The $41 billion dollar firm Uber Technology, Inc. is unsettling the traditional taxi business. In over 40 countries
and 240 markets around the world, Uber and similar companies are challenging the existing taxi business
model. Uber and its growing list of competitors, Lyft, Sidecar, and Flywheel in America, and fledgling rivals in
Europe, Asia, and India, think their smart phone apps can provide a new and improved way to call a taxi. This
disruptive business model uses an app to arrange rides between riders and cars, theoretically a nearby car,
which is tracked by the app. The Uber system also provides a history of rides, routes, and fees as well as
automatic billing. In addition, driver and rider are also allowed to evaluate each other. The services are
increasingly popular, worrying established taxi services in cities from New York to Berlin, and from Rio de
Janeiro to Bangkok. In many markets, Uber has proven to be the best, fastest, and most reliable way to find a
ride. Consumers worldwide are endorsing the system as a replacement for the usual taxi ride. As the most
established competitor in the field, Uber is putting more cars on the road, meaning faster pickup times, which
should attract even more riders, which in turn attracts even more drivers, and so on. This growth cycle may
speed the demise of the existing taxi businesses as well as provide substantial competition for firms with a
technology-oriented model similar to Uber's. In this case study, you will write a paper that addresses the
following questions.
Questions:
Make a list of ride-sharing attributes that are important to you as a customer. Think like a customer and
brainstorm a list of attributes that are important when it comes to ride services such as Uber. Briefly discuss
each attribute.
Now design those attributes into a ride-sharing process. Associate with each attribute/customer requirement a
measure that would ensure that the process meets the requirement. Refer back to the House of Quality
example on page 51. You do not need to create a house of quality, but you need specific, quantitative
measures such as the target values in the house of quality example.
Create a service blueprint for a process that meets your requirements. Describe it by using a flowchart similar
to that show in Exhibit 9.5.
Discuss other areas/industries in which the Uber model might be used.
Your Case Study Assignment* should be 5-7 pages of body in length and sufficiently answer the four
assignment questions. (The body of the paper does not include the title page or reference page.) You should
have a title page, introduction, responses to each of the four questions, conclusions, and reference page.
Sample Solution