Analysis Of Ingogo’s Marketing Plan

Situation Analysis Recap

Discuss about the Analysis of Ingogo’s Marketing Plan.

Ingogo is Australian taxi booking app or website that thrives to provide better values to customers and drivers. The idea came in 2011 when consumers used to have frustrating experience while booking a cab. The launch of Ingogo was to wipe out the traditional monopoly of taxi industry. The company has already made interaction between passenger and driver very easy by eliminating middle man and introducing mobile app. The passenger uses GPS to track the location of driver and confirm booking (Arora & Sekhon, 2015). They can also track their drivers meanwhile. The next step of the company is able to sustain and expand in this highly competitive market. This is possible only when it has some unique approach which results in delivering best value to its customers. This should not come at the cost of losing returns in the longer run (Weng, 2017). Meanwhile, the company hopes to set itself strong in regional areas where competitors are strong. It has attracted huge amount of investment. So, this makes sure that the company is able to grasp trust of investors. The company has got approval from the government to create platform for businesses. These businesses could be small and medium enterprises. With this, the company has launched Ingogo. Now, it is portable payment platform for businesses. Ingogo in terms of its taxi business leaving no opportunities unturned and providing best solution to even small problems of customers. In near future also, it sees itself in bringing out innovation to provide solution to the customers.

The booking can either be done through mobile app or website. The location of driver can be easily tracked on the map. The app provides the facilities to call or text the driver. The app creates revolution in the taxi booking industry in Australia. It provides significant amount of comfort, value added services to customers. Unlike other companies, Ingogo primarily focuses on the issue faced by the customers during taxi or cab booking and try to provide solution. The company is backed by significant amount of investment and thus investors are impressed. The company has presence majorly in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Berth. However, it plans to expand itself across other parts of Australia (Penalvo, 2015).

The app was launched by Mr Hamish Petrie who completed his degree in Bachelor of Business at UTS in finance and accounting. Before Ingogo, he had launched Moshtix which was an electronic ticketing system. Ingogo idea came to him in 2011 when he got tired of continuously frustrating experience of booking a cab. So he devised a cab booking model and in-app payment system which tells the location of cab, how far the driver is and track it in real time. Using Ingogo’s GPS enabled booking system, the app help taxi service driver to take the booking irrespective of the taxi service company they work for. The biggest challenge for the company is its competitors Uber which is US based taxi service provider supported by Google and other competitor is Gocatch. However, the company is set to compete neck to neck with its competitors through its new initiatives like fixed payment system, Qantas points for fixed ride and design-based business (Tan & Land, 2015).

Problem Statement

The problem is that the competition is high in the app-based taxi service and customer switching cost is very low. Therefore, it is difficult for any organization to have a loyal customer base.

The taxi booking company provides a service that takes people from one point to another using private vehicle. The company is targeting broader point to point transportation market which is saturated with players like Uber and Gocatch. Ingogo thrives to understand the need of drivers as well as customers (Ambat & Tiong, 2017). The company is targeting the customer who would like to save time on the ride and those who wants to have hustled free riding and seamless experience. The company has kept itself majorly to the Android and iPhone which covers wider range of audience.

• Strengths

The company wants to shake up the long-standing cab monopoly in Australia by providing passengers and drivers with a better service and putting them directly in touch with each other using innovative technology. The company has leveraged the technology and cut the middle man in between the taxi booking industry. The company is present in all major cities in Australia and has received over $16 million backing from prominent investors. Ingogo provides reliable service to its customers which are lacked by its competitors like Uber who were charged to provide nonprofessional and unlicensed drivers (Boyle & Peterson, 2015).

• Weaknesses

Ingogo offers better coverage in Melbourne and Sydney. It is limited to iPhone and Android whereas its competitors are present in Blackberry and Windows also. It has few cabs in regional areas.

• Opportunities

The company has also received grant from the Federal Government of Australia to build a platform for Australian Business (Westwood, 2016). The company has wider market options.

• Threats

All the tech savy taxi options try to enhance user experience in order to stay relevant in the market. So, there is lot of competition in the market.

Ingogo promotes itself as lawful, reliable and local company. The founder of the company states that they pay Australian Tax; they pay to Australian people and keep wealth in Australia. The company claim to connect users with more drivers than any of their competitors.

There are different methods of target market identification. Generally, the firms would use the variables like demographics, income variable of consumers, geographic variables to identify the target marker. The key target market for Ingogo is the mid class consumers who are commuters. The target market is not the low-income group people as they would use the public transport. The positioning of Ingogo is focus on excellent customer service. Customers’ opinion is given prime importance. Ingogo is unique as it offers advance booking up to two days ahead with minimal penalty for no show which none of its competitor is providing. The app allows user to offer some tip to drivers during peak hour times which is different in case of Uber. Uber provides two or three-fold increase in fares during peak hours (Saxena & Upadhyay, 2016).

Potential Market Segments

The company aims to target broader market in the longer run. It is planning to spread in all major cities and regional places as well. The current market share is more than 5% but the company is set to achieve maximum market share in the longer run. Ingogo gives priority to customer engagement as well as experience of drivers. It believes in using design approach to achieve the expected result. The company is seeking to look beyond the service itself while retaining and attracting customers. The company is all set to use the expertise of an external business to take them to the next level (Solomon & Polegato, 2014).

The objective of the company is to rule out the traditional monopoly of taxi by providing better service to both passengers as well as driver. The company will just connect the two ends. However, it is not involved in owning the taxi. The company will expand itself by understanding the needs of both parties and incorporate those needs in their apps using innovative technology. Ingogo competes in the saturated market by providing innovative solution in the market. It aims to effectively use the capital raised which will benefit to all stakeholders.

Ingogo has already raised $12 million in Series C funding $4.2 million out of $12 million came from equity crowd funding platform. The funds will be used for its expansion all across major cities. The company is forecasting $150 million of payment to its investor next year. It has grown its market share in double digit. Now it is all set to increase by two-fold by the next year. The specific financial objectives of Ingogo can be highlighted as:

Ingogo portrays itself as a revolution in the traditional cab industry. The company uses ethnocentric strategy to build a level of trust in the customer and challenge US based competitor Uber (Booth, 2014). Ingogo is also planning stock market listing this year. The company considers the customers’ desire of being “app happy”. For example, one of the problems is that people kept getting into wrong cabs. So, the company has introduced a light that informs drivers that passenger is waiting. Then the driver holds the mobile phone up and thus two can be connected. The competition is huge and there are multiple competitors, so the company has decided to position itself as an innovative local company which seeks to provide end to end solution to its customers.

SWOT analysis

From Ansoff Matrix, we can find that the company is also focussing on product development. It has expanded itself beyond the taxi industry by launching Ingogo Now. Ingogo Now is portable payment and accounting platform. It aims small and medium businesses. It currently processes small fraction of payment. The company is using the same platform for its drivers and customers as well. Ingogo is going to integrate bunch of things into Ingogo Now software to provide more value to the target audience. This is the business focussed product (Dawes, 2018).

Ingogo has partnered with Concur. Concur will help in expense management which provides same services to top Australian companies. It will also let manage and process employees’ taxi service receipt.

Following Promotional mix will describe all the elements of service industry used by the company to set its marketing strategy (Hamzah & Sutanto, 2016).

Product: The specific features of app includes fixed price, safety, reliability etc. (Perera, 2017).

Price: The Company provides better offer to its customers like fixed fare rides etc. Ingogo has used fixed fare pricing. It means customers are shown exact cost of the trip, including charges and toll when they book the taxi through app or website. This removes the surcharges and fluctuations based on traffic which is an uncontrollable factor. This makes the system fair. Ingogo has also developed partnership with Qantas that allows frequent flyer member to earn points every time they use Ingogo service (Shaffner & Helms Mills, 2017).

Place: The customer can avail these facilities in any of these locations: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Berth

Promotion: The Company will majorly use sales promotion and advertisement.

Physical Evidence: The whole User Interface is built around a periphery interface. It means through motion, sound and contrast person can book a car. The accept button for driver to take the job is also move higher. This has given better acceptance rate. The simple changes will help the company to achieve desired results.

Processes: The overall brand architecture is given prime importance. It is done to leverage all the opportunities available in the market. The company is trying to bring design and marketing together in multiple ways. Design of app is used as selection tool rather than rejection tool (Federici & Grattarola, 2016). It is using design led approach to development.

People: The Company has very talented employees and all the driver partners are licensed. The company makes sure that the drivers’ identities are properly verified before taking them on board (Rabieh & Misic, 2015).

Target Market Positioning

The company will follow Waterfall model. It means understanding the business aspects of all strategies i.e. profits, return on investment, and value addition to customer etc. This will then be properly reviewed and converted into high level design. High level design is the first aspect before entering into coding (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2015). This determines how each objective will be implemented into the app. This is followed by low level design which is more technical and sends to the technical team to implement desired requirements. The team of coders will then write the code which will undergo unit testing, system testing and user acceptance test (Chernev, 2015). The code is then moved into production or set live. There is backup plan in case of roll back condition.

In addition to this, regular meetings would be conducted among the officials at CXO position. There is less hierarchy in the company and employees are given authorities to bring their concerns. The results will be reviewed quarterly on the basis of balance score card set for Ingogo.

The promotion mix tool is used to communicate to wider audience about the Ingogo service. The company will majorly use sales promotion which stimulates consumer purchase (Mendez & O’Leary, 2015). It includes free samples, discounts, coupons etc. Advertising is another way in which company will approach to broader audience (Singh, 2015). The newspaper, Internet ads and social media will be used by Ingogo to promote its product and services.

Conclusion

Ingogo, in spite of start-up, sees itself growing on an exponential scale. The company does not leave any room of doubts in delivering best value to its customers and driver partners. For example, the company is introducing a feature where passenger can choose favourite driver and schedule their next drives with the same driver. It will leverage marketing, technical and design skills to give tough competition to its competitors like Uber and Gocatch. It is targeting broader market, trying to provide better offers and value-added services, entering into new product development. These strategies will help company to achieve above average returns. It is expected that above marketing plan would help organization to achieve sustainable gain in its revenue, market penetration and profitability.

References

Ambat, L. M. C., Cabagnot, T. R., Flores, D. J. C., & Tiong, R. C. F. (2017, November). A Study on Designing a Marketing Plan for a Start-Up Business in the Philippines. In Ascendens Asia Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1, No. 2).

Marketing Objectives and Goals

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Booth, K. (2014). Strategy and Ethnocentrism (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

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