Uber has had a lot of competitors from governments of countries as well as, drivers of other companies for example; Black Cab drivers in the United Kingdom. Mainly, the issue Uber has faced is for the fact that it has unlicensed drivers and also claims of sexual harassment. The reason for Black cab drivers become enraged with Uber is because they have been pushed out of the business, as tourists and customers choose Uber which has lower prices.
The major internal stakeholders of Uber are; Drivers, Partners and Investors. Where as, the main external stakeholders are; the Government of the operating state and the customers.
Once Uber launched, the Government had difficulties about ‘categorizing’ Uber, this is because the company intertwined features of both the limousine and taxi businesses. The firm, used the characteristic NYC taxi ‘on the go’ approach as well as, fares being measured according to distance. Whilst simultaneously, adapting limousine services on characteristics such as card payments and flexible and non-fixed rates. The company responded to the government by stating that it shouldn’t be regulated in the basis of either taxi or limousine company regulations due to not being in the transport business, but instead it works by joining near by drivers with riders through a filtered data based market. As a newcomer in a developed, controlled marketplace, once Uber negotiated its relationship with policies and their creators, it started to feel the pressure of the business. ¬
A suitable example of an issue that Uber has faced with the government was when Uber launched in San Francisco. The city sent the company a ‘Cease and Desist’ notice from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency as well as the California Public Utilities Commission (a government organization which controlled limousine service regulations). Uber disregarded the commands and kept on running even though the company received penalties and even a warning of imprisonment.
Throughout many successful years, Uber can give recognition to its string of loyal ‘riders’ for its worldwide success. People, who used the service, noted how great their experience was, and many commented on the fact that the pricing is less or the same as taxis. In a survey, it was found that 51% of young adults used Uber and 10% “couldn’t imagine their life without it” (Liss, 2015). However, issues have arisen with the privacy of the customers as Uber broke one of Apple’s main security regulations, this because employee’s could easily access the location of the riders through their phones even when the customers weren’t using the app through a programmed called “God View”. Job applicants for the company reported that once going past the interview stage, they had been given limitless use of Uber’s client tracking programme as part of the ‘hiring’ procedure and could still use this programme hours after the interview had finished. Trimberg (2014) stated that one interviewee claimed that he could still search through files to track down his acquaintances. This became a huge issue and alarmed many customers as they questioned their privacy.
Although, Uber is known to employ a lot of individuals, which is a benefit for the employment rates in the different countries it operates. At one point, Uber was hiring up to 20,000 people each month and promising to give drivers 80 percent of the fare price, which did not add up well. This is because although they received 80 percent, payment for the car, gas, insurance and taxes wasn’t included, meaning drivers spent most of their wage on maintenance for their vehicles. It was reported that in some countries Uber was in fact keeping 25% of the total charge per ride, instead of the 20%. (Mims, 2015) This and many other factors led to a lawsuit against Uber from its former employees in California state court to trial their categorization as self-regulating workers rather than compensation entitled employees covered by the minimum salary law and business cost reimbursement regulations. However, Uber representatives debated that the employees were independent workers as they could choose their working hours, however, the lawyers for the drivers counteracted that the drivers were still under the orders of managers and could be fired from their jobs meaning that they were classified as personnel. The judge of this case found that only one of the Uber driver’s who protested should be compensated for the costs.
The star ratings which riders gave the drivers, also became a debatable subject, as once a driver had very low ratings, they immediately were suspended and made to take customer service-training classes. This was a weakness for some of the drivers as it meant that they had to tolerate mistreatment from customers incase they received low ratings.
Although Uber’s worth implied that there would be a widespread of investor self-assurance, some investors described negative experiences with the company. Some described the founder Tom Kalanick as arrogant (Macmillan et al, 2015). One shareholder reported that Kalanick “came in like he was God’s gift” his company chose not to capitalize because some associates did not have good relations with Kalanick (Shontell, 2014).
In the year 2015, it was reported that Google, who is one of the current investors of Uber, was going to create its own ride app service similar to Uber. This report had the company board consider if they should ask Google’s legal representative to quit over this matter. Once Google started to work with Lyft (one of Uber’s main competitors), Uber chose to propose a $3 billion offer to buy Nokia’s Here mapping venture, which is one of Google Maps’ main opponents.
These disputes between Google and Uber continued as whilst, Google was perfecting its own self-driving cars, Uber revealed their collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University’s well-known National Robotics Engineering Centre (NREC) to improve its own self-driving vehicles (Ramsey et al, 2015). Later that same year, it was reported in the media that Uber hired 40 employees, who were originally member of the NREC in order to work at Uber’s new research centre.
Additionally, Travis Kalanick was asked by the board to step down from his former position as CEO, as numerous scandals concerning him surfaced such as; videos of him shouting at drivers. Furthermore, Uber’s main shareholders, urged the removal of Kalanick as chief executive of Uber due to the many criticisms, lawsuits and ethical issues the company has faced over the years.
To conclude, the stakeholders of the company include all of the groups, which are involved in the growth of the business. Likewise, stakeholders are also those who are impacted by how well or how badly the company is doing and policies among others. As mentioned above, these stakeholders include: government, employers, customers and many more.
In order to avoid such issues, the company should primarily follow the state’s regulations and take into account safety issues such as for example; doing a more thorough background check before employing drivers as this can prevent cases of sexual assault, which have previously arisen. Having said that, the firm has done exceptionally well as it is currently worth billions.