Question

Given Uber’s recent corporate turbulence and ongoing initiatives, provide a holistic situational analysis of the environment Uber is operating in.

Answer 1

Solution:

Uber is a transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco California and was founded in 2009. Uber has promoted the concept of sharing economy and is monumental in bringing a change around how we commute today. Uber is known to have an approximate market share of around 69% in United States and operates in around 785 metropolitan areas in the world.

Uber over the years have had it's governance problems ranging from mistrust of drivers to dynamic pricing to security breach scandals and other HR issues. Recently Uber is being investigated by the US government's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when one of Uber's former engineer Susan Fowler published an account of sexual harassment that she had experienced in Uber in February 2017. The investigation has revolved around how gender is treated in Uber during hiring and other business practices. The diversity issue is being investigated in detail. Meanwhile Uber is making all efforts to restore it's brand value by addressing all diversity and inclusion issues and introducing an equity policy. There had also been certain racial comments made by the COO of Uber Barney Harford. An investigation regarding the same is also up.

Honestly all these issues are of serious nature and are required to be addressed. Uber has come up with press statements and trying to restore it's brand image. What one also needs to realize is that we are discussing about a 10 year old company and it takes a lot more time and effort to set up cultural values within a company that we are expecting out of Uber. Perhaps these incidents could start of a new era for this organization. It does require sometimes a shock to understand what is going wrong. These incidents can allow Uber to reevaluate it's strategy towards organization culture and values. We cannot downplay the incidents but these are rough patches that do come up with every billion dollar company that exists today. What is necessary is to see how Uber views these incidents and set their policies right for the future. The corrective and preventive action by Uber can set the tone for a better organization culture which promoted diversity and inclusion.