Uber is an international technology company with a presence in over 360 cities and 66 countries. Uber began its work in Moscow in December 2013. To date, Uber is available in seven Russian cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don and Sochi. Uber operates in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation.

Uber is mobile app, which connects users and drivers. The Uber platform is based on new technologies that make the service not only accessible, reliable and safe, but also create new economic opportunities for the economies of states, individual sectors of industry and individuals.

CREATING ADDITIONAL ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

For partners

We create new economic opportunities for thousands of people in every country where we operate. Drivers who are self-employed or legal entities choose to partner with Uber for a variety of reasons. Someone wants to have a permanent source of income, someone is looking for flexible work formats that are compatible, for example, with personal projects, or Additional income. According to surveys of our partners, more than 80% of them choose to work with Uber because they want to be independent. This fact is most relevant today throughout the world, including in Russia, where more and more emphasis is being placed on the development of self-employment of the population.

The technologies that underlie the work of Uber allow the partner to organize their time more efficiently, while having a decent income. The system redirects the ride request from the user to the nearest driver. This reduces downtime and idling. In late 2015, Uber released a number of updates to the driver app that support the efficiency thesis:

  • the application has a news feed that informs about important events in the city, travel demand maps showing areas with driver shortages, aggregated user rating and comment information, and earnings reports. All this allows the driver to organize his day more efficiently and decide on the time to get on the line.
  • a function has been introduced that allows the driver to receive information about the pickup point of the car for the next trip a few minutes before the end of the current trip. This update allows the driver to plan a future route more efficiently, building it already at the end of the current trip.

These technological solutions allow partners to make more trips per unit of time and, at affordable rates for users, earn more at the same time.

For cities

Uber does not accept cash for payment - all transactions are automatic: they are transparent and can be controlled. The new controlled economic activity contributes to the increase in tax revenues in the country. The money that we pay partners for trips becomes part of the country's economy.

Thanks to Uber's presence in countries, related industries are also benefiting, including car manufacturing and maintenance, car loans and insurance, among others. Uber has agreements with Baidu and AliPay in China and Tata in India. We are already cooperating with many Russian companies and are considering the possibility of concluding similar agreements with new local partners in Russia.

THE SHARING ECONOMY AND THE EFFICIENCY OF URBAN TRANSPORTATION

The sharing economy is a relatively new phenomenon, but it has already proved its sustainability and effectiveness. It involves the development of unused or underused objects or resources. According to our calculations, the car is one of the most illiquid assets and is used only 4% of its capacity, and 96% of the time is in the parking lot. At the same time, on average, up to 15% of the urban space of the metropolis is allocated to parking spaces.

Uber can increase the efficiency of private car use by 4 times (own calculations: a personal car, making about 2-2.5 trips per day, transports about 4 passengers, an Uber partner's car makes up to 10 trips, while carrying 16 passengers per day). Thus, such a low-liquid asset as a personal car not only increases its efficiency, but also becomes a tool for obtaining an additional source of income. In today's economic situation, the usefulness of the Uber platform in this sense cannot be denied.

RATES AND BENEFITS FOR USERS

In addition to the benefits of the platform for partners and the economy of cities described above, we should not forget about the benefits of having an application in the city for ordinary users.

Uber fares are clear and transparent to the user. The user can always estimate the cost of the trip before starting it through the application, and payment is made only by bank transfer, which guarantees transparency. Fares for trips have not increased since the launch of the popular uberX service in different cities of Russia.

Uber's system evenly distributes cars across the city based on demand data analysis. The request for a ride is sent to the nearest vehicle. This allows you to significantly reduce the delivery time. In Moscow, for example, since the launch of the service, the average delivery time has decreased from 10 to about 6 minutes on average, thanks to which Uber has become an addition to the city's transport system and a convenient alternative to existing modes of transportation. In more mature markets for Uber (USA, China), the average pick up time can be 3 or even 1 minute.

Uber has already expanded the demand for the services of its partners - not only those who used taxi services before, but also those who never did, because these services were not available or inconvenient, book rides through the Uber app.

We observe the efforts of the regional authorities to increase the attractiveness of cities for tourists both from Russia and abroad, and highly appreciate these efforts. The Uber platform, available in more than 360 cities around the world, will become an alternative way to move around the city for foreign tourists traveling in Russia, as well as for Russian travelers inside the country.

SAFETY

The safety of users and drivers is a priority for Uber. The Uber platform has a number of technological advantages that contribute to the safety of users and drivers before, during and after the end of the trip.

BEFORE YOU GO

  • Uber users don't have to hail the car on the street - instead, they can book a ride through the app and wait for the car to arrive indoors.
  • When ordering a ride through the Uber app, the system connects the user to the driver closest to them. The order distribution system does not imply any preference for pickup location or destination.
  • Trips are not anonymous. Once the system accepts a ride request, the user receives a wealth of information about the driver, including name, photo, car number, make, and rating.
  • In addition, the user can always contact the drivers directly through the application.

DURING THE TRIP

  • The location of the car is updated in the application in real time. Users know where they are at every moment of the trip.
  • Users can send their loved ones a link to their travel itinerary with the ability to view the car's progress in real time, as well as information about the expected time of arrival.
  • Payment for trips is carried out automatically - the cost is debited from bank card associated with the application. This reduces the risk of disputes over the cost of the trip, eliminates the need to carry cash and eliminates the possibility of non-payment of the trip. Cashless payment is a significant advantage for partner drivers: the presence of large amounts of cash makes them a potential target for intruders.
  • GPS technology allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of the selected route for each trip. This motivates drivers to choose the route more responsibly and significantly improves the quality of service.

AFTER THE TRIP

  • Rating system. Users and partner drivers rate each other after each trip and can leave feedback with comments.
  • Efficient support service. If users or partner drivers have questions about the details of a trip or about the operation of the service as a whole, they can contact the support service at support@website, which is always ready to provide the necessary information.

HOW TECHNOLOGIES CONTRIBUTE TO PUBLIC SAFETY

  • There is a direct relationship between Uber's work in cities and the reduction in driving in cities. drunk. Temple University researchers estimate that the availability of the Uber app in various California cities has reduced drink-driving fatalities by about 5%.
  • Uber has partnered with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in the US. The purpose of the partnership is to draw attention to the problem of drunk driving and inform the public about available alternatives.

Thanks to Vladimir Rumyantsev I began to think a lot about the “uberization” of the economy. The topic is very extensive, strategic, and this process is one of those that radically change the very face of the economy, the behavior of subjects and macro parameters. This is what I would like to summarize as concisely as possible.

So, by “uberization” we mean the impact on the sectors of the economy of services that ensure the coordination of the activities of independent market agents, optimizing the relationship between them. In this case, "uber" is not a proper name, but a common noun, which, like a photocopier, will denote a whole class of phenomena.

For a deep understanding of "how it happens and where it leads" I highly recommend watching a video lecture by Vladimir Rumyantsev. It's long, but worth it. Here I want to formulate the key theses, the most important for understanding. So…

Who is "uber"?

Uber is a service in a certain market, coordinating the activities of independent agents in real time, using information and telecommunication technologies, built on uniform rules, as well as on the principles of voluntary participation and mutual benefit. IN general case he provides the most effective “need-opportunity” docking, receiving a remuneration for his services that is significantly less than transaction costs agents to the same docking in other ways. At the same time, Uber itself is also an independent agent, whose “greed” is constrained, firstly, by the requirement of obvious utility to market participants, and secondly, by the absence of a monopoly on “uber services”.

What is the meaning of "uber"?

Properly prepared Uber primarily reduces the transaction costs of its customers through:

  1. Continuous optimization of economic links and value chains in real time.
  2. The exclusion of unproductive, "arbitrage" links that do not create real value for the market.
  3. "Concentration of the target function", i.e. spreading a single approach to all participants of the "uber-service".
  4. Automation of all of the above, exclusion of a person from the process.

What does Uber do?

The key thing that a good, fit “uber” does is that it takes over part of the business functions of its customers, formats them in a uniform way, for all its customers in the same way, and determines the “rules of the game” that balance the interests of independent market agents.

For example, the "uber" that Uber, or, a more understandable example - Yandex.Taxi takes over business functions:

  1. Search for a client, providing him with information
  2. Determining the cost and reaching an agreement on the deal
  3. Deal execution management and communications during execution
  4. Execution quality control
  5. Settlements between the parties

I note that this is the terminal case of “market uberization”, when “uber” takes over virtually all the key and common business processes for this market, and links them together. "Just add cars." But the market here is also structurally simple, operates with a small number of service parameters, and is generally quite primitive. In more complex cases, Uber is more likely to take over one specific business function without much division into separate markets, but it takes it from beginning to end.

Keynote: Doesn't just "provide information to participants", but it formats and effectively performs a certain part of the business functions in a uniform way! At the same time, performing this function completely, i.e. if selling, then from presenting the product to the client through a transaction to receiving quality feedback from the client.

How is Uber beneficial to the market?

Reducing transaction costs. It performs the processes it takes on much more efficiently than the agent itself, in each instance of the process providing a result, if not optimal, then obviously better in terms of result/effort, with additional risk reduction.

For example: it is more convenient and faster for a client to call a taxi through a service than to call 10 dispatching offices and compare prices. At the same time, he can be sure that the cost will not be higher than the market average, the quality will be acceptable, and if something goes wrong, the contractor will be held responsible. Similarly, it is more profitable for the owner of the machines to receive a flow of orders and pay a commission upon receipt of payment than to maintain their own structure that will look for these orders.

Keynote: Uber must perform the target business function more efficiently than its owner or other Uber

Where is the place for Uber?

Where a large number of agents interact, and there are pairwise joined business functions, or approaches and algorithms of actions that are sufficiently unified and accepted by society.

Obviously, this is, of course, “buy-sell”, because the essence of the economic relations of the subjects comes down to this. But to single out the "buy-sell" subject area and format it uniformly - this is the art of "uber-building".

In addition, it is necessary that any single good or service be necessarily produced and consumed by a relatively large number of agents or can be easily replaced.

Keynote: Wide markets with a well-established conceptual system, an easily cataloged (and ideally charged) set of goods/services with a finite set of parameters, but at the same time with a significant number of agents, are “uberized” most quickly. Markets with “blurred” definitions of goods and services, and especially markets with a strong dependence of value on non-catalogued parameters of a product / service, are badly “cleaned up”.

Where there is no place for Uber?

  1. The number of active agents is small, and is calculated not in thousands, but in hundreds or, even worse, in units. It's just that everyone knows everyone there.
  2. The properties of a product/service/object of interaction cannot be clearly described and formalized, or the products are unique. The art market, for example. Or barrels for tanks.
  3. Where transactions have a unique, piece-by-piece character with an extremely high complexity of the subject of the transaction.

keynote: uber is for mass markets with thousands and millions of participants, unique products, narrow niches and specific markets are not for him. Although companies operating in these markets will also benefit from Uber in some other part of their activities.

What do I need to “remove” to succeed in transforming the market?

I believe the following is needed:

  1. The ability to determine reasonable “rules for the performance of a business function” that will suit the majority of market participants, and, ideally, tariffs;
  2. The ability to sufficiently structure the subject of interaction between agents;
  3. A sufficient number of active agents providing high liquidity for each agent separately.

Keynote: Uber's "utility" grows non-linearly with the number of participants, subject to the balance of participants by roles. The condition for success is sanity general rules"Ubera".

How does uberization affect business size?

Contributes to its fragmentation and deepening the division of labor. "Vertical integration" has the main goal of reducing transaction costs and risks associated with the provision of technological chains. Undeveloped markets, a high probability of not getting the right parts, goods or services are the main driver. Properly cooked Uber provides lower transaction costs and less risk in supply chains than subsistence farming, and an order of magnitude greater supply scalability.

For example: if at any time you have dozens of nut manufacturers at your fingertips with their stocks, a “fair” price leveled by the market, and a very low probability of not fulfilling the deal, then your own nut-cutting plant becomes meaningless. Either you include it in Uber and it works as an independent link in the market with all consumers of nuts, or you are inefficient, and your final product is not optimal in terms of cost. And by the way, the nut-tapping machine either stands, or threshes in three shifts.

In addition, it’s not important to “remove” it - to work with a thousand agents conducting a hundred transactions a day or with a hundred thousand agents conducting one transaction. This is a technology that scales very cheaply.

Keynote: From the point of view of the business function, Uber provides the efficiency of interaction between independent entities, significantly exceeding the efficiency of interaction between vertically integrated structures, lower transaction costs and risks, thereby increasing the specialization of entities, deepening the division of labor and the allocation of markets. The number of agents does not matter, Uber scales easily. Strategically, "uberization" leads to the destruction of vertically integrated structures.

How does uberization affect price and competition?

Aligns the price according to the balance of supply and demand, taking into account such factors as the reputation and history of agents, "backup" by the cost price and the marginal price that the buyer is willing to pay, etc. Thus, a successful Uber generates a fair market price.

By creating this price, he significantly increases the role of internal efficiency in achieving success in a “hard-to-Uberize” sector, i.e. needs to be optimally basic function - to decide what to produce and produce a product / service.

On the other hand, competition partially goes into the plane of creating new products, the reputation of the manufacturer. An impeccable reputation allows you to sell a little more expensive, a new product - allows you to briefly shift the balance of the market in your favor.

Keynote: The right uber equalizes the price by reducing the “accidental”, non-market, manipulative and corrupt profits of manufacturers, thus leveling the opportunity. The point that determines the effectiveness of an Über-economy agent shifts from efficient sales to efficient production of goods/services. The distribution of market volumes largely depends on the reputation and efficiency of production. Ineffective - die. Efficient and decent - develop.

How does Uber help create new businesses?

It simultaneously stimulates a small and focused business and reduces the cost of the "entry ticket" because it provides ready-made key business functions - sales and procurement - completely free of charge. Do you want to produce nuts? The current price level - here it is, consider the cost for yourself, the Uber commission is known. Market volumes in comparison with your plans are huge. Profitable? Register and start selling. Immediately, today.

Keynote: Uber makes it easier to create new businesses by providing them with very effective key business functions on the one hand and "fragmenting" the business on the other.

What are the prospects for "uberization"?

Uber accumulates colossal amounts of data about its target market, while the accumulation is not of the administrative-compulsory nature of state statistics, but of an objective and natural nature. So, Uber or Yandex.Taxi “knows” about the taxi market an order of magnitude more than any experts, organizations or industry associations, if only they manage the accumulated data correctly. Here it is, BigData!

Proper management of this data, turning it into information, gives a result of unprecedented value, at least:

  1. Dynamics of markets depending on. In the context of the day-month-weather-the number of clouds in the sky, the position of the stars, whatever. This enables Über customers to further optimize their business.
  2. Market imbalances and niches. Something that an individual manufacturer can only guess about, and analytical organizations - to assume, "uber" is simply knows.
  3. In the B2C sector, Uber can form market analysis tools, consumer behavior and preferences of such efficiency that no marketing agency was even close.

Keynote: At a certain stage of maturity, Uber begins to work on the development of the market as a whole by turning the accumulated data into knowledge. The knowledge gained allows Über-clients to further optimize their business, while investors reduce the risks of investing in enterprises in the sector.

Uber plus business IT systems = ?

As I already wrote, a good Uber structures the market, provides a "fair price" and sets the same "rules of the game". And besides - high liquidity. Those. the function it performs in itself already has an extremely a high degree automation and internal logic. The next step is the integration of enterprise management and reporting IT systems based on open APIs and business logic rules, which allows you to build fully automatic production planning processes from actual sales in pull mode. Manufacturing on demand and other lean with kanban seem to appear out of nowhere here, thanks to the properties of Uber itself.

This means that sales through Uber can automatically generate a production plan in the planning system, which generates the need for materials and components, which, again, through Uber, perhaps another, automatically go into the "purchase" and appear in the right quantity. at the right time and at the best price. And on the next "shoulder" this process will be repeated for the next agent, and so on cyclically until the entire production chain is "collected". Without human intervention, with automatic optimization at every step, who can be trusted. And all transactions related to this will themselves fall into the accounting system.

Keynote: the total "uberization" of the economy means a multiple increase in the efficiency of production chains, their continuous optimization and the exclusion of a person as a factor from them. As well as the transition from private decisions “where to buy” and “how much to sell” to general decisions such as “pricing policy” and “business expansion strategy”. The number of participants in the chain ceases to matter. The focus is shifting from interaction efficiency to production efficiency.

Is Uberization limited to one particular sector?

No, it's not limited. First, "uberization" as a concept works in almost every sector of the economy, with rare exceptions. Secondly, the successful "uberization" of one sector moves the "bottleneck" that hinders the development of the market to another sector and induces the same process of "uberization" there.

For example, the rise of China's mega-uber retailers taobao.com and aliexpress.com has posed a problem: the logistics of retail orders that millions of independent sellers send to billions of shoppers. The answer was the "uberization" of logistics - Cainiao.com, which, on the basis of uniform principles, aggregates more than 3 thousand organizations involved in transport and delivery, from the largest global networks to small private companies. As a result, this gave a system in which more than 1.7 million employees, more than 400 thousand machines, participate in a coordinated way. On the "bachelor's day" on November 11, 2015, the service processed approximately 500 million (!!!) orders for delivery.

In addition, the interaction of "uberized sectors" further reduces transaction costs by integrating the "ubers" of these sectors, including the processes supported by one "uber" in the processes of another through the interaction of information systems, APIs, etc.

keynote: the progress of "uberization" of one sector drags along the need for "uberization" of another. The interaction of two "Ubers" is easily automated and entails a significant cumulative effect that strengthens both. A good "Uber" is always ready to meet a brother in mind from the adjacent segment, or even create one.

Is Uber scaling and where?

Not just scalable, but highly scalable. Since a good Uber is built on the basis of the principle “20% of efforts provide 80% of the result”, affects the most common processes and, in general, appeals more to human properties and the objective laws of the economy, it easily oversteps the boundaries with minimal costs, spreads its influence to adjacent markets or uses the same approaches in other seemingly markets. Through Gett.com you can order not only a taxi, but also sushi. Aliexpress started working in Russia and aims at India, Pakistan, the USA and beyond - everywhere.

There are only two serious restrictions for the correct Uber: the market limit and another Uber.

keynote: a successful "uber" will inevitably hit the "market ceiling" and is doomed to expand, geographically, into other niches, into related services.

Many projects that claim to be “uber” are not actually such, primarily because instead of a high-quality performance of a business function, they offer, even if high-quality, but the performance of a small part of this business function, therefore the market transformation effects described above are not achieved. or very limited. So, for example, they are not "uber":

  • Subject boards of announcements. They provide little interaction optimization as a very small part of the sell-buy business functions.
  • Marketplaces like Yandex.Market. This is essentially an aggregator of online storefronts, the same “bulletin board”, a little more structured.
  • B2B portals of a wide profile. If you look, most of them are no different from the "bulletin boards".
  • Marketplaces as we see them in Russia. The problem with them is that they are focused on the result in the form of concluding a contract in accordance with a formal procedure, and not on optimizing the business functions of the participants.

keynote: not everything is "uber" where there is a buyer and a seller in one place. Uber is what provides effective interaction businesses/customers, not their employees, and handles transactions from start to finish with minimal human intervention.

Can the government create Uber?

Unlikely. It can help, as in China, watch the lecture on the video. Or at least don't interfere. A successful Uber earns on successful transactions of its customers and, therefore, is maximally focused on increasing the number and volume of these transactions. The state (any!!!) does not like and does not know how to do such things, but it has a penchant for regulation and coercion, because in its very essence it is an element of coercion. In addition, the state does not accept competition with itself, a good Uber must grow under the pressure of competitors.

The maximum that the state can reasonably do is to stimulate and support such projects, use the knowledge they have accumulated to manage the industries to the maximum and not interfere.

Keynote: the state as a “cleaner” is ineffective at best, harmful at worst due to fundamentally different motivations both as an entity and specific performers.

Is it possible to sit down and come up with an "uber" for a specific segment?

Can. And even necessary. The result is not guaranteed, but the probability of a positive result is significantly higher than the probability of coming across an “uber idea” by chance.

What do I need to do? The following is seen:

  1. Define the market, area, segment. Because you can't think about everything at once.
  2. Define a set of "counter functions". Most often - buy-sell, but here it is necessary to clearly articulate - and who sells what to whom? In fact, this is a clearer definition of the market, segment or area. Less often - "what information do we concentrate, where do we get it from and who needs it."
  3. Highlight key roles regarding these functions and understand their interests. What do they want in this function, what is the criterion for its optimal performance? How Uber Can Add Value and Fit More Completely interests roles.
  4. As paragraphs 2 and 3 are worked out, the areas can “float”. It may be useful to include some other adjacent area into consideration, or maybe, on the contrary, reduce the zone. This is fine.
  5. Understand the principles of "docking" functions. Criteria of "optimal transaction".
  6. Formulate an “uber-service” in relation to roles, because it is different for different roles. And the value it brings. This point is already a success.
  7. Look at the market, figure out how your Uber can transform it, what is the monetization model, how big is the required “critical mass” of Uber customers. Simply put - where is the money and is it there at all?
  8. Take money, people, spend a couple of years of your life and, if you do everything right, you will have your own Uber!

Naturally, the passage along this path requires a certain mindset and analytical abilities, so if anything -. The service is paid.

In conclusion

“Uberization” is the same process of penetration information technologies to all markets, which should fundamentally change the system of economic relations, planning, production and consumption. This is not just a local trend, it is a megatrend, a mainline direction, a strategic perspective.

The concept of increasing efficiency by automating internal processes has already won back, there are no longer significant reserves for growth. The concept of peer-to-peer interaction of information systems of enterprises without human participation did not take off at all, because in isolation from the entire market, such interaction does not carry much value.

Looking at what is happening in China (again referring to the video of the lecture!), one cannot fail to notice that “uberization” has not just “taken off”. She rushes at full speed, rolling out those who have not yet understood what the point is. Be in the system or die! At the same time, this system is completely voluntary, absolutely market-based and unprecedentedly open.

It seems that a real revolution in the service sector is taking place before our eyes.

In Russia, the so-called uberization is gaining momentum, realizing the long-standing dream of consumers and producers - the elimination of intermediaries between those who sell goods or provide services and their consumers, providing fast, convenient and reliable communication between them.

The term comes from the name of the American company "Uber Technologies" ("Uber"), which was founded in 2009 by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick. (on the picture) . Using the mobile application developed by her for smartphones, you can call a taxi much faster and cheaper than usual.

Uber does not have its own fleet, in fact it is a technological Internet platform that functions as an electronic trading platform ("marketplace") where buyers choose the best suppliers. The advantage is given to those aggregators that have managed to combine the largest number of offers of goods or services from small companies and individuals. All "uber-platforms" use the Internet for fast and flexible communication between the consumer and the service provider.

Uber was not a pioneer, in 2008 young designer Brian Chesky launched a similar service in California at airbedandbreakfast.com ("Airbnb") for online booking of rooms, apartments and private homes, which is now used by 40 million people in different countries peace. Fame "Uber" brought loud and scandalous confrontation with taxi drivers and authorities in the United States, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Chile and other countries.

The problem is that Uber is diverting customers' orders not only to licensed professional taxi drivers, but mostly to unlicensed private drivers who work part-time in their own cars.

The Uber service determines the location of the client and provides a taxi within 5-10 minutes and provides mobile payment for the service. According to the Pareto principle, 80% of the payment is received by the driver, 20% is transferred to Uber.

The emergence of Uber and similar services has brought down the prices of transportation and hurt the income of traditional taxi companies. In addition, import licenses in some countries are unrealistically expensive. So, in France, official taxi drivers have to pay from 50 to 250 thousand euros for the right to engage in passenger transportation. In this country, the operation of the Uber service has been banned since January 2015 by a law that does not allow drivers without a license to engage in commercial transportation. In June of this year, a court in France fined Uber 800,000 euros for illegally providing transport services and for employing unprofessional drivers. In addition, the head of Uber in Europe and the head of his division were found guilty of dishonest commercial practices and operating a service that provides illegal services. They were fined 30 and 20 thousand euros, respectively. In early July, Uber announced the suspension of its service in France.

Hungary passed a law this summer allowing authorities to block online taxi service providers even though they have a private license to transport people and pay all taxes. Therefore, the Uber taxi service has suspended its work in Hungary since July 24. But already in August, Uber was replaced in Budapest by a new service for calling cars from mobile phones from Estonia. True, it, unlike Uber, uses official base rates, licenses, yellow cars and payment meters.

In Chile, private cab drivers face fines of up to $1,200.

Traditional taxi companies that have invested heavily in their own fleet, dispatch and marketing services are suffering serious losses. They have to change outdated business models in order to survive in a rapidly spreading "Uberization".

The Uber service is facing problems from the authorities in a number of countries where it is forbidden to carry out cabs without a license. In addition, the company has many competitors. Despite this, the Uber company is developing rapidly, providing services in 470 cities in 68 countries around the world. Its business has grown to enormous proportions and is now valued at nearly $68 billion, more than the capitalization of our Gazprom.

In Russia, the Uber service has been operating since 2013, it is available in Moscow, St. Petersburg and seven million-plus cities, to which six more will be added this year. The geography of its presence will expand further, to cities with a population of about 500,000 people.

Moreover, it is far from being the leader in Russia: the Yandex.Taxi service and the Israeli company Gett are significantly ahead of Uber both in terms of the number of cars and in terms of revenue. In Moscow, the city government entered into an agreement with Uber, under which it obliged the company to cooperate only with legal taxi drivers and transfer data to the authorities on the movement of their cars around the city.

Uber is expanding its business by issuing interest-free loans to tens of thousands of new driver partners who will pay off debts from the money earned by driving.

Fraser Robinson, Regional Director of Business Development for Uber Technologies in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, spoke at the XX St. Petersburg International Economic Forum this summer and told how they managed to “blow up the world”: “The world wants to be blown up. There is a need for this. Uber wasn't going to radically change the world, it just happened on its own. good ideas gain popularity, they provide a service that is in demand. Every time we come to a new city, we see one trend - the market is underserved. Appears on-demand-economy - "economy on demand", which is based not on the sale of goods and services, but obtaining access to them on demand, or sharing-economy - "sharing economy", which is based on the concept of sharing.

In Russia, in many areas there are too many unscrupulous intermediaries who profit from the resale of goods and services, as a result of which the prices of almost everything are greatly inflated. So, the head of the Federal Agency for Fishery, Ilya Shestakov, said in June this year that the price of Russian fish on the way from the producer to the counter increases by 3-4 times.

According to him, the Federal Agency for Fishery conducted its own investigation and found out that the main problem- a large number of intermediaries who pass the fish from hand to hand on the way from the place of catch to the store. These are, as a rule, 4-5 companies, each of which sets its own margin. Fighting them with managerial and administrative measures does not bring any special results.

The idea of ​​the "Uber" business model quickly became popular;

The most active online trading platforms modeled on the Uber service are created in the field of financial and banking services, medicine, education and trade. Through websites or mobile applications on smartphones, you can order not only a taxi and rent a hotel, but also delivery of goods, repairs and cleaning in an apartment, a nanny for a child, call a doctor or teacher, get legal advice...

Russian services for the delivery of farm products were forced out of the trade chain by dealers. The YouDo service, created in 2012, allows you to easily and quickly find repairmen, couriers, cleaners, carriers, and tutors. The service works like this: the customer places an order for the service on the site and indicates the amount of its payment. The contractors send him their proposals, from which the customer chooses the most suitable one. Last year, the YouDo service received 650,000 orders in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which were completed by 60,000 performers. The average cost of an order was more than 2 thousand rubles, of which the service itself received from 5 to 15% in the form of a commission.

The Uber business model is not only a technological platform that eliminates unnecessary intermediaries, it creates a simpler and more convenient system of relations between performers and consumers with minimal time and financial costs.

Several functions at once - determining the location of the client, choosing performers, mobile payment, personnel management - are packaged in one Internet application and performed with a simple keystroke.

Uberization is opposed mainly by representatives of large and medium-sized companies, who are used to making money the old fashioned way and are not ready for the inevitable changes that are taking place. This was the case 200 years ago, when the Luddites protested against the introduction of weaving machines, and a hundred years ago, when cab drivers tried to stop cars from entering their business.

Now Internet aggregators of goods and services are accused of unfair competition, which leads to economic chaos, bankruptcies and unemployment.

Supporters of new technologies believe that, on the contrary, jobs are being created, small and medium-sized businesses are developing, and the quality of services is improving due to competition and the introduction of higher standards.

Such services are also accused of insufficient regulation, shortfall in taxes and poor quality control of the services provided.

For example, in Moscow, the taxi service "Uber" in the user agreement states that it is not a transport company and, therefore, is not responsible for "indirect, incidental, unforeseen, actual, punitive or consequential damages", for "lost data, personal injury or property damage" and for "any loss, liability or damage... Under no circumstances will Uber's total liability to you in connection with the services provided exceed EUR 500 for all loss, damage and cause of action" .

However, Uber's business model allows it to control the quality of its partners' work. If the passenger was not satisfied with the trip or the buyer received the goods late, you can send a negative review, which will lower the rating of the performer.

Uberization has made taxi travel more affordable. results sociological survey VTsIOM showed last fall that Russians began to travel by taxi twice as much, and the market for illegal transportation in Moscow alone has shrunk by almost three times in three years.

The Uber business model is effective in areas where there are a large number of consumers who need services that can be easily standardized for both performers and customers.

The Uber company itself will not only transport passengers, but everything that will be in demand by customers. This fall, she, together with the Volvo company, begins testing self-driving cars (without drivers). In addition, Uber bought Otto, a company that develops autonomous driving technology for trucks.

All this should affect the entire transport system, change the traffic situation and the behavior of people in the urban services market.

In the future, "uberization" will spread to areas not yet covered by it. Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) estimates that the top five sectors of the Uber economy (travel, carsharing, financial services, hiring, music and video streaming) have the potential to grow from last year's $15 billion to $335 billion in 2025.

In addition, "uberization" is beneficial to people in a purely financial aspect. The American "JP Morgan Chase Institute" has calculated that the "sharing economy" can increase the income of citizens working with online platforms by an average of 15%.

The economy of the future will become more open, voluntary and self-regulating, rid of unnecessary intermediaries and less dependent on officials and bureaucrats. This economy equalizes opportunities for large and small companies, individual entrepreneurs. Competition will intensify, which will force you to constantly come up with various improvements and innovations in order to stay afloat.

Especially for "Century"

The disruptive business models of digital-focused startups are threatening established brands. To understand that the threat is serious, it is enough to take a closer look at the most expensive startup in the history of mankind.

Today, every top manager knows high-profile digital business success stories. The fact that the capitalization of AirBnB, which does not have a single bed, exceeded the capitalization of the Hyatt hotel chain. About how Instagram was sold for $1 billion with no working product and just 16 employees, while the huge Kodak, whose factories employed tens of thousands of people, went bankrupt, although it had patents for digital photography.

These stories are inspiring but do not fully explain why these business models work. It seems that their success is due to some exclusive circumstances, especially since common pattern for successful business digitization, of course not. Nevertheless general schemes and the driving forces behind successful digital business models are in place. In this sense, Uber can be considered a system and trend-forming company. Its business model is so destructive that the company's promotion to the market is accompanied by numerous lawsuits from the old-fashioned competitors.

How to change the customer experience

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick now says he got the idea for the business in Paris in 2008 when he couldn't get a cab.

If you trace the value chain of a traditional taxi service, you can see that in each of its links the client encounters, with a fairly high probability, a negative experience.

When you call the control room, the line is often busy. Or maybe you don't have the right phone at hand. And if you are in a foreign city and they ask you where to take the car, it happens that you simply cannot explain intelligibly. Then you have to wait for the car to arrive without any clues. The taxi driver is not local, he does not know the language and the city well. The inside of his car is dirty. The moment of reckoning turns into a lottery: how much is it customary to pay here, what tips to give? Attempts to pay off with a credit card remain as such. And finally, the driver is not accustomed to writing a receipt in exchange for money.

Apparently, Kalanick experienced something similar with the Paris taxi drivers, since already in 2009 he released the Uber mobile application, which involves a very different, largely digital value chain when moving a customer from point A to point B.

Now, to call a taxi, you do not need to call anywhere. You open the application on your phone, choose the start and finish points. The application offers options for drivers with cars included in the system and located nearby, and the price for the trip. You contact the driver and follow the map to see how he drives up. All these steps are displayed on the smartphone screen. Arriving at the place, you do not need to talk about money. And the driver, if he wants to continue to receive customers through the system, has to be polite and keep the car clean. In general, everyone should be happy.

The fact that all participants in the process are really satisfied is evidenced by the fact that the Uber service is already available in more than five hundred cities around the world. Although its expansion is accompanied by protests and conflicts in many countries. Thus, careful analysis and revision of customer experience leads to good business results. Moreover, for the digital transformation of a business, it is recommended to analyze all relevant value chains at once: the company itself, customers and partners. Useful digital potential for business comes from their intelligent integration.

At first, Uber only allowed drivers in executive cars, then, for the sake of international expansion, the frame was expanded to include economy class cars. The system works not so much with taxi services as with private traders who are on the way. The latter circumstance is an important element of the Uber business model, which serves as the basis for the so-called sharing economy (c2c-commerce).

Uber business model

Uber creates a value proposition for both customers and drivers - it brings together those who need to get from point A to point B and preferably cheaper, with those who are on the way and who are not averse to earning extra money by driving a fellow traveler (not to mention taxi drivers) . It is clear that a technical platform with applications and algorithms turns out to be a key resource, and the cost of its development is one of the main expenditure items (these also include legal costs and fines awarded to the company).


Possible revenue streams for Uber include more than just service fees (Uber usually takes 20% of the fare for itself, the rest goes to the driver). Created by Uber, the Internet hub is a platform that attracts customers and accumulates data about them. This valuable asset serves as a source of additional services, including those provided by partners of this platform.

Uber as a mobility provider is even being considered as one of the possible new car platforms. Well-known car manufacturers are now such platform companies, and additional suppliers are manufacturers of spare parts and a component of the car's infotainment system. But, as has happened in the past, the platform can be a car OS, and the customer will choose it, not the hardware (brand of the car). Or a service that works according to the Uber model: Uber itself opens new services for the transportation of passengers by boat and helicopter, and the Israeli Gett considers itself as a provider of transportation not only for passengers, but also for cargo.

The Sharing Economy

Through their digital portal, Uber, Gett, and their ilk are supplying previously unused resources to the mass market—bringing those who need to drive a route to those who are already driving their car along that route. Similarly, AirBnB, already mentioned, matches those who need to spend the night with those who just have a spare room or apartment. Fintech companies work according to the same scheme, which, bypassing banks, connect private traders who are ready to lend their money to reliable borrowers (reliability is “digitized” using their own scoring systems). Even startups got the opportunity to raise the money they need for development not through traditional venture funds, but directly from future buyers of their products (crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc.). On this occasion, one major Silicon Valley venture capitalist said that the venture capital industry is essentially dead. What can not be said about the startups themselves.

The use of computer platforms to conduct peer-to-peer transactions between customers and service providers, often eliminating traditional middlemen, has even been given a name in Uber's own name: uberization. This model has lower costs, so lower end prices, and is made possible because people quickly change their habits and do things they haven't done before: rent a short time their houses or rooms in them to strangers, give and take money from people they have never met. They do this because the assessment of the reputation and trustworthiness of strangers is also taken over by technology - various rating and scoring systems. It turns out that technology is more trusted.

On the one hand, government regulators are worried about uberization because they don't yet know how to regulate and tax the sharing economy. On the other hand, this is the case when new technologies, which are often criticized for cutting jobs, promote self-employment of people and give rise to new professions.

Uber not only started a new economic model, but also gave it its own name. Mobile devices and the internet and big data have enabled another technological revolution to connect buyers and sellers directly where they need it.

The idea of ​​Uber - to connect with the driver everyone who needs it, now looks trite. But they've been so successful because of innovation. What started as an app that connected drivers and passengers quickly turned into a service where almost anyone can become a taxi driver and anyone can order a car from anywhere, anytime.

Uber itself now tops the list of "unicorns" - startups valued at more than $1 billion. The company's value exceeds $60 billion, but this is just the tip of the uberization iceberg. It seems to have touched everything, from cars to cleaning, from cooking to loans and medical care. According to economists, everything that can be deprived of intermediaries and transferred to the state of a service or application will sooner or later be brought into this state.

Uber from the inside

It would seem that Uber is a simple application for ordering a car. However, of course, this is far from the case. A simple application is hardly worth $50 billion. Uber's engineering infrastructure can be compared to Facebook or Google - behind the facade of the application is big data, dispatch systems, dynamic pricing, maps, routes, and many other subsystems that ensure that the car is delivered at the right time to the right place.

The company started out with 40 engineers, but within three years the number grew to 1,200. How did they not turn into a big bureaucratic machine?

Company CTO Tuan Pham explains that everyone is organized into small teams working on specific tasks - it's like startups within one big startup. Now there are 50-60 such target teams working inside the company, consisting of programmers, data engineers, product managers, designers, etc. They have their own roadmaps, plans and reporting, but support their infrastructure services - data storage, computing, reliability. This allows the company as a whole to develop very quickly on the basis of a single architecture and services.

A big increase

The same Tuan explains that one of the main rules that Uber taught him is a passion for risk and fear of failure. With such growth, it is impossible to do everything perfectly, there are always mistakes and failures, big and small decisions that the company makes do not always work. But not making any decisions is an even bigger mistake. Thus, it is always necessary to have a certain amount of fearlessness on the one hand, and an understanding of the problems and their priorities on the other. You need to rely on your experience and knowledge in order to accept best solutions of all that are possible. Certainly some of them will not work, and it will be very painful. But you have to keep moving forward, learning and doing it all over again.

“The faster you fall, the more you learn, the better you get,” Pham says. “This is the most difficult job I've ever taken on, but also the most fun job I've ever had,” says Tuan Pham. “Every day I do new things and I feel like I’m improving.”

And big data

Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO of Uber, has a lot to say about data too. “Uber's entire business model relies on data,” he says. A large number of data requires more and more specialized skills.

“You see that there is more and more science, scientists, machine learning experts. This work becomes the main one, at least in technology companies. Everything from pricing, marketing, customer service becomes a matter of machine learning. We thought we would revolutionize by hiring a neurophysiologist for our logistics team, but in the Valley this is no surprise anymore.”

And there will be more data. Companies like Uber are rewriting the rules for app distribution. Instead of one of a million other icons, they choose through integrations with regularly used services. This marked the beginning of a mass migration from the app store, which can destroy the old and imperfect model. Uber is not only changing the economy of transportation, but the economy of applications.

The future of uberization

Uber itself now transports several million people every day, but is already looking far ahead. The company dreams of a hundred or even half a billion trips every day. This is not just a trip, this is a complete transformation of the economy and the world. Uber is not only people, but also food, cargo, even unmanned vehicles - the company is becoming operating system between digital and the physical world. Its mission is reliable transportation, everything for everyone.

You can create your product and become the next Uber.On May 20 and 21, the Moscow State University Business Incubator and the QIWI Group in Moscow are holding a conference and hackathon dedicated to technologies and products that change the usual business models and rid them of unnecessary intermediaries.

The main topics of the conference are fintech, blockchain, chatbots and business automation, which will be revealed by experts from VISA, QIWI Group, YouDo, Uber, VoxImpant, AmoCRM and others. Come and make the new economy a reality.