Global Entrepreneurs: Uber in Nizhny Novgorod
Within the course "Russian Business Context" GB programme hosted another guest speaker - the operations director of Uber, Nizhny Novgorod - to talk about the Uber pholosophy and operations and how they adjust to the Russian business environment. The students gave their insights on how to improve the service in Nizhny Novgorod.
Last week we hosted a guest from Uber. Operations director Anna told us about the history of Uber, the philosophy behind the company. By means of vivid examples she convinced us that Uber can be called a socially responsible enterprise and answered our questions about the way Uber operates, specifically in Russia.
According to Uber, the reason why it is more reasonable to take a taxi every time you need to go to some distant place rather than to drive is that your personal car is being actively used only 4% of time. 96% it stands still on a parking place. Parking lots, in their turn, occupy a lot of space in big cities instead of giving way to such infrastructural assets as kindergardens, schools, etc. Furthermore, Uber specialists have made the calculations that demonstrate that buying a C-class car is comparable with 4 Uber rides a day, while a D- or E-class car is equivalent in price to 8 Uber rides each day.
Uber is also concerned with decreasing the number of road accidents. For instance, in the US Uber offers free rides to the drunk people in need of getting back home, thus reducing drunk driving and preventing crashes it might cause.
As for Russia, Uber expands rapidly here. However, it does not use a lot of marketing. Once it is in the city, people learn about it naturally. Usually by word of mouth. Additionally, those who have earlier installed the Uber app, receive notifications about Uber entering their city. It should be noted that it is most beneficial to make use of Uber services at the start of their operating in the city, because in time the prices tend to be significantly increased.
Global Business students, especially Austrian and Italian ones shared their views on how to improve Uber services in Russia as they struggled sometimes with ordering a taxi or finding their car once it arrived. Some of their insights need to be implemented for foreigners’ convenience, especially on the verge of such a big international event as World Cup 2018. We thank a lot for this lecture Anna Korsunova, Uber operations director in Nizhny Novgorod.
Written by Nataliia Belova, class of 2016