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Competing in Emerging Markets; Internationalization of Service Firms; Global Marketing.

Senior undergraduate or graduate students in business schools.

Uber first entered the South Korean taxi hailing service in Seoul in September 2013. In March 2015, the company shut down its operations after being charged for operating an illegal service. However, in January 2016, Uber decided to re-launch Uber’s premium service, UberBLACK after working with the city government. Given the country’s unique characteristics, was the decision to re-enter the market justifiable? Would Uber’s new strategies including partnering with a local company be sufficient? How could Uber gain more market share against its local powerful competitors?

Outcomes This case allows students to understand the challenges of internationalizing services of a global company in an emerging market that has strong national cultures and domestic preferences. The students will learn how to analyze the country and industry external environment as well as internal resources and capabilities to formulate the appropriate market entry strategies and to effectively implement them. The students will also learn the critical role of host country government and how to manage its relationship, the first- and second-mover advantages/disadvantages and the sustainability of innovative business models.

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CSS 11: Strategy

By late March 2014, the ridesharing company Uber was on a roll, rapidly expanding service to untapped markets and gaining new, enthusiastic customers, as well as a few vocal and visible detractors. Uber’s innovative organization of the supply-demand matching process produced eager customers who recruited others. Buzz marketing and aggressive recruitment of drivers augmented growth.

This case presents Uber as an example of a middleman adding real value for consumers and upstream suppliers (limo drivers). Unlike Tesla, which battled to sell cars directly to the public, Uber created value by adding a layer between limos and prospective riders, organizing the market for convenience and transparency for both sides. Where Uber stirred up the competitive equivalent of a hornet’s nest was with expansion from the livery car market into the taxi service market with UberX. The material allows for a lively discussion around disruptive digital technology and the firm’s business model.

This case uses Uber Technologies Inc. to engage students in a serious conversation about how a firm both affects its stakeholders and is affected by its stakeholders as well as the role of strategic leadership in the amount of emphasis placed on ethical practices. Uber represents a visible high-growth startup that has received considerable positive and negative attention in the media; however, few people know of the extent of its aggressive management approach. Much of the publicity about Uber is both a direct consequence of and a direct consequence for stakeholder relationships. Students are asked to analyze Uber’s approach and offer suggestions for moving forward.

This case was created using secondary data sources. The issues for Uber that led the authors to write this case were not very flattering to Uber, and therefore, the authors decided to use secondary sources. Since Uber and many of its direct competitors were private companies, the authors collected as much financial data as the authors could from publicly available sources. Also, due to the contentious nature of some of the managerial tactics used within Uber, the use of secondary data sources was warranted.

This case was crafted with senior undergraduate students in strategic management as the primary audience, but is also relevant for MBA-level strategy courses as well. This case touches upon core content in the vast majority of undergraduate strategic management courses with a special emphasis on two concepts underrepresented in most strategic management textbooks, stakeholder theory and ethical decision making.

This case describes the events following an incident of a rape in a taxi associated with Uber, by its driver. Uber was an application based taxi operator. The events raised several issues for government systems and processes, such as need for regulation of new formats of business like application based taxi services, integrated databases, checks against forgery and holistic approach towards women safety. The case also brings out how an e-commerce business raises regulatory concerns.