INDUSTRY EXPERT
My point here is that running a business is not a passive occupation where the external environment plays to your tired old tune, it does actually take effort, brain power,
application, experimentation and
strategic analysis of the environment in which you operate. Your analysis may bring you to conclude that although something has changed I am not going to do anything about it and that may well be the right decision. But at least you have critically examined the change and made a positive decision. When changes come thick and fast as they have in this industry and where change is as fundamental as many of the changes we have seen it is difficult to discern that none of them individually and certainly the sum of the parts don’t mean that some changes are needed or at least need to be carefully considered.
Welcome to the Wild West
I don’t say this lightly; multi-apping is in my view a fundamental change to this industry. I base my assertion here on the fact that the power in this industry has moved radically and firmly from operator to driver. I don’t want to be particularly judgemental about whether it is a good or bad thing overall but would prefer to focus on the impacts that it is having now and how these impacts are being addressed or not.
For the driver, often described as an entrepreneur when defending worker status cases, there was the chance to increase the opportunities of being offered bookings i.e. the chance to fulfil more bookings by working with multiple apps. This has developed into the opportunity to fulfil more lucrative bookings or bookings that better suit the driver’s
individual
working preferences. So higher sales, less effort/hours and a lower risk of choosing to work with the wrong operator or their operator being wiped out or damaged by a smarter new entrant.
For the customer, a confusing situation where the same journey can be priced differently at different times on the same app, where available cabs are visible on an app but their specific booking doesn’t attract a driver, where a booking is accepted, allocated and then cancelled/refused. Also a situation where a customer can book on several apps and take the first cab to arrive and if kind cancel the other bookings.
For the licensing authority and policy makers, a question as to whether using customers as a proxy
PHTM MAY 2024
commodity trade is really acting as a ‘fit and proper’ driver/operator. Current legislation and none of the regulation I have read, places any specific obligation on driver or operator to actually accept every booking and take the customer to their destination, so continuing discomfort and no clear breach to respond to.
For the operator, a situation where their traditional role of generating bookings and allocating them to a grateful fleet of hungry drivers, like throwing fish food into a pond, has pretty much vanished. Instead, there is the embarrassment of accepting bookings and then watching them bounce around the system, answer angry passenger queries and deal with more no- shows. Previous driver loyalty to one ‘circuit’ or another has receded and in many cases diminished totally. Operators are increasingly impotent spectators of their own business.
This is the external environment in action – a change that is technology enabled, economically driven and outside of legislation and regulation. Anyone waiting for ‘things to go back to normal’ is going to be one hungry little mouse!
Scenario playing
So, what is one to do? Well, if no one, or perhaps only you, have not yet recognised what has happened, here it is that the battle in this industry is no longer for customers…that ship has sailed. The battle now is for supply a.k.a. drivers. It may sound obvious, but you need drivers to actually take your bookings and cover them rather than someone elses’. Whereas in the past, battles based on price were generally won by the company with the lowest prices in a town …….we are now in a new theatre where the company that achieves the highest prices and therefore fares is likely to win. But if we scenario play here, won’t that just lead to burning off demand so in the end no one wins? Also can we make every booking attractive? Are the long, the short, the ones to this estate or from that pub going to be fulfilled even at higher fares…
..maybe not if everyone in town is offering high fares which will quickly become the norm to drivers.
The ‘Trade’
Even with the simple analysis in the scenario above, I think we can all appreciate that this is not an easy problem, so let’s look at that blue sky and get out of
19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
