The Tough Problems Which Are Faced by Uber

According to the recent reports, Uber’s new CEO has to deal with losing one of the company’s biggest market—London. On Sept, 22th, London’s transport authority said Uber was not’ fit and proper’ to operate in this city, and opted not to renew the company’s license—a decision partly based on some of the damning revelations that surfaced about Uber this year. (CNN,2017)

The main revelation of Uber was about business ethics, Uber used controversial ‘ greyball’ software to prevent regulations and law enforcement from monitoring the app. This dishonest action brought Uber bad reputation and nonsupport of local authority. It can be seen that unethical actions would lead Uber lose a huge taxi market and might set a precedent for other cities that are of two minds about Uber.(CNN,2017)Although Uber said it did not use ‘greyball’ , the effects were little.

Unethical actions can bring both benefits and risks for  businesses, if these are not known by the public and related authorities, businesses may have higher profits, less costs, tax or fine…through grinding employees, using inferior materials, bribing….However, the risks of unethical actions would be damage of reputation, consumers, especially those who care about ethics may not purchase again and potential consumers may decrease, too. Sales and profits may decrease a lot.Also, sometimes businesses need to pay large compensation and serious unethical problems may directly destroy the whole brand.

There was another problem with Uber, in July, Uber was forced to pull out of operations n Macau, China. A year ago, Uber sold its business in China to rival Didi chuxing. (CNN,2017)

The reason why Uber failed in China may because it lacked know of Chinese market, a SWOT analysis is needed. The main strengths of Uber are easy operations for calling a taxi,  data driven and the users of Uber need not to be reselected as divers of Uber cannot choose passengers by their destination. The weakness may include the unprofessional of drivers as most Uber drivers in China are part-time, also the easy operation of payments(need no password)are not trustworthy. Opportunities include that China is a huge potential market ( large population, large demand). Threats are that there are highly-competitive competitors in China—Didi Chuxing, and traffic are too complex…From these information above, although China is a huge market, it is not really suit Uber as Chinese people already got used to Didi and these complex transport may be hard for part-time drivers, which might bring low-quality serives. In this case, Uber should think carefully about entering in China.

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Reference

Sara Ashley O’Brien (2017) what happens if Uber loses London for good? Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/23/technology/business/uber-london-crises/index.html

Citation in text:( CNN ,2017)

Valentina Iricibar (producer) (Oct 25th, 2016)What’s The Deal With The Buenos Aires Court Ruling That Uber Is Legal? Retrieved fromhttp://www.thebubble.com/whats-the-deal-with-the-buenos-aires-court-ruling-that-uber-is-legal/

Citation in text: (Uber, 2016)

 

 

 

Business ethics

Business ethics refers to ethical principles and moral problems that arise in a business environment, and CSR — corporate social responsibility can also be a  model of business ethics. CSR is those businesses that considering the interests of society by taking responsibilities for the impact of their decisions and activities on their stakeholders.(Alastair Farquharson, Peter Stimpson 2014).

There was an example of business ethics in 2016 about the company HamptonCreek, it has a product called ‘Justmayo” ,which is an egg-free mayonnaise substitute(Wikipedia, 2017) in order to decrease people’s reliance on animals.

However, some news was reported about Justmayo, (Baidu, Sohu 2016)according to its ex-employees, HC packaged itself to be a technical company, which is actually a food company through showing inductive image to consumers, like hiring ex-employees from google, claiming Khosla Ventures was one of their investors, and putting Bill Gates into its official website. Due to these actions above, consumers might trust HC more and the sales revenue increased , also potential investors may be more likely to invest because of its reputation. A technical company is usually more attractive than a common food company, the misleading information instructed by HC brought more profits and higher popularity for it.

Also, some employees were dissatisfied because of the unethical actions of HC . For example, its ex-employees said  the experts of HC did 1-month-experiment for stability, but it claimed to the public that its expiration data was 6 months. ‘ I don’t know what would happen after when it is on sale, it makes me so upset and i could not even fall in sleep sometimes.’, said of its ex-employee. Although Justmayo did not brought actual harmful effects to consumers after time passed by, employees of HC were disappointed to find that HC did not care about science development , instead ,the thing that HC most cared about was producing as quick as possible to meet the requirement of contracts, this might be the reason why they only did 1-month-experiment.

The unethical actions did by HC (include sending inductive message, ignoring the necessary experiments for Justmayo) seemed to bring short-term profits to HC, as consumers , investors, and other stakeholders like suppliers may trust it more and the sales increased, they could get more finances, others stakeholders might be more likely to cooperate with it. However, after it was reported, its reputation would fall down quickly just like now, the sales decreased, no more investment, demotivation of employees…… It would be hard for HC to come back to its position before.

Reference

 

1.Alastair Farquharson, Peter Stimpson 2014. ( Cambridge International AS and ALevel Business Coursebook ) Cambridge

2. Justmayo retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Mayo

3. Report about Justmayo , retrieved from http://www.sohu.com/a/122419299_345191 and http://tech.qq.com/a/20150809/007015.htm

4.’JustMayo'(2014).[image] Retrieved June 15th, 2014, from https://ss1.bdstatic.com/70cFuXSh_Q1YnxGkpoWK1HF6hhy/it/u=4113993923,2736096670&fm=27&gp=0.jpg