UBER CEO, TRAVIS KALANICK, RESIGNS

Founder of popular ride-sharing service, Uber, Travis Kalanick stepped down Tuesday as chief executive. He helped found the Company in 2009. A shareholder revolt made it untenable for him to stay on at the company.

Mr. Kalanick’s exit came under pressure after hours of drama involving Uber’s investors, said confidential sources with knowledge of the situation.

Earlier on Tuesday, five of Uber’s major investors demanded that the chief executive resign immediately. The investors included one of Uber’s biggest shareholders, the venture capital firm Benchmark, which has one of its partners, Bill Gurley, on Uber’s board. The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago, said the people with knowledge of the situation.

In the letter, titled “Moving Uber Forward” and obtained by The New York Times, the investors wrote to Mr. Kalanick that he must immediately leave and that the company needed a change in leadership. Mr. Kalanick, 40, consulted with at least one Uber board member and after long discussions with some of the investors, he agreed to step down. He will remain on Uber’s board of directors.

 “I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,” Mr. Kalanick said in a statement.

Uber’s board said in a statement that Mr. Kalanick had “always put Uber first” and that his stepping down as chief executive would give the company “room to fully embrace this new chapter in Uber’s history.” An Uber spokesman declined to comment further.

His resignation follows the company’s woes that started this year over allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the work place. His troubles began earlier this year after a former Uber engineer detailed what she said was sexual harassment at the company, opening the floodgates for more complaints and spurring internal investigations. 

Mr. Kalanick turned the company into the world’s dominant ride-hailing service and upended the transportation industry around the globe. He had said last week that he would take an indefinite leave of absence.

UBER VS. TAXIFY – Mark Essien, Hotels.ng founder, believes Nigerians prefer lower prices over quality service? Tell us what you think

Mark Essien of hotels.ng recently predicted on his twitter page ‘Taxify will crush Uber in Nigeria. Uber cares about quality, but Nigerians care about price. Taxify is barely vetting cars, Uber is strongly.’ Its quite an interesting argument to make, because  while i love a good bargain, i definitely love quality too.

The genesis of the argument is the fact that Lagosians are not pleased with Uber, complaining about the quality of Uber’s pricing and service and comparing them to other competitors like Taxify and Oga Taxi. Even though some experts do not believe that other competitors can ever win Uber in the ride-sharing war, from other examples around the globe and based on peculiar industry issues. Read here

Uber recently tried to appease its customers by reducing its fares by 40% in Lagos. Uber’s price reduction was in response to the latest price rate slash by Taxify, an Estonian international transportation network company. According to Uber in a statement, “...you can now request a high-quality ride for the same price as small chops!”

So while still hoping Uber will set up shop in PH and let us into the mouth watering bargain, let’s find out what you think-  which would you rather choose in a ride, quality or low price?

MURDER OF JUMIA DELIVERY MAN AND UBER DRIVER: HOW CAN WE GUARANTEE THE SAFETY OF DELIVERY MEN?

First it was the gruesome murder of a Jumia Delivery salesman in Port-Harcourt. Next, a few days ago, the senseless killing of an Uber Driver in Lagos. Both killings had one thing in common- lazy young men wanted to take advantage of goods and services being provided by the online retailers without paying for it. The easiest way for them to do so in their weird calculations was to kill the men contracted to deliver those services to the end consumer. The question this poses is- Should pay on delivery be scrapped? Will scrapping it better guarantee the safety of the delivery men? How can their safety be better guaranteed? Pay on delivery is currently an accepted mode of payment in Nigeria due to various issues like lack of trust of consumers in online retailers and weak legal protection for consumers. However, until trust is built and consumers gain adequate confidence in online retailers to ‘deliver’ their own part of the bargain(no pun intended), scrapping pay on delivery may not be an option. E-commerce companies will have to vamp security for their delivery men to discourage and reduce incidents of armed robbery and assault According to a CNN.com report, being a delivery man is one of the riskiest jobs in America. About 25 percent of delivery men are victims of robberies and assaults. It is therefore very imperative for delivery men and their companies or those they deliver for, take appropriate measures to protect them. First, e-commerce companies and delivery companies if the e-commerce companies are outsourcing, need to set clear rules and procedures for all delivery drivers. Some of the things they could do include-  Ensure that phone numbers of customers are functional and verifiable. Do away with pay as delivery as much as possible. However due to the ‘lack of trust’ in the Nigerian online retail market, it may be difficult to scrap that now. Never deliver after dark. If you absolutely need to ensure the person pays with a card. Print the rules for delivery on your take out menus, so customers know them. Uniforms looks mart but drivers should be encouraged to use street clothes, instead of uniforms distinguishing them as delivery persons to a devious predator Encourage drivers to have as little cash as possible on them Deliveries of products above a certain amount should be discouraged except it has been paid online Don’t deliver after dark. Don’t enter the houses of the recipient too. Ensure all of your drivers have cell phones or a way of communicating with you, or the authorities, in the event of an emergency.

Uber releases new feature to help you track your family members' rides real time

Uber now has a new feature on its app called Trip Tracker. It was launched on Tuesday and it helps users track rides of family members in real time and monitor how the ride is going via the map inside the Uber app. Trip Tracker is part of Uber's Family Profiles which is a feature on Uber that let's you invite people and create a family profile. Rides undertaken by anyone within that profile is billed to the organiser. 





It seems great for parents or older siblings who would want to pay and track their children's movement. Also seems great as a security feature. Once someone in your Family Profile requests a ride, you'll be notified with the option to track the ride. You’ll know when they are on their way, which route they are taking and when they’ve arrived. Oops! Children may protest about their privacy but at least it helps parents monitor them while they are on the go


Here’s a brief run down of how it works:
• Download or upgrade the latest version of the Uber app.
• Set up your Family Profile.
• When one of the members of your Family Profile take a ride, you’ll get to know details of their ride
• Live feed of the trip on your Uber app map.
• You are billed the cost of the ride and you will both receive a copy of the receipt

Apple invests $1bn in Uber's largest Chinese competitor

Friday the 13th is traditionally seen as a day with a bad omen. Hopefully, that may not be the case for Uber, as they received news that might just be any businesses' nightmare yesterday. Their biggest rival in China, Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi) got a massive investment from Apple of $1 billion Dollars. This funding and strategic partnership with Apple could be a game changer for Didi Chuxing, the largest taxi-booking and ride-sharing service app in China Uber as its biggest rival.

                                           Pic: courtesy Reuters/Jason Lee

Uber's CEO, Travisk Kalanick, apparently seems to be taking this latest strategic move in 'ride-sharing wars' with a sense of humor and joked about this in his tweet yesterday.

 "travis kalanick (@travisk) tweeted at 8:10 AM on Fri, May 13, 2016:

girlfriend owns @apple shares which makes her a didi investor... #Smh #ridesharewars #domesticissues #thanksALotTim
(https://twitter.com/travisk/status/731018873168764929?s=09)"

Car manufacturers and people in technology are increasingly forging new partnerships and this will be increasingly beneficial for Apple which is looking to strengthen its hold in the Chinese market after spotlight from regulators, as well as Didi Chuxing.