Exam of Business and Industrial Economics

M) What Key features make Coople a platform business?

Coople is a transaction platform because enables transactions between two groups of participants: it
connects a community of people (+400k) who are looking for jobs that fit their lives (and not the opposite)
so flexibility in choice of hours and days, duration and geolocation, with companies (+20k) who are looking
for qualified staff for the duration needed for their request, with short search lead times, in order to relieve
themselves of all selection processes. It has therefore completely reshaped the industry of traditional
recruitment agencies, differentiating itself from them by introducing a specialization on short and flexible
jobs, and an almost completely automated and online way of recruitment and job acceptance. We see the
presence of both positive cross-side network externalities (the value of the platform for one group users
increases as the users in the other group increases (and vice versa)), since only a homogeneous increase in
the number of Cooplers and clients can satisfy both sides and thus solve the chicken-egg and balanced
growth problem. There are also positive same-side network externalities (value of the platform for one
group correlates to the number of users in same group), given the possibility to the customer to indicate their
favorite Cooplers and call them in a priority mode in the future, which increase the relationship between
Cooplers, Coople and their customers. Being a platform business also means having limited costs of physical
assets (given the limitation of physical offices), but high fixed costs for the creation of interfaces and
automation processes, with low variable costs (the connection of new users), supported thanks to three
financing rounds for a total of $76 million that have enabled the expansion of the platform, also through
pricing and the divide and conquer strategy (no access and usage fee for the job seekers that attract hiring
entities that have a higher wiliness to pay) and non-pricing strategies (for example a specialization in a niche
market for flexible workers, a community of Cooplers - not workers-, training for Cooplers that translates into
a benefit for both the worker and the employer). The last characteristic of a platform business is that raises
social and ethical questions, like in this case for example a new way of thinking the job for the new society
(no longer a priority) or the increasing role of A.I. in the job market and the risk of dehumanization.

5) Propose some strategies that Coople may undertake for responding to these Covid-related challenges

One of the aspects that most penalize Coople during this period is the positioning on sectors that are heavily
damaged and sometimes even blocked during the pandemic (events, gastronomic, tourism) therefore a
strategy that I would propose to the platform is the widening of the focus on branches that are growing, as
the logistic field and that of the e-commerce, looking for partnership with players like Amazon, Alibaba, DHL,
TNT, but also to expand the offer of jobs that can be carried out comfortably in homeworking mode (i.e. call
center, translator, home-ironing, bolts packaging). Certainly, the area on which Coople need to continue to
focus on is the health sector, in order to respond to peaks of work due to the pandemic period (from the
secretary who uploads appointments and positives on medical portals, to the staff who performs swabs).
Should be also explores the possibility of extending this service to the public sector, making Coople a staff
research partner for the publics hospitals and for spot requests that do not include open-ended contracts.

Another problem that Coople maybe had to face in the UK market was the impossibility of meeting the
worker before signing the contract, a legal constraint imposed by the territorial regulations, therefore should
be investigated the request of a derogation due to the pandemic period in order to perform virtual
onboarding via conference call.

Finally, a complexity that we are currently experiencing is the contagion, despite vaccinations, which
therefore creates further uncertainty for employers, especially in certain sectors that are based on the
success or failure of an event. A tool and service that Coople could provide free to its customers are employee
that, along with the obligation to vaccinate and the exhibition of the "Green Pass", carried out a negative
COVID-19 test at the time of acceptance of the work and few hours before the start of the service, in order
to monitor and avoid sudden changes of program due to positivity. These costs would be borne by Coople
and I personally believe that they would further strengthen the customer’s loyalty, aware of being able to
count on a company that is personally interested in the health of its Cooplers and applies the necessary
checks to protect the customer.