Careem: Making Waves in the Technology & Vehicle Hire Industry - Essay Sample

Introduction

Careem Company engages in firing vehicles to users on a contract basis. Its mother company is the American Uber company (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). The company is based in Dubai that serves as its headquarters and has its operations taking place in more than 100 cities located in 14 different countries, all in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. It was valued at $2 billion by 2018. It operates under technology and vehicle for hire industry (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). It was founded in March 2018. Its founders are Abdulla Elyas, Magnus Olsson, and Mudassir Sheikha. Its products include Careem mobile app from where the potential car hirers communicate with it for the services they need, which include the vehicle for hire and taxicab (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). Its website is careem.com, from where anyone in need can access the information about it.

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Business Strategy

A business strategy refers to the totality of all the decisions made and actions taken by a business with the aim of accomplishing all of its goals alongside securing a competitive advantage in the industry. Since it is a guide towards the attainment of business objectives, it is its backbone (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). Any fault in business strategy can be quite dangerous and result in the failure to meet the stipulated business objectives in the long run, hence leading to losses being experienced by the businesses. It can be understood that there is some importance of business strategy to Careem Company. They include the fact that they aid in effective planning by a business by providing the strategies to fulfills the goals that are planned before and aids identification of strengths and weaknesses that will then be acted upon for the success of the business. It also aids in the generation of efficiency and effectiveness by optimal use of the available resources to realize the pre-established goals and objectives and gives the business a competitive advantage by working optimally and realizing its goals efficiently as opposed to its competitors. Finally, it aids in promoting control where the path to be taken to achieve set goals is well decided, leading to the control of activities undertaken alongside establishing whether they are going on as planned (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). Thus, Careem company has put in place the following business strategies, all anchored in levering of technology, to achieve its goals and objectives of becoming a leader company of the car, bus, and bike hires across the regions it operates.

First, Careem Company announced an arrangement of extending maternity leave in the year 2017 and hired more women as its drivers. In such a case, it can be established that the company put into consideration the existence of humans and empathy in its operations (Ghosh, Yucaoglu, & Thapar, 2018). It had the knowledge that women are natural nurturers besides the fact that they can be available to work in the event their maternity leaves are over. Thus, it opted to leverage women's time to work for them when they are not on maternity leave, where they could work as drivers (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). Also, the company, being empathetic to women, granted them a holiday in the name of maternity leave where they could take care of their newborn babies for a given period, after which they resume work. It is an arrangement that excited many women and encouraged them to work for Careem Company as drivers. With the arrangement in place, there will be the hiring of more women to work for the company alongside their male counterparts, hence raising the number of the workforce (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). As can be observed, the business strategy was aimed at raising the company's number of workers, which results in the undertaking of more driving operations that, in the end, boost its revenues.

Besides, there is a business strategy of auguring well with the societal and government plans to create more jobs across North Africa and the Middle East through extending and launching its presence and operations as many countries as possible, including Egypt and Palestine (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). The strategy is aimed at offsetting the looming problem of unemployment in the region. It is based on joining the governments' commitments to creating more than one million jobs in North Africa and Middle East regions at the end of 2020 (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). Though such an initiative of creating more jobs in the regions, it has the opportunity to extend to as many cities and places in the regions as possible. There shall then be the hiring of as many people in the capacity of drivers as possible, alongside the technological experts in charge of such matters dealing with the Careem mobile app and its security from being hacked and tampered with by cyber attackers (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). In the process, its businesses of transportation, delivery, and mass cash transfer booms since many people have been employed with the guise and veils of combating unemployment. Its revenue streams rise as much as possible as per the business objectives, where many employees and technology are leveraged for the benefit of Careem Company. In the end, the company registers vast revenues in any given period, raising profitability, alongside increasing its net worth as time goes by.

Moreover, there is a strategy employed by Careem Company, where it employs a diversity of services and products offered with the view to maximize on the revenue streams and profitability, which cushions it against the losses that can arise in the event one business it owns fails along the way (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). In such a case, Careem company has provided services, including the production of cars, buses, and bikes for hire, alongside mass cash transfers. Also, in February 2018, it acquired RoundMenu, a restaurant listing as well as a food ordering platform in operation across the Arab world (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). The bus services were launched in August 2018, and it started its operations in Egypt, while the bike hiring services that was acquired from startup Cyacle based in the United Arab Emirates got acquired in May 2019, which could then rebrand as Careem bike (Ghosh, Yucaoglu, & Thapar, 2018). Thus, it can be observed that the company offers more than one service and food products. A RoundMenu restaurant is online, as well as a mobile social guide sued for dining out. The diversification, as per the objectives of Careem Company, is projected at raising the number of revenue streams that, in the process, boost its income and net worth. It also offsets the case where the business is likely to register closure arising from losses hitting one form of service it can be offering (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). It also contributes to widened customer satisfaction, which in the process raises their loyalty to the company, an assurance of the existence of their prolonged patronage that, in turn, contributes to the continuity of the company and its operations.

There is also the company strategy of levering technology to make work easier for its customers. It can be understood that the use of technology is cheaper, faster, more convenient, and safe. One of them includes its launched Careem Pay, which is a digital wallet and form of payment that replaced its cash payments (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). The platform is used by the customers to pay for rides, to buy different vouchers, and even used to top up credit on the credit card has been added or linked. Thus, it is evident that Careem Pay provides some convenient services to customers. Alongside the fact that it is safe and easy to use, it raises their confidence in it and thus boosts their use that works in favor of risen revenues for Careem Company. Also, the use of Careem mobile app makes it easy for the customers to book rides alongside the drivers to pick them up. It is aided by Google navigation that indicates the location of customers and drivers that they have selected to pick them and deliver them to destinations of their choice as further guided by Google navigation. Many customers, thus, can book rides quite conveniently at any given time. The platform solves the problems of customers and drivers looking for one another manually, which can be time-consuming and expensive for the company (Ghosh, Yucaoglu, & Thapar, 2018). Therefore, the use of mobile app technology aided by Google Navigation does the business of accessing customers quite easily, alongside an increased number of operations that also raises the revenues and profitability margin of the company as per its objectives.

Finally, there is the business strategy used by Careem Company, where the drivers are given convenience to operate under their terms and conditions.it will motivate them, making them work wholeheartedly in pursuit of the company's mission, goals, and objectives (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). The drivers are made to be their bosses, where they can work at any time they are available. Also, they can choose the amount of time to work; hence the decision to make the money they want is under them (Malik & Wahaj, 2019). Thus, they can work to the optimum in the run to reap as much income as possible through an increased number of rides, a strategy which also raises the income of the company in the process. Thus, with a motivated workforce, the company can achieve its targets more easily.

Work Design

Work design revolves around the content and organization of the activities, tasks, responsibilities, and relationships of a person or worker. In such a case, their decisions will potentially affect the outcomes at various levels in an organization, including whether the worker feels engaged or is stressed at the workplace, alongside whether the entire organization has the ability to achieve the set targets and goals in the long run. Work design gets described in terms of job characteristics or the features of work, affecting the way the people involved tend to feel about their respective jobs (Ghosh, Yucaoglu, & Thapar, 2018). Some positive job characteristics make it quite motivating and less stressful. Some of the examples of job characteristics that are considered positive include: job autonomy where the employees have the capacities to make decisions that affect their jobs, and task variety where there exists a wide range of tasks in a given job that when done reduces the monotony brought about by ne task. There is also the skill utilization where the workers have the opportunity to utilize their skills in the performance of the jobs they do, tasks significance where one attaches some importance to the act of doing an assigned job, task identity where the employee does a whole job thus identifying with it, and finally job feedback where the worker gets feedback in the process of doing a given job (Javaid, Javed, & Kohda, 2019). Work design, therefore, is used by organizations to boost productivity from the side of employees, which cumulatively lead to improved outcome, target realization, and the gaining of competitive advantage. Work design aims at the identification of key characteristics of work, followed by the establishment of how the employees can perform them effectively with the help of information technology in place in a compatible manner result in harmonious existence ad operations in the business. Thus, in the establishment of the work design of Careem Company, there is the use of four Ws (Who, What, Where, and When) and IH (How). The 'How?' question exhausts on the inclusion of information technology in the performance of work within the company. They are as expounded subsequently.

Who: it concerns the people responsible for undertaking various jobs in Careem Company. Th...