aggressive goals that are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound), an inspiring mission and vision that will motivate the employees as well as the stakeholders of the business. Leadership will not only have to build a plan with an effective strategy utilizing the strategic resources and capabilities that exist within the business, but they will also have the responsibility for executing the plan which can be the most difficult part of the entire process. In order to achieve this, the leadership will need to communicate effectively at all levels while coordinating various departments and efforts to ensure that everyone is still focused and moving towards the same end goal. Effective strategic management also requires leadership to constantly be monitoring and evaluating the plan to see what changes may need to be made and if the overall plan and strategy needs to be adjusted. They must constantly be monitoring and evaluating both internal and external factors that may threaten to take away their competitive advantage – looking for lower cost opportunities if they are following a cost leadership