Ola Company’s Profile

Ola is an online transportation network company established in 2010. They have created a platform for users to book a cab by providing them with an easy mobile application while they operate as an online cab aggregator. They tend to bring the cab drivers and the customers together and foster entrepreneurship at drivers level. In addition Ola provides different form of services ranging from economic to Luxury travel. The payments can be made by cash or cashless by using Ola Money. Today it offers on demand car sharing, Auto sharing & bicycle sharing services as well.

Key Insight: In the duration of 7 years the company has expanded to a network of more than 600,000 Vehicles across 110 Cities with a fleet of 6,000 employees. Ola also claims to have an average booking of 150,000 booking per day and control 60% of the market share in India. In January 2018, Ola extended their first overseas market in Australia where they have planned to run their services in Melbourne and Sydney.

The main purpose of the company is to make mobility easy, convenient, affordable and safe for which they have even introduced an emergency button on the app in an event of any emergency. The company is even charging low commission rates on rides as low as 7.5% whereas Uber and Taxify charges 35% and 30% respectively this gives Ola an edge over other competitors. Ola also suffered huge losses due to their promotional offers and discounted rides which accounted them for $ 458,382,038.89 (Shankar & Chanchani, 2018).

Target Segment: There is a very huge market for Ola’s buyers persona which includes:

Men and Women ages 18 - 60 who frequently attends AFL games, Concerts, Night clubbing.

Men and Women ages 20 + who travel frequently for their business trips via airport or Public Transport.

Men and Women ages 20+ who still needs to acquire their Driving license.

Men and Women 21+ who frequently enjoy festivals and Breaks (key dates: December 31st-Jan 1st, February 4th, March 17th, July 4th, etc.)

Current Marketing: To this day, referrals are an integral part of Ola's marketing strategy, Users and driver receives incentives and discounted rides for using codes. They even market themselves on Snapchat Advertisements, Website and Newsletter. Last but not the least word of mouth is an ages old marketing scheme which is evaluated according to their individual experiences.

Current Competitors: There are various direct competitor such as Uber, Taxify and china’s ride hailing giant Didi which had entered the market recently. Whereas Silver top cabs, 13 Cabs and silver and yellow taxis are indirect competitor’s as they take away Ola’s potential customer for their on spot conveyance availability (Duttagupta, 2018).

Name: Natasha Daly ("LinkedIn- Natasha Daly", 2018)

Position: Marketing Director Australia;

4 Months Profile: Daly is more than happy to lead the marketing and Brand functions with her 20 years of global, multi- disciplined experience. She will play a crucial role towards strengthening the business as Ola look forward to expand into the other cities over the year. In her most recent position she was the Marketing Director of Caltex for 2 Years and 6 months.

Natasha Daly is only responsible for the Australian region as she reports to the CEO Bhavish Aggarawal at the headquarter in Bengaluru, India. As it’s an emerging market with cut throat competitors Ola is doing pretty well at the moment by offering discounts to their customers on a regular bases. But in a long run they need to engage customer with their brand and make them loyal towards them. Giving too many promotional offers would lead company to incur losses at an initial stage. In addition Ola should provide promotional offers for students and professionals for day to day events. They should provide promotion for certain events which would encourage customers to choose Ola over other competitors. For example Additional 30% Discount offer for People who are going for the Concert by entering their Ticket Code.