Airbnb Competencies Enabling Success of Online Taxi Services - Essay Sample

Introduction

The success of the proposed new service (Online Taxi Services) will significantly be contributed by the core competencies in Airbnb. These competencies will be streamlined to the new service in order to enhance its penetration in the market. The competencies are as herein outlined.

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Leadership Skills

From a simple operation in an apartment ran by two individuals to a multinational empire, Airbnb has exceedingly drawn its success from the leadership skills right from the founders to the rest of the management team. According Bahri and Yahya (2015), leadership capabilities and skills play a key role in steering the differentiation of organizational products to gain competitiveness. Similarly, leadership skills and styles exemplified by the management team at Airbnb have enabled the company to differentiate its products from those of the competitors. For Airbnb to compete with the already established key players in the market such as FlipKey, HomeAway, HouseTrip and HomeToGo, the ability of the leaders to involve the stakeholders, outgoing in search of partners, example setting and proper and efficient decision making.

Linking this core competency to the proposed service, a new service requires outgoing leaders who are willing to go out of their way to uphold and promote the new service. The taxi service will require the company to first pilot through partnership with the existing players in taxi industry such as Uber and Lyft. For this to be achieved, the leaders are the major players to link up with these companies for the partnership. The leadership skills by the company leaders will also be integral in assessing and interrogating the credibility of the proposed service and making decisions on how to have the service rolled-out.

Teamwork and Teambuilding

One of the major key drivers of organizational success in the modern business World is teamwork. The ability of a company's workforce to work together as a team portrays its ability to tackle emerging issues that are critical to continued improvement and problem solving. This has been the case at Airbnb where the operational procedures of the company have been based on teamwork and organized working procedures to contribution of each employee towards success of the company. Airbnb believes that the teamwork espoused by its employees has exceedingly contributed to their success over the years. This is also expected to be a major driver to the success of the proposed service. Through working together as a team, the online taxi service is expected to be propelled to high penetration rate in the market. This will be mainly as a result of creativity brought about by teamwork.

Design and User Friendliness

Airbnb has been known to provide products and services that are easy to use and with unique and appealing designs. Right from the company's logo, the design shows a unique frame to connect the consumers as well as to make the company's products and services easier to identify. The company has also embraced high classic designs of other products which have enhanced their high penetration and acceptance in the market. Grunig and Kuhn (2011) suggest that when planning for a strategy, it is important for the management to ensure that the strategy will be easy to use and unique to beat those of the competitors.

The online taxi service platform will be uniquely designed to ensure it stands out from those of other market players. The company has previously come up with unique and appealing designs of its products and services and this will be the case to the new service. Moreover, the service will be user friendly such that the users will be able to easily request for taxi under the same platform offering them accommodation and other travel services. This is one aspect that will enhance trust among the customers hence giving the company an advantage.

Cost-Saving and Affordability

Airbnb has mainly majored on offering affordable services and products to her clients, an aspect that has seen the company strive in the market. Evidence shows that cost-leadership is one of the major ways that upcoming businesses can successfully use to distract and enter into the market. Most of the clients at Airbnb have cited low prices as the major reason as to why they chose the services and products of the company. This is to imply that the company has a core competence of minimizing the costs of coming up with their services and products hence they are able to provide them at affordable prices. This will be the case for the proposed service. The company will reduce the costs of designing the platform for taxi services as well as encouraging use of low fuel consuming vehicles. This will enable the company to provide the online taxi service at a lower price.

The core competencies of Airbnb will be significant in enabling the proposed new service to excel in the market. The leadership skills among the management team of Airbnb will provide a pathway for the online taxi service to be embraced in the market and strategically place the service under one roof with the homestay services offered by the company. The teamwork competence will also enable the company through the employees to collectively work towards creating a unique platform for the taxi services. Cost-saving will strategically place the proposed service as a cheap and affordable means of moving around among the travellers.

References

Bahri, S., & Yahya, D. K. (2015). The Core Competence Effect Of Competitive Strategy And Its Impact On The Corporate Performance Of Bumd: A Study On Bumd Aceh Province, Indonesia. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management, Vol. 3 (6); 732-754.

Grunig, R. D., & Kuhn, R. (2011). Strategic Planning Process-based. Translated from German by Anthony Clark, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg.