driver2home_startup_report
TRANSCRIPT
Innovation in services – Case analysis Bocconi University
F o u a d C h e h a b T u d o r C a r s t o i u
C a r o l i n a A l o n s o R o d r í g u e z
F a l l s e m e s t e r 2 0 1 4
ßDriver2Homeà
TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
CONTEXT 4
BUSINESS MODEL 4
WORKFLOW 5
MARKET CHARACTERISTICS 5
MARKETING STRATEGY 5
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES 6
COMPETITION 7
FINANCIAL INFORMATION 8
INNOVATION 9
SWOT 10
MANAGERIAL RECOMMENDATIONS 12
SOURCES OF INFORMATION 13
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Over the last decade transport systems have been evolving to meet the needs of a new generation of consumers, whom have been looking for offers that give them even more value than before. Given this scenario we focus our attention on a service that could change the way people move around Milano. The following work is looking to analyze this service, focusing on its innovative traits and its main characteristics, reviewing its key success factors and the challenges that could be faced. We start with the context in which the service will be provided, where 5 factors play an important role: new consumer transport needs, harder traffic laws, Milano's nightlife characteristics, safety and social responsibility play a key role. Following we analyze their Business Model with the Canvas methodology, where we identified the key success factors of the new service, emphasizing the main resource of their digital platform and their strategic alliances. The market analysis and its marketing strategy are elements that although important, the Company has been less descriptive about, focusing mainly on social networks and looking for alliances with the most popular nightclubs around the city. Based on our analysis, we identified that their strategic alliances are the most important element for this service company. Most importantly it's drivers and their performance and the relationship they have with the Car sharing company, since in case of any of this factors default, the company could face difficulties on its operations. Since it's a new service, an analysis was made to assess its innovation traits, focusing on the distributive and personal services clusters, the characteristics of an incremental innovation linked with a recombinative innovation. Competition although non-‐directly existent at the moment, could harm the business potential for the Company, since there exist already in the market some transport service providers that show value for the consumers. Additionally Italy there are more mature business models that are already scaling up their business and could enter the market. As part of a cost and revenues analysis and taking into account the data provided by the Company's management, we performed a profit and loss statement for the first two years, which showed us the potential income for the business, but also reflected the aggressive growth that the management is expecting and raises the questions about the management of this growth. As a conclusion, we added a SWOT analysis emphasizing the internal and external factors that could impact the business in the short, medium and long term. And additionally we add recommendations to key concerns that arise while developing the Company's analysis.
CONTEXT Driver2Home is a replacement driver service, where the customer contacts a driver through a mobile application; the driver will go to pick up the client as well as the client’s car and drive him/her safe home. Driver2Home is offered to face the problems related to the inability to drive, like driving under alcohol consumption. Each year laws in Milan are considering harder penalties for people driving drunk (0.5 grams/1 litter of blood), so people has to look for alternatives to get back home after a heavy drinking night. Even though they took one or two drinks, there is a big risk to reach the maximum grams allowed by law. This situation limits people to the usage of public transportation that doesn’t run at late night and the taxi services. The idea of this service is for those who want to take their car everywhere without thinking on how to turn back home. They could stay all night long near to their car instead of leaving it in the club and turn back to home with taxi. In big cities pricy cars could be stolen or damaged by drunken people. So this cluster of people cares a lot about their car. The researches made by the company shows that in Milan, 180 000 people between 18-‐30 years old goes out on weekend nights, and 70 000 cars are driven in those nights. However, a survey performed in Milan, showed that 90% of car owners would be willing to let someone they trust, to drive their car to get back home safe.
BUSINESS MODEL
WORKFLOW The service starts from the moment a person needs to get home after a night out and it’s not in a condition to drive his car. He/she opens the app (which he/she had previously downloaded into its phone and where its credit card information is stored) and pushes a button to ask for a Drive2Home service. Drivers will be located close to nightclubs and bars in order to be available when a client needs them, thus reducing waiting times for the client. The client and the driver will meet at the clients’ car location, the keys will be delivered to the driver and the service begins, setting the timer in the app. The driver will deliver people as instructed by the client ending the service when the client arrives to its final destination. Invoicing is automatically charged by the app to a credit card once the service is completed. After the service is over, the driver walks, takes its scooter or uses a car sharing company to get back to the starting point (a nightclub or bar) to wait for a new client. The client can give feedback to Driver2Home about the whole service experience, rating the driver’s performance and thus, allowing the company to control the quality of its drivers.
MARKET CHARACTERISTICS In Italy there are 37 million cars, 1 car for every 1.65 per person; and Lombardia is the region with the most cars in the country with 5.8 million, meaning 1.60 per person. 180k people between 18-‐30 years old go out on weekend nights in Milan and 70k cars driven in the night on weekends. 90% of car owners would be willing to let someone they trust, to drive their car to get back home safe Client profile:
● 18 – 35 years old ● Medium to high income
● Students and young workers ● Lives around Milan
MARKETING STRATEGY The service will be presented to the market not just as a useful service but as a cool and desirable one as well. The service will be offered for high-‐end clients with a premium price. So the driver will be dressed with a suit and will be present nearby the most famous clubs and bars. As a consequence the company is aiming to target these clubs by offering to their clients free pick ups and 10% -‐ 20% coupons discount to encourage people to try the service. Coupons will be offered on tables where the majority of clients have high incomes. Moreover the service will be presented to all clubs clients who book for seats by phone. On the other hand, the company will be presenting the service just from the beginning on all social media and specifically on Facebook in order to create the buzz. Moreover, even on social networks, the company will be offering coupons to the first movers and free pick-‐ups to the current clients that invite friends to use the service. The expected waiting times for the driver to get to the destination is a maximum of 20 minutes, with a target of 10 minutes to arrive.
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES Zurich Driver2home is in partnership with Zurich insurance company, which provides them a special insurance system. It is given for every car pick-‐up for a fixed cost that amounts to 2.50 euros. When the client will order the service through the APP, the insurance will be activated automatically. So the use of the app is mandatory. Currently, the most of normal Italian insurances cover the third part’s damages regardless who is driving the car that causes the accident, but it doesn’t cover the car that causes the accident, so the driver2home’s insurance will cover the driver, the car’s owner and the third part ‘s damages in case of accident. Personal car is covered as well as the civil responsibility (third people cars) Car2go Car2go is an essential source of driver2home business. It let the driver2home’s drivers to go back to the center after the pick up service with the car for free. It is a Win-‐Win relation since car2go is interested in having the most of their cars in the center, so the drivers of driver2home will provide them this service indirectly. Nightclubs The most of driver2home clients will be from nightclubs and bars, so they will be in touch with the most known bars and nightclubs and left free coupons at the beginning to advertise the service and will give some discounts in the future. Drivers The driver will not be chosen because of his experience or ability to drive but will be chosen if he meets some criteria. The driver should have an age between 25 and 30 years, he should have a clean criminal record, and a minimum of 15 driver license points. However, most of the drivers will be students or young employees as it will be like a high paid weekend second job. They will earn a fix amount of 50 euros per night and a variable, which depends on the number of pick-‐ups per night. Every driver will have his own rate that will be based on customer’s feedback. As a result, they will be fired if they are under ranked. Currently they have already CVs for potential drivers, but the rest will be retrieved by Internet, the company will do contracts with the drivers and test the drivers. The driver will not be chosen because of his experience or ability to drive but will be chosen if he meets some criteria. The driver should have an age between 25 and 30 years, he should have a clean criminal record, and a minimum of 15 driver license points. They will earn a fix amount of 50 euros per night and a variable one, which depends on the number of pick ups per night. Every driver will have his own rate that will be based on customer’s feedback. As a result, they will be fired if they are under ranked. At the beginning, people will be hired and chosen by the owner according to the criteria mentioned above, and in the future, with the increasing in drivers number the company will hire an independent company that will be in charge of hiring the most suitable drivers by testing their ability to drive and their reliability to give the client a good experience.
COMPETITION
As this concept is quite innovative there is a lot of experimenting going on and quite few consolidated firms exist. In Milan there is no direct competition so we did a benchmark with similar transport services. Outside Milan we identified two competitors, one in the US (BEMYDD) and the other in UK (Scooter Man).
In Milan
Price comparisons on a standard ride from Duomo area to Bocconi University with normal taxi service, Uber pop, UberBlack and Driver2Home was made. The average tariffs charged (that can vary depending on time, traffic, weather and so on):
● Uber pop: 2€ + 0.2€/min * 16min(time given by Google maps) + 0.35€/km*6km=7.3 euro
● UberBlack: 5€ + 0.75€/min * 16min= 17euro ● Taxi: 4.55€ + 1.06€/km*6km= 11euro ● Driver2Home: 5€+ 0.69€/min* 24min= 16 euro
We did not analyze the availability of the service, although this is a critical element and might differ strongly between the options selected and also at different moments of the day. It is worth adding that only taxis are allowed to use the preferred driving lines and enter limited driving areas without additional costs, which can significantly reduce time and costs. Although there is a competition element between these different services we also acknowledge the presence of complementary, as they have slightly different roles (especially Driver 2 home which does not move only the client but also the clients car) and can enlarge the pool of potential customers. We noticed that the cheapest with a average cost of 7.3€ was Uber Pop, the newly announced service from Uber that makes use of amateur drivers personal cars to help them amortize the car expenditures. With an average of 11€, traditional taxi is the next in line. Driver 2 Home should cost around 16€ so it’s significantly more expensive but it offers the advantage of taking ones personal car also. UberBlack is the most expensive but it’s also the most high-‐end service as the cars are of high quality and the drivers are professional. Outside Milan BEMYDD is currently servicing 76 cities across 31 states. They stress the social impact of their business, explaining the huge risks of Driving under alcohol influence (DUI) or Driving while intoxicated (DWI). It works in a very similar way to Driver 2 Home except for the fact that the payment is done on a hourly basis (varies from $14 to $19.5 per hour). They also offer a pickup service($25 fixed charge plus variable cost based on distance) and driver teams for events( ranging from $45 to $53 per team per hour). ScooterMan is present in 7 cities in England and offers franchising possibilities. A main difference is that the booking can be done only in advance (at least 24 hours before). It can be hired on an hourly (20 pounds per hour for minimum 5 hours) or a daily basis (150 pounds for 8 hours).
FINANCIAL INFORMATION Their cost structure is based on minutes of usage of the service, since it has a high degree of customization, allowing the company to personalize the price regardless of the location of the client, in order to build a profitable business. Currently the company is working with forecasts estimating a cycle time for the services of 55 minutes per pickup (including the time it takes the driver to get to the client’s location plus a 20 minutes service and the time it will take to get back to its starting point after finishing the service), thus on average they’ll do 6 pick ups per night. The average income per pickup could be 18.8 euros (5+0.69 €/min).
Year 1 Year 2 Application development € 30,000 Average number of drivers per year 70 224
Nights a year 156 156
Fix drivers salary per pickup € 50 € -‐
Variable drivers salary per night € 5 € 5
Estimated pickups per night per driver 5 6
Average trip in minutes 20 20
Fix service rate € 5 € 5
Variable service rate € 0.69 € 0.69
Insurance cost per pickup € 2.5 € 2.5
Bank transaction fees € 0.3 € 0.3
Driver2Home shows profitability on the first year, based on an exponential growth in drivers, hoping to have an aggressive increase on demand. On the other hand, the company is estimating to pay 50€ per driver in the first year, assuming a high fix cost as a start up; for the second year they are estimating to remove that cost, which could impact the driver’s performance, since they would be affected by a lack a fix salary. One of the key challenges for the start up will be related to managing the exponential growth expected, since they forecast an average growth in the number of drivers from 25% to 60% for the first months of operation. Currently three entrepreneurs manage the company, which would be in charge of recruitment, operations, finance and marketing of the company for the first year and evaluating aggressive growth for the company.
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Number of drivers 8 17 27 38 49 61 73 87 100 114 128 143
Monthly Growth 113% 59% 41% 29% 24% 20% 19% 15% 14% 12% 12%
Year 1 Year 2 Income
Fix rate € 273,000 € 1,048,320 Variable rate € 753,480 € 2,893,363
€ 1,026,480 € 3,941,683 Fix costs
Driver's salary for availability € 546,000 € -‐ Variable costs
Driver's salary € 273,000 € 1,048,320 Insurance € 136,500 € 524,160 Bank transaction fees € 16,380 € 62,899
€ 971,880 € 1,635,379 Gross income € 54,600 € 2,306,304 Taxes 31% 31% Net income € 37,674 € 1,591,350
3.7% 40.4%
INNOVATION Currently the market only offers mobility services for people, restricting them to the convenience of using their own car. Driver2Home is a service experience that allows moving people and their cars along to have a maximum mobility in Milan. The main features are:
1) Intangibility -‐ The service that Driver2Home provides is completely intangible because the goal of the service is to transport clients from point A to point B using the existing means of transport. Using the client’s car to get them home and returning with a car sharing service provider, so you manipulate tangible products to offer an intangible service.
2) Heterogeneity -‐ The services provided are personalized since every client has a different departure point and arrival, meeting their specific needs.
3) Inseparability – Driver2Home services are produced and consumed simultaneously since the client starts paying from the moment they ask for the service and until they get home.
4) Perishability – Since the service is produced and consumed at the same time, if there are not clients, the company will have only a fix standard cost.
Driver2Home is company developing in the distributive and personal services clusters, since is a private transport service moving people from one point to another. It is a final consumption service since the consumer is using this service to reach its destination, so there are not intermediaries between the company and the final consumer. It is also a personal service because is based on a B2C business model, since the service provided is delivered from the app, which will give the driver the order to pick up the client in a meeting point. The business model of Driver2Home is based on the use of physical goods where the service is provided with the client’s car delivering the transport mean but at the same time hiring someone to do the work to take you home. There are present also elements of ad hoc innovation since users’ and drivers’ participation to the innovation process is very important. Since the innovation is based on building on already existing markets (the car sharing and personal car markets) we can confirm that it is an incremental innovation. Furthermore, because it recombines existing services and markets changing the architecture, Driver 2 Home is also a recombinative innovation. Thinking now about the taxonomy of market -‐creating service innovations, we notice that Driver 2 Home is an inseparable type of service (a user cannot selectively choose just one or some parts of the service) and the type of benefit is at core (its a new service altogether, not just a new way of offering an existing service). This fact furthermore highlights that innovation is highly present in this new business concept
SWOT
The Company is the first mover in the market. They partnered with a strong car sharing company, which allow the driver2home’s drivers to go back to the center after the pick up service with the car for free. It is a Win-‐Win relation since car2go is interested in having the most of their cars in the center, so the drivers of driver2home will provide them this service indirectly. On the other hand, the new laws regarding alcohol restrictions and driver licenses let the service to become essential since the Italian government decreases the blood alcohol concentration to 0.5 grams/1 litter of blood, so people has to look for alternatives to get back home even after a light drunk night. Moreover, this business shows many weaknesses: the hiring process is standardized since the driver will not be chosen because of his experience or ability to drive but will be chosen if he meets some criteria. The driver should have an age between 25 and 30 years, he should have a clean criminal record, and a minimum of 15 driver license points. As a result, that will affect the business since the credibility of drivers is critical. Furthermore, an App rating could not solve this problem since the average of drunk customers will be high and they will not be able to leave a review. The business plan made by the owner shows an aggressive growth in driver’s number. They will start with eight drivers in the first month and will end with 143 drivers by the twelfth month so it is an increase by 1788%. The question here is how they will handle the recruitment process? On the other hand, the business could be more complex than expected, for the drivers and for the company as well. If the drivers can’t find cars sharing available in some areas, they can’t come back to the previous area and make more pick ups. That fact could affect the profitability of the company since the driver is paid a fixed amount of money in order to make many pick ups per night and will affect the driver earning since the driver is paid a variable cost for every pick up.
The business presents growth opportunities in other Italian cities if it will be replicated in a good way taking into consideration the growth of the services that are related to this business like car sharing. On the other hand, many threats could affect the driver2home service. According to the ministry of transport, from 2007, Italy has seen a constant and continuous decrease in number of purchased cars that is caused by the bad situation of the sector and the bad situation of the Italian economy in general. Moreover, the minister of transport highlighted the impact of new services on the car sector.
The risk to have new competitors in the future is really high since the entrance barriers and the costs to build up the business are low. So we may see in the future many competitors in this small segment that are fighting for market share. So the competition in the future will be based on the knowledge of the market and the CRM. Although, if the public transport hours will be extended in the future, the business service will not be relevant anymore as the customers will prefer to take the metro or the bus and pay less money. Moreover, a huge threat that will end this business will be the breaking of partnership with car2go as this partnership is the source of the business.
MANAGERIAL RECOMMENDATIONS We have found many critical issues in the driver’s management process:
• The company is aiming to hire an independent company after one year, and according to the report given to us by the company, the owners are looking to have 143 drivers by the 12th month. We were wondering if the owners would be able to manage to hire and evaluate by themselves this quantity of drivers.
• On the other hand, the number of driver points requested is not as high which cannot be enough to have a good quality of drivers. We recommend increasing the number of points to the maximum as the drivers will be considered the face of the company and the company will not be able to afford lack of quality at the beginning of the operations.
• Additionally we recommend reviewing the Management plan to pay a fix amount of 50€ to its drivers per night in the first year of operations, since in the scenario that the driver is able to maximize all its rounds per night by the first year, he will have a 50€ “surplus” in its income that will not have by the second year. This will generate noise in the overall working environment of the drivers, risking the Company to high a high turnover ratio and corner the management to spend time and money into making regular recruitment sessions.
Regarding the alliances with a car sharing company:
• We recommend the Company’s management to look for a formal (written) long term commitment from the car sharing company for guaranteeing that the cars that drivers are going to use will be available for several years, since this is a key success factor for the company, since this way they are avoiding driver’s transportation costs that will affect the Company’s breakeven point.
Have a track of the potential market and scalability:
• It is important to notice the trend in the purchase of cars for the long-‐term operations of the business, since as shown earlier, in Italy fewer cars are being bought and is important to evaluate if this trend is affecting the Company’s target market.
• Is important to note that the in case the company is looking to scale their business, they will have to do rely on replicating in Milan’s market characteristics.
First mover advantage:
• The company has to leverage the Market potential of the business opportunity before more mature companies detect the opportunity and try to profit from it taking into account its current knowledge on the business in other locations.
• To have a strong marketing strategy should also be a priority, which hasn’t been taken into account really seriously. One of the success factors for being the first mover and remain profiting from it is to make sure a great number of people knows the service.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION Milan Laws: Arts. 53 & 52. Law 130,2010 http://www.costotaxi.com/?q=it/content/it/taxi-‐calcolo-‐della-‐tariffa-‐milano https://www.uber.com/cities/milan http://www.driver2home.com/tariffe Interview with Driver2Home top Management Innovation in services course slides’