The Internal Environment
This text gives an example of the firm's value chain as an important tool for determining how it provides value to the customer through its operational functions. The VRIO analytical tool is meant to answer specific questions that the firm must address when evaluating the firm's offerings.
Managing Change
Technology and Innovation: Uber, Lyft, and the Self-Driving Car: The Transportation of the Future Is Coming Soon
Although the ride-sharing industry is still relatively new, it has seen explosive growth, and its two main rivals, Uber and Lyft, are looking for ways to increase their capacity to serve riders. Both firms, and rivals like them, operate in basically the same way. A person needing a ride uses a smartphone app to alert a nearby person with a car of their location. The driver, usually an independent contractor for the service (meaning they are just a person with a car that has signed up to provide rides in exchange for a portion of the fare the customer pays), picks up the customer and drives them to their destination. Paying for the ride is also handled through the app, and the driver receives about 75–80% of the fare, with Uber or Lyft keeping the balance.
The popularity of ride-sharing services has soared, and both companies are constantly recruiting more drivers. However, both companies have also explored alternatives to independent drivers: self-driving cars. Uber and Lyft have taken different paths to develop this capability. Uber has worked to internally develop its own software technology and self-driving car technology, while Lyft has focused on software interfaces that can accommodate other companies' self-driving cars. Lyft's partnerships with firms such as Google and GM that are already developing self-driving cars has put it ahead of Uber in the race to get driverless vehicles into its ride-sharing network, and it was able to test self-driving cars in Boston by partnering with NuTonomy in 2017. Lyft offered a demonstration to journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2018, offering rides in self-driving cars developed by Aptiv. Uber had been testing similar technology in Pittsburgh but suspended its self-driving car program after a fatal pedestrian accident in Arizona.