RideAlly Travels Pvt Ltd: Seeking Growth

Description

RideAlly, a ride-hailing platform headquartered in Bangalore, India, catered to the business-to-consumer and business-to-business segments. It operated in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Hariprakash Agrawal, the chief executive officer and founder, needed to devise a plan to sustain the business in India’s highly competitive ride-hailing market. It was time to think about scaling up the business, which needed significant investment and the right strategy to gain a solid foothold in the industry. Agrawal’s team needed to prepare a pitch for investors and present a strategy for penetrating the market and expanding the business.

Learning Objective

This case is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in service system innovations, platform businesses, and operations strategy. It is particularly valuable for classes that focus on the concepts of market entry, competition, pricing strategies, driving customer loyalty, market expansion, and how to successfully pitch a ride-hailing and -sharing platform business. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:Explain the ride-hailing market in India and the operational model of the ride-hailing platform. Understand the market entry strategies of ride-hailing firms and the context under which market entry questions arise. Identify various pricing strategies applicable to ride-hailing platforms and map them to market characteristics. Define several problems and challenges in India’s ride-hailing market and brainstorm strategies to overcome them. Explain the preparation required for a pitch plan for investors.