Overview of BlaBlaCar
Dsicuss about the Investigating Ride Sharing Opportunities Mobility.
Bla Bla Car is an online website marketplace that is used by the customers in order to get an access to ridesharing or carpooling. It is a mobile application that also connects the drivers around the city who are with empty seats to passengers who wants to travel towards the same direction in between the cities and to share the cost of their journey so that none would have to pay more. It is very convenient in this modern world where people get access to everything sitting at their home. It is convenient yet pocket friendly (Farajallah, Hammond and Penard 2016). The company is actually a French based company which was founded by Frederic Mazzella in the year 2006 (Tataj and Verganti 2017). It makes use of technology in order to bring the drivers and the customers together. This paper is going to elaborate on analyzing this company with an aim of making an International marketing plan report on this company. It will shed light on the corporate strengths of Bla Bla Cars along with its competitive advantage. It will assess its strengths, weakness and the threats and opportunities through using the tool of internal market analysis. It will also elaborate on competitor analysis of the company by using the Porter’s five forces model. Lastly, the paper will point out the best suited marketing strategy for the company based on the analysis.
The main objective of the company is to develop and operate in the emerging markets. For hiring and recruiting drivers, the company makes use of the recruiting strategy of drivers/logistics and social media/ public relations. The key capabilities of the company are that there is no dispatcher required for its service. It is very user friendly. People could book the service anywhere and at anyplace. They can even track their booked cars and even cancel them if they want. It is a shared economy, just tap and ride.
Competitive advantage
- Part of the ‘shared economy’
- Shared costs among riders
- Only ridesharing services to travel between cities in Australia
- No legal issues are present due to the fact that the drivers are not employed by BlaBlaCar (minimum wages, interests etc.)
- Ride sharing is made legal in Australia since 2015 (Allen 2015)
- Mostly positive reviews
Target market(s)
The target market of the company are the local public above the age group of 18, the students, the office going employees, the people who cannot afford owing a car, the tourists/visitors and the backpackers, the below average income earners, the public who wants cost-efficient mode of transportation and the ones who are unable to drive out of their residing cities.
Competitive strengths
- Cheaper than other long distance modes of travel
- Fixed prices for certain common places
- Cashless payments
- Additional source of income
- Flexible working schedules
Internal Analysis of Bla Bla Car
Political- The political factors that are affecting the company are that of the licensing issues in relation to the drivers, the low level of regulation as because the company does not owns the cars which are used for the ridesharing service only for connecting the drivers with the passengers. With the same, there is none to bear the cost of any occurrence of accidental incidents. It is a big question that who will take the responsibility in case of any accident, the company itself or the drivers (Taylor 2017). There is also a tax regulation as because Bla Ba car is a foreign based company which is operating its business in the abroad.
Economic- The economic factors that are affecting the company are many. One of the key capabilities of the company is that it is a part of “shared economy” and it is also acting as a political factor that could influence its business. The company also operates in a dynamic pricing model and the drivers here are all self-employed. With the same, it has raised 200 million dollars from the three ventures, making the Australian government revenue economically beneficial (voeth and Stief 2016). It has a great contribution to the Australian GDP as well. In order to become economically stable, the company has also lowered the shared cost of the same service that is offered by its other competitors.
Social- the Company has multi-national operations along with reasonable and pocket friendly fares with trustworthy service. Its concept of shared economy has permitted establishment of new relationships which would have been hampered by the time, distance, and other limitations (Arcidiacono and Pais 2018). There are no special skills required for the drivers, other than the one to operate a vehicle safely and smoothly. It is also to note that the company also features a ‘’ladies only’’ travel, which is making it safer for the females to travel together.
Technological- The technology that it uses are safe, simple and convenient to use by the people in today’s era. Now-a-days there is none to say that he or she does not know how to use a mobile phone. Mobile are used by each and everyone and that too for more than 15 hours a day. Hence, it has chosen a right way to get in touch with the modern day’s passengers. Also, it uses the concept of cashless economy and depends on the internet access to run its business. Hence, technology is an important factor that is driving the BlaBlaCar’s fast growth (Prieto, Baltas and Stan 2017). It is also to note that the application of the company uses the Java and Python operating systems.
Competitive Analysis of Bla Bla Car
Legal- There is very little or no legal issues for the company. This is due to the fact that it does not operate ridesharing services such as Uber and taxis (Pahuja and Tan 2017). Drivers do not profit off of the journey so there is no need to pay taxes. With the same, the app only connects the drivers with the passengers, who is held accountable in the event of any misfortune.
Environmental- There is reduction of pollution in the environment as well as in the greenhouse gas emissions as because the concept of travelling together and having fewer cars on the road is environment friendly. Hence, it can be said that the company provides services with an eco-friendly initiative.
Bargaining power of the buyers- The consumers in today’s market have high bargaining power. They are very price sensitive and it is indeed true that they would tend towards the better service within low cost. The price sensitivity of the consumers is likely to result in their shifting to any other services whose shifting cost is low in the market.
Bargaining power of the suppliers- The company has any other outsourcing service and does not own any of the vehicles operating on its behalf. Bla Bla car is dependent on its drivers, who own the car (Bonazzi, Poli and Kuonen 2013). Hence, it is therefore to note that the suppliers (the drivers) too have high bargaining power as the company is highly dependent on them and their vehicles.
Threat of new entrants- The major threat for the company would be the low cost startup companies, which are likely to shift the consumer’s preferences towards them. The competitor of Bla Bla Car is Uber, Ola and Taxify. Taxify is planning to enter into the Australian marketing by the mid of 2018 (Nwogugu 2017).
Threat of substitutes- The services such as yellow cabs, white cabs, silver top taxis, and the other means of transportation such as buses and trains that people in Australia still make use of on a daily basis as well as the companies such as Qantas, Airlines Jetstar and Virgin Australia are the major means of transportation that are prevailing as the substitutes of the Bla Bla Car (Homsombat, Lei and Fu 2014).
Industry rivalry- The rivalry companies of the Bla Bla car are the intercity buses such as the Greyhound Australia, Airlines and the taxi services such as FlexiCar, Car Nextdoor and GoGet. It therefore needs to make improvements in order to remain competitive in the market.
Marketing Strategy for Bla Bla Car
Strengths- The main strength of the company is that the services of it are at very affordable and lower prices as compared to the other existing companies. This is attracting the passengers towards using its service even more. With the same, the operational cost of the company is also very low (Andersson, Hjalmarsson and Avital 2013). There are a large variety of the routes where the services operate. Hence, people, belonging from large range of area could use this app and use the rise sharing and carpooling services. However, the most important part of its strength is that such a transport service reduces the ecological footprint. For example, at a time three different people could use a single vehicle in order to reach their destination, instead of using three different vehicles individually. In present days, reducing pollution and maintain ecological balance has become very important to take into consideration.
Weaknesses-There are some weaknesses of it that are been identified. There is a risk of travelling with the strangers. There are people who do not find it safe at all. Also, avoiding the legal issues by not permitting the drivers to make profit is creating an increase in the competition and lowering of the company’s margin. Furthermore, the company has to completely depend on the others to run its business and there are very little to no baggage allowance in fact. It becomes very inconvenient for the passengers sometimes who need to travel to a distant destination. Moreover, as discussed above, the company operates its business by means of technology (mobile applications) (Bicocchi and Mamei 2014). Hence, it is also contributing to its negative aspect, as because the company has to rely completely on the internet access and mobile phones to have its business run smoothly.
Opportunities- There is a good array of opportunities present for this firm to grow and develop its business further. There is a room for improvement and innovation for the company. The company could improve its service even more by allowing baggage for the passengers while travelling to distant places. It could also exploit new and bigger markets in developing countries such as in Mexico, India, and Indonesia where the cost of travelling and traffic congestion is very common. Furthermore, one of the legal opportunities present for the company is that of the system of taxation of tolls for the cars with one person.
Threats- The most significant threats that is present for the company is that of the ever changing government laws and the change in regulations and legislations on car pooling and ride sharing (Gargiulo et al. 2015). The fall or rise of such company is completely on the hands of the governmental bodies. With the same, there are few notable competitors of its who are no way less popular than itself. The main substitute competitor of it is Uber. There are also other modes of transportation available in the places including that of the airlines, taxis and trains.
The market in the Australian region favors ride hailing and ride sharing since the domestic government has made the ride sharing legal in the year 2015. It welcomes the growing trend of modern society- ‘shared economy’. The working hour for the drivers is very flexible and that too along with no specific skills required other than of the skill of driving safely and smoothly. It is to be noted that the domestic tourism in the Australian market with the long distance travelling has grown up significantly since the year 2015. The revenue of the ride sharing in Australia in the year 2018 amounts to about US$447m (Standing, Standing and Biermann 2018). In the cities like that of Melbourne and Sydney, the ramshackle public transport offers an extensive and immense growth prospects for such services. It is also expected the market penetration of the country will be growing to 7.6% from 7.3% by the year 2022. With the same, it is also mention that the yearly revenue growth rate in the country is 3.8% and this is resulting in a market volume of about US$519m in the year 2022.
Promotion- The promotional methods that are to be used for the promotion of the company in the international market are through social networking sites, billboards, YouTube, word of mouth promotion, TV programs, partnership, general and specialized newspapers and brochures in popular destinations. With the same, it would also give discounts to the new users.
Product- The only product that is to be sold is that of ridesharing and carpooling service
Place- The customers would let book its services through the Bla Bla Car mobile application and through websites as well.
Price- The prices would be kept the same. It would be less than its competitors and would be very affordable that it could be afforded by anyone.
Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis it can be said the Bla Bla Car is potent enough to expand its business in the international market. Although, like any company, it has few weaknesses and threats too but the opportunities too are very long and therefore, it must be introduced in the international market. It also has a long list of competitive strengths that could better assist it to foster in the international market such as India, Indonesia and Mexico.
References
Allen, D., 2015. The sharing economy. Review-Institute of Public Affairs, 67(3), p.24.
Andersson, M., Hjalmarsson, A. and Avital, M., 2013. Peer-to-peer service sharing platforms: Driving share and share alike on a mass-scale.
Arcidiacono, D. and Pais, I., 2018. Individual Rewarding and Social Outcomes in the Collaborative Economy. In Multidisciplinary Design of Sharing Services (pp. 81-93). Springer, Cham.
Bicocchi, N. and Mamei, M., 2014. Investigating ride sharing opportunities through mobility data analysis. Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 14, pp.83-94.
Bonazzi, R., Poli, M. and Kuonen, P., 2013. Free lunch and ride sharing. A new business model for winter sport resorts.
Farajallah, M., Hammond, R.G. and Pénard, T., 2016. What Drives Pricing Behavior in Peer-to-Peer Markets? Evidence from the Carsharing Platform BlaBlaCar.
Gargiulo, E., Giannantonio, R., Guercio, E., Borean, C. and Zenezini, G., 2015. Dynamic ride sharing service: are users ready to adopt it?. Procedia Manufacturing, 3, pp.777-784.
Homsombat, W., Lei, Z. and Fu, X., 2014. Competitive effects of the airlines-within-airlines strategy–Pricing and route entry patterns. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 63, pp.1-16.
Nwogugu, M.C., 2017. International Capital Flows, Complexity and the Illegality of the’Sharing Economy’and Digital Currencies.
Pahuja, A. and Tan, C.H., 2017. Breaking the Stereotypes: Digital Nudge to Attenuate Racial Stereotyping in the Sharing Economy.
Prieto, M., Baltas, G. and Stan, V., 2017. Car sharing adoption intention in urban areas: What are the key sociodemographic drivers?. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 101, pp.218-227.
Standing, C., Standing, S. and Biermann, S., 2018. The implications of the sharing economy for transport. Transport Reviews, pp.1-17.
Tataj, D. and Verganti, R., 2017. The European Innovation Council: Strategic Reflections, 130-139.
Taylor, A., 2017. Technology, Markets and the Subversion of Property Rights: Foundations of New Business Models. In International Conference on Economic Sciences and Business Administration (Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 337-346). Spiru Haret University.
Voeth, M. and Stief, S., 2016. Sharing Economy: A case of customer-to-customer marketing. Die Unternehmung, 70(1), pp.45-57.
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