UpGrad Product Management

Competitor Analysis

Introduction to the
Student Name: Yash Agarwal
Company
 Competitors

Direct Competitors Indirect Competitors

Ola* Kaali peeli taxi and rickshaw

Uber Public transport

Private vehicles

* Picking Ola for further comparison as DC1

2
 Let’s start..

VS

3
 Introduction

Type Private

Founder Neeraj Gupta in April 2007

Headquarters Mumbai, India

Number of locations 23 cities (2015)

Area served India

Number of employees 500–1001

Website www.meru.in

4
 Introduction

Type Private
Founder Bhavish Aggarwal
Headquarters Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Area served India, Australia, New Zealand, UK(169+
cities)
Key people Bhavish Aggarwal(CEO)
Ankit bhati (CTO)
Products Mobile App, Website
Number of employees 6,000 (2017)
Website Ola Cabs

5
 Background Benchmarking
Objective Meru Ola

Goals • To compete against the likes of • Current Goal is to expand in

Developed ride hailing options Foreign Markets.
like Uber, Ola. • Focus to reduce operational
• To increase its b2b market cost.
share. • Safety and security.

Mission • To be competitive in pricing. • Sustainability in Ola

• More collaborations in B2B Combustion.
domain like airports • Execution of Ola electric.
businesses. • Basic framework in Ola
driverless.
Employee 500-1001[1] 6000+[2]

6
 Background Benchmarking
Objective Meru Ola

Funding $2.1Billion (in 2017)[3] $6.2Billion (in 2019)

Revenue Details(2016) $47 million[4] $110 million

Strategies • Altering their prices depending • Addressing problems in

upon demand and time to be
competitive in market.
• Tapping in B2B segment
where the rivals ola and uber
are less competitive.
• Drivers to decide the price and
platform to regulate it.
terms of Refund, Drivers
etc.
• Expansion of plans with
Ola electric.
• Expansion across
foreign markets.

7
 Founder’s Portfolio

Name Neeraj Gupta Bhavesh Ankit bhati

Position Founder, Managing Co-founder, CEO Co-founder CTO

director
Education Bcom – Mithibhai Btech, IIT Bombay , Btech, Mtech IIT
College Computer Science Bombay ,
Mechanical
Engineering

On the Chair since 2006- present 2015-present 2015-present

8
 Business Model

1. Operating Cities.

2. Target Market.

3. The revenue model.

9
 1. The Cities in which they operate

• No of cities – 23 cities across • No of cities – 165+ cities

India including cities like Mumbai, across 4 countries namely
Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, India, Australia, New Zealand
Chennai, Kolkata, Gurgaon, and UK.
Noida, Jaipur, Ahmedabad,
Vadodara, Surat, Pune,
Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam,
Bhubaneswar, Mysore, Jodhpur,
Udaipur, Indore, Ludhiana,
Coimbatore, and Kochi.
 2. The Target Market in which they operate
• Luxury hotels who do not own
their own fleet.
• Any offices, Business entity can
use meru for regular pickup and
drop service.
• Currently they lead in market
share in B2B space with market
share of 40-45%[5]
• B2C segment is key in case of
Ola cabs edging out rival Uber
currently in India especially in
Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities who are
familiar with Digital
transactions[6].
• Catering outstation travelers
who frequently travel within
cities by providing them
special discounts and passes.
 3. The Revenue model
● In Cab advertisements
● They give drivers the option to set
their own prices and in turn takes
Commision.
● Bulk booking from various
Businesses for services like Airport
drop, Home drop etc.
● Bookings through telesales.
• Fleet Management via Telesales.
• Percentage Commission from
Trips being served through its
platform (Trip Based
Commissions).
• Vehicle On-Boarding Fee.
• In-Cab Advertisements.
• Surcharge during peak hours
• Money Wallet in Ola app.
 Strength and Weakness

1
3
 Strength
• Market Dominance in B2B space has
kept the wheels rolling and revenues are
there to be taken.
• In response to Ola Weakness Meru
provides:-
a.) Allowing drivers to Set their pricing
so that they get profits but keeping a
close eye so that it does not get
unfair for riders.
b.) Dedicated training centers assures
drivers learn soft skills equally.
c.) Special pricing and transparency for
B2B’s like by providing pricing
statement over email.
• Good technology with Ola app
with unique features like OTP for
driver verification.
• Aggressive marketing be it
through Paper media or Digital,
Often seen collaborating with big
content creation platform like AIB
and TVF[7].
• First movers advantage.
• Built and designed to suit Indian
consumers.
• Continuing to take booking over
calls .
 Weakness
• Recently shifted to online space where
the market is been dominated by big
players and thus doing a catching up job.
• Less money to burn as compared to
rivals.
• Less presence and less marketing has
meant fewer market share.
• Less pay to drivers and thus the
protest tarnishing the reputation
of the company.
• Yet to show any profits and simply
burning cash and so long term
sustainability is under serious
scrutiny.
• Accused of charging unfairly as
compared to its rivals and
especially during peak hours.
• Drivers behaviors towards rider
has been poor as compared to its
rivals (Personal experience).
 Pain Areas
• Catering to B2B is always a challenge
and especially arranging Cabs in bulk,
Meru hasn’t quite lived up to that
expectation cancelling bookings at the
last moment.
• Since requirement for bulk taxis usually
comes all of a sudden, Its very
important to have buffer taxis to meet
such requirements which Meru has not
been able to do.
• This has resulted in increase in pricing
and hence the entire model of cost
control through bulk bookings isn’t
justified.
• Unprofessional drivers will top
this list as the drivers getting
rude with the driver is common.
• Riders paying cancellation
charge for the driver’s mistake,
there have been cases of
Cancellation fee taking months
to get reflected to users.
• Support team is less accessible
during crunch situations.
• Personal Experience – Driver
cancelling the ride during last
moment.( Backed by reviews in
play store)
 Pain Areas
• Technology is challenge as Cost is
major factor involved so Consumers
might not like the overall UI/UX and
especially the one who is familiar using
Ola, Uber.
• Projecting yourself as core B2B means
covering almost everything available
sectors in this domain but Meru has
failed delivering across various
businesses at all condition. ( For eg:
Poor intra city transport.)
• Drivers might misuse the liberty of
themselves regulating the price.
• No refund on cancel trips.
• Unavailability of rides during
demanding hours (especially
rickshaw services)
• Unfair dynamic pricing especially
during rainy seasons.
• Price estimation on app does not
works accurately resulting into
overpricing during normal hours.
• Even Estimated arrival time is
underestimated at times
• Despite of modern satellite
mapping, Drivers still requires
guidance to reach at arrival
points.
Pain Areas

• Ola money usage in day to day

life is very less and thus
keeping money in ola wallet
makes no sense just for rides(
Amazon pay, Google pay, paytm
are more advance wallets).
 In-depth Details

1
9
 Product Experience
Objective Meru Ola

App Downloads Android –1M + Android –50M+

(Reviews are usually
10% of app installs) IOS-1610 IOS- 10-12m+

Windows-2280 Windows-10870

App ratings Android –3.8 Android – 4.0

IOS-2.8 IOS- 4.6

No of rating – 161+ No of ratings -1.2M+

Windows-4.0 Windows-3.0
No of ratings -228 No of ratings - 1087

2
0
 User Experience

2
1
 • As per Customer review, Meru User • Clean UI but a cluttered sidebar(Can refer
experience is not flashy very simple and uber).
sophisticated.
• Can’t question the other aspects as again
• Problem is solved and any layman can the purpose of booking a cab can be
use it. sufficed easily.

• Rate calculation can be displayed below • Inclusion of Food panda can be

the car, One needs to see the Calculation considered an inspiration from Uber.
and then browse back to select different
variance of car.
• Attaching few screens for better clarity
• Attaching few screens for better clarity.

2
2
 Home page

2
3
 Side Bar

2
4
 Overall Functionality

2
5
 • Features are very basic, Only useful
when you are booking cabs for airports
• Unnecessary recommendation of their
tour and packages(Screenshot attached)
• User unable to book a ride maybe a
case of non responsive application
across devices.
• GPS tracking is inaccurate(Personal
experience)
2
6
• API fetching ETA aren’t accurate as
complained by most users.
• May include local language like what
flipkart is doing to carter Tier 3 audience
as well.
• OTP verification for driver stands out for
me
• Slow to load on rainy days(Personal
experience)
 • No wallet functionality.
• User unable to see their booking
history.
• No chat support/Customer number on
app
• Slow to respond on 3G.
• Ride Confirmation message fails to
trigger to the riders often enough.
• Asking for Phone number
upfront(after splash screen) may
increase bounce rate .
2
7
• Estimated cost is more spread out
as compared to Uber
• Calling drivers via App is not
available in OLA.
• Every number in Uber gets white
labeled on Truecaller (Its shows
uber), In Ola, Drivers' personal
number is shown and Our personal
details Goes to driver.
• The above feature creates more
credibility.
 Unnecessary Recommendation of Wetnjoy, Imagica
tour on selection of plans

2
8
 Future initiative

Future Initiative will be divided into 3 major sectors (Involving only ride hailing business)

1. Ola Combustion
2. Ola electric
3. Ola driverless

2
9
 Ola combustion
Problem statement:
Refer Slide 16 (Pain areas)

Possible solutions:
1. Product improvement would be a key aspect ensuring that the estimation is served properly in
terms of ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) and Cost .
2. Product enhancement ensuring regular notifications about riders pending dues.
3. Drivers' SEO ( Like we have in amazon) so that only professional and suitable drivers get the
majority pickups.
4. Introducing more robust driver mapping to ensure users don’t explain the pickup location to
drivers, it will help drivers as well, as they would save time to include that 1 -2 extra daily rides
and also would help in saving fuel.
5. Driver training so that they have manageable soft skills and communication ethics.
6. A proper thought should go again in case of surcharge and to avoid unfair price hikes.
7. Adopting Model of Google pay for quick call back – Here you need to feed in your number and
query and one the executives calls you to address your concern in immediately. A person
stranded during rainy season needs quick access. Also ride can be booked by the executive
8. To increase its scope, Ola should invest in ‘Zoom car’ like concept

3
0
 Ola electric
Concept:
Ola electric will have drivers to run vehicles on electricity rather than the conventional petrol
and diesel.

Problem statement:
1. Running cost of a car includes Mechanical maintenance, cost of petrol / diesel which
reduces the cost Ola makes for a ride .
2. This impacts Driver’s overall Income as well.
3. With ever growing quantum of cars in India, pollution and noise needs serious
re-consideration.

How is Ola Electric planning to solve the problem:

1. Ola electric (Now a unicorn startup) has started its operation in Nagpur and plans to have
over a million cars in next 2 years[9]
2. Ola is building charging stations to meet the requirement to power over 1 million vehicles.
3. Collaboration with Automotive giants (Mahindra is already a partner) to provide Ev’s at a
affordable cost for drivers.
4. Solar panels to be deployed on charging station for clean extraction of electricity.

3
1
 Ola Electric
Challenges:
1. To encourage drivers to go electric which will cost them extra for the vehicle
especially for those drivers who cannot even meet their daily livelihood using the
platform.
2. Currently ola has 1.5 million vehicles on road and it will require a lot of effort to
power even half of them especially in India.
3. Electricity generation should be from clean sources.

Opportunity:
To encourage payments from OLA money by accepting payments from Ola money on
charging stations or offering discounts on payment through it.

3
2
 Ola Driverless

Concept:
The Term ‘ Driverless’ in car aggregation is basically self driving with a driver acting as
a supervisor and will only act in case of emergency.

Problem statement:
1. Driver’s salary and incentive takes huge chunk of revenue hence eliminating driver
can help in generating profits .
2. Driver’s fatigue can also be eliminated.

How is Ola driverless planning to solve the problem:

1. Ola has invested 500 million USD for its driverless concept [10]
2. Collaboration with Automotive companies to create technology suited for Indian
terrain

3
3
 Ola Driverless
Challenges:
1. New technologies takes time for consumers to acclimatize as well it may increase
cost for riders.
2. Infrastructure and technology will be the major hurdles as rehearsed by Uber in
USA.
3. Cost is bound to shoot up so a new framework of cost estimation should be
designed so that it is pocket friendly for riders.
4. Indian roads, heavy traffic and willingness for people to follow traffic rules will be
one of the biggest challenge..
5. Technology lapse may have serious repercussions and life of the pedestrians may
be under risk [11]( Uber’s Incident in Arizona)

Opportunity:
With Uber already forefront on this in USA, Ola will get a head start in ‘Self drive’ sector
in Indian markets

3
4
 Conclusion
Meru
1. A novice in the market with huge potential ahead and especially in B2B sector.
2. Working of their weakness will make sure Meru cabs become serious contenders
in ride hailing industry in future.
3. Future growth will depend on investment drawn from investors and diverting it into
operations and marketing

Ola Cabs
1. Certainly leading in B2C space in India and has created a foot print in global
markets with Rickshaw services in UK.
2. Understanding Driver’s pain is the key and the way ola will go about it will be
interesting to see.
3. Ola Electric can go down as one of the biggest shift in Mobility sector in India and
Ola can be the leader in it.

3
5
Oops Roadblock ahead...

Thank-you