Challenging The Uber Syndrome

Just yesterday, Grab announced its acquisition of Uber across South East Asia. Uber customers received notification that the Uber app will cease operations on 8th April in Singapore. While many bet on the winners and losers, one thing is for sure – the industry disruption continues.

Uber's Innovation To Success

Uber is synonymous with innovation and cross-industry disruption. When Uber surfaced in San Francisco in Mar 2009, it created a massive transformation in the transportation industry. 

Taxi companies no longer had monopoly of the business of transporting passengers. People could find peer to peer ride sharing, deliver and transportation via an on-line app. It offered convenience, transparent pricing and better service as the nearest drivers could be alerted saving time and passengers can track where the drivers are for visibility and safety. People found employment and free-lance opportunities to make a living that was convenient to their timing and location too.

The Uber Syndrome

Today, we use the term “The Uber Syndrome” to describe industry disruptions “where a competitor with a completely different business model enters your industry and flattens you.” This is a powerful quote from Judy Lemke, CIO of the Schneider Trucking Company. And growing meteorically from sheer entrepreneurship!

In the past, strategic change and management consultancies talked about business model optimization and creating viable independent business models. I studied my Masters of Business Administation and wrote my paper on the Viable System Model from Professor Stafford Beer who revolutionalized the Chile economy. 

That was great and is still used today in corporate restructuring and optimizing organizational efficiency. On top of that, executives now need to worry about competitors with new business models, who arise from outside the recognized landscape of traditional competition.

New Competitors That Aren't Classified As Competitors

IBM Institute of Business Value conducted the world’s largest Global C-Suite Study among CEO, CFOs and CMOs, the words "Uber-ized", "Uber-ization", "Uber Syndrome" and "digital invaders" were among the top concerns. The most striking quote from all the quotes collected from the executives - that is typical of what keeps executive awake at night is “The biggest threat is new competitors that aren’t classified as competitors”.

An executive from the study told us that he spends much of his time surveying the landscape of everything that is happening, constantly trying to apply his judgment to decide whether something is just a passing fad or hype that can be safely ignored, if it is a serious trend that needs to be addressed in a timely way, or if it is a tsunami that threatens to rise up and wipe you entirely off the map. Those are the worries that are causing top corporate executives to lose sleep these days.

Then there is the issue of competition across industries – or to put it another way, the blurring of lines between industries, and the threat of new, non-traditional forms of competition.

Whoever Dominates Data Science Wins

In fact, a full 54% of retail executives we talked to said that they expect competition from outside the industry to be more significant and impactful than competition from within the industry over the next several years.

More so than ever, data science plays a critical role to how executives can stay ahead of the competition. Our team at Systems on Cloud at Asia Pacific work daily with executives on cognitive computing, analytics, big data and artificial intelligence to power their journey ahead. For those new to Artificial Intelligence, we offer a discovery workshop where they can understand what it takes from data, resources and skills to embark on this journey.

Whoever dominates the data science wins. 

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Credits: Blog photo from Grab advertisement.