ola cabs successful entrepreneurial
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Prepared ByVaibhav [email protected]/vaibhavgalakatuwww.facebook.com/gkvaibswww.vaibhavgalakatu.weebly.comwww.vaibhavgalakatu.blogger.com
SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-Founder and CEO:
Ankit Bhati, Co-Founder and CTO:
Founded: December 3, 2010
PROGRESSIVE JOURNEY
• Bhavish drives the company's vision and manages customer and partner relations. He graduated with a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2008 and worked at Microsoft Research for 2 years after that. He had a wonderful time there, filing 2 patents and publishing 3 papers in International Journals. But the entrepreneurial itch was too hard to resist and he decided to quit his job in August 2010 and moved to Mumbai to start Olacabs!
• When not talking to Cab operators and customers, He loves cycling and playing squash and most recently spent a whole week cycling in the beautiful Nilgiris! He also enjoys photography and maintains a photoblog.
• Ankit heads the technical aspects of Olacabs, ensuring a quick, convenient and instinctive experience for customers and partners. He joined IIT Bombay in 2004 for Btech in Mechanical Engg and MTech in CAD and Automation. By 2009 he had already worked on several freelance projects and startups like Wilcom, QED42 etc. and finally decided to give up his nomadic professional life for a start-up of his own. He joined the Olacabs journey in November 2010.
When not engrossed with his laptop, he loves to travel (preferably, to a beach) and often joins Bhavish in his cycling trips.
IDENTIFY ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS, ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCIES
Ever decided to take a weekend holiday from the city, but spent hours finding a car rental? Or taken one on the reference of a friend, only to have the operator leave you stranded in the middle and make you miss an important business meeting? Or did the cab just not show up?
All faced the same problems too. Bhavish & Ankit decided to help fix it. So we've created Olacabs.com, a marketplace for all types of cabs and car rentals. It's very simple: You enter your city and your need. OLA team search the available inventory of our partners and provide you with a list of results and prices of different available cars from different operators. You can see OLA rating of that operator, what other customers said of them, and then book it right here on Olacabs.com. Or you can call us and we'll help you through the process! It's that simple!
OLA have a young and energetic company based in Mumbai. Nothing excites us more than using technology to bring the same efficiency and customer experience to the car rental industry that you expect from flights!
INTRODUCTION• It was founded on 3 December 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal (currently CEO) and Ankit Bhati. By
2014, the company has expanded to a network of more than 200,000 cars across 85 cities. In November 2014, Ola expanded to incorporate autos on-trial basis in Bengaluru. Post the trial phase, Ola Auto expanded to other cities like Delhi, Pune and Chennai starting December 2014.• Ola is also the first service to offer Android, iPhone and Windows app in India that not only
books a cab, but also helps customers track their cab on their mobile phone until it reaches them. Ola’s GPS enabled mobile app for the driver helps receive booking requests from customers in the vicinity and navigate to the customer’s pickup point with utmost ease. Such cutting-edge technology also enables us to crunch intense analytics including demand and traffic heat-maps, usage behavior, potholes and speed data for the entire city. Ola also works with leading car manufacturers and financial institutions to help drivers buy their own cars at huge discounts and access to affordable repayment schemes, thereby nurturing micro entrepreneurship.
THE CHALLENGE: Ride sharing is an interesting area where Ola has still not set foot into. While this could be a sustainable and scalable solution, there have been no success stories in the past around this in our country. This product can potentially change the way Indian cities move and can at least partially solve for the ‘Indian transportation problem’. There are clearly three use cases here:• Ola users who are also personal car owners - enabling ride sharing for privately owned cars across the city.• Public transport users or others who do not use a cab today only due to the entry barrier of prohibitive pricing at an individual level.• Existing cab users who can potentially travel at a far lower fare. Why isn’t ride sharing an Indian phenomenon?• A car is seen as something very personal, may not be something Indians are prone to share proactively.• Privacy while travelling is a concern – travelling with strangers and the possibility of making new friends doesn’t seem very motivating.• Predictability and planning are tough nuts to crack in the Indian context - with roads, traffic etc. adding to the woes• Regulation, safety measures, payment system etc. create another level of barrier to adoption.
IDENTIFY ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITY SEARCH AND IDENTIFICATION
• Ever decided to take a weekend holiday from the city, but spent hours finding a car rental? Or taken one on the reference of a friend, only to have the operator leave you stranded in the middle and make you miss an important business meeting? Or did the cab just not show up?
• The company is touting the service as "beta launch of autos" on the Ola App. Media Nama reports that the on-demand auto service from Ola works similar to the cab booking service. It said, "The fare payable is the regular meter fare plus Rs. 10 as convenience fee. Interestingly, one has to enter the drop-off point before an auto driver accepts the booking.“
• Ola Cab is currently offering each auto rickshaw driver a minimum salary of Rs. 10,000 alongside Rs. 1,500 as mobile charges per month, claims a report by Deccan Chronicle.
STRATEGIES ADOPTED• The industry was highly unorganized. Training the drivers here particularly in Indian context where many of
them are illiterate was a challenge. Making them use tabs and devices was a big operational problem and thus greatly increase their dependency on call center operations. This is where Uber has a big lead. Then off-course behavioral issues of the drivers, maintaining the quality of service as well as cars was a challenge.
A big challenge was and remains is maintaining the supply. Drivers will just log off from their devices and do personal bookings in peak seasons leading to a lot of rejects for customers. The industry here is not just about keeping customers happy but keeping your supply happy as well. Earning the trust of drivers was key here.
Happy drivers = Happy Customers
Drivers are the customers for Ola and TFS, while people ie end customers availing cabs are merely users of the platform.
As you got a lot of drivers on the platform, managing them was also a challenge, which these guys overcome successfully through various measures.
Once you have setup processes scaling up is relatively easy here. That is 1 reason the industry is a darling for investors and series of funding happening in very quick succession.
KEY VARIABLES THAT SUPPORTED THEM TO ACHIEVE AN EPITOME OF SUCCESS
1) Mobile App2) Offers New User. 3) Order Cab in any location.4) Fast & Consistency service.5) track the current position of the cab in real-time. 6) TFS standard rates will be valid for all cab booking done via Ola app.
INSIGHTS AS AN ENTREPRENEUR-360 DEGREE DIMENSION
• created Olacabs.com, a marketplace for all types of cabs and car rentals. It's very simple: You enter your city and your need. We search the available inventory of our partners and provide you with a list of results and prices of different available cars from different operators. You can see rating of that operator, what other customers said of them, and then book it on Olacabs.com. Or you can call and They’ll help you through the process! It's that simple!
A young and energetic company based in Mumbai. using technology to bring the same efficiency and customer experience to the car rental industry that you expect from flights!
KEY LEARNINGClick icon to add picture
Use of technology is essential for capturing marketing. Use of internet & need of customer can Startup new business successfully.
For Idea on a Page: Insight for Building Ride Sharing and their plan for that insight. For Campus Round Presentation: In addition to deliverable 1, elucidate the go to market strategy and social media plan.
