Ola Cabs

ANI Tech. Pvt. Ltd.[1]
OLA
Private
Industry Transportation
Technology
Founded Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (3 December 2010 (2010-12-03))
Founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Ankit Bhati
Headquarters Bangalore, Karnataka, India[2]
Key people
 Bhavish Aggarwal (CEO), Ankit Bhati (CTO)
Services Taxicab, Vehicle for hire
Revenue ₹942.8 crore (US$150 million)[3] (2014-15)
Number of employees
 6,000 (2017)
Website www.olacabs.com

ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., operating under the trade name Ola, is an Indian online transportation network company. It was founded as an online cab aggregator in Mumbai, but is now based in Bangalore. As of September 2015, Ola was valued at $5 billion.

Operations

Ola Cabs was founded on 3 December 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal, currently CEO, and Ankit Bhati. As of 2017, the company has expanded to a network of more than 600,000 vehicles across 110 cities. In November 2014, Ola diversified to incorporate autos on trial basis in Bangalore.[4] Post the trial phase, Ola Auto expanded to other cities like Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad and Kolkata starting December 2014. In December 2015, Ola expanded its auto services in Mysore, Chandigarh, Indore, Jaipur and Guwahati, Visakhapatnam. Ola was valued at $US5 billion as of September 2015.[5]

In March 2015, OlaCabs acquired Bangalore based taxi service TaxiForSure for about $US200 million.[6] From the 25th of June 2015, Ola users have gained access to TFS cabs via the Ola mobile application.[7] By November 2015, Ola had acquired Geotagg, a trip-planning applications company, for an undisclosed sum to strengthen its new bus-shuttle service.[8]

Ola provides different types of service, ranging from economic to luxury travel.[9] The cabs are reserved through a mobile app and the service accepts both cash and cashless payments with Ola money.[10] It claims to clock an average of more than 150,000 bookings per day and commands 60% of the market share in India.[11] November 2014 Ola also started on-demand auto rickshaw service on its mobile app in Bangalore, Pune and now available in 73 cities.

Criticism

Technology

OlaCabs' technology came under criticism regarding the security of its mobile app. The API calls could be replayed to top up its wallet.[12]

In August 2015, a privacy breach had occurred when intended customers' details such as names, phone numbers and addresses, in Bangalore, were received as SMS messages by an individual in Chennai. Although these unanticipated messages were reported to Ola, the company had chosen to ignore them, even under the threat of being reported to the TRAI.[13] The issue was reportedly fixed three weeks later after receiving considerable media coverage and social media attention.[14]111

Over billing and transparency in billing

The refund policy of OlaCabs has been criticised because of billing errors caused by technical glitches in their system.[15]
Hackers have claimed that they have been able to hack OlaCabs system and access customer data including credit card/debit card information.

The bill for an OLA cab comprises of:
* Base fare [fixed amount]
* Distance fare [Charged per kilometre]
* Ride time fare [Charged time taken to travel]
* Peak pricing [Direct ratio depending on demand for cabs[16]
* GST [5%]
* Swach Bharat Tax [0.2%]
* Toll charges [Toll collection if crossing a toll Junction on road]

Driver credibility

Panic Button in a Ola car in Kolkata for passenger.

Delhi Transport authority in early 2015 questioned the credibility and required verification of drivers working for Ola, along with other competitors such as Uber. The inquiry has revealed that approximately 80% of drivers amongst all services did not possess permits to ply commercial transport services in Delhi.[17]Drivers also protested outside the Kukatapally, Hyderabad branch office of Ola demanding more transparency over payments.

Culture

There are various reasons apart from the gender diversity issues that has been causing a lot of attrition at Ola, called as Ola's Culture problem[18]

[19]

Cities covered by Ola (partial list)

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/ola-lost-rs-6-crore-a-day-during-2015-16/articleshow/58444187.cms
  2. ↑ https://www.olacabs.com/info/about_us
  3. ↑ Chakraborty, Sayan (23 June 2016). "Ola revenue rises eight-fold to Rs874 crore". Mint. Retrieved 27 June 2016.
  4. ↑ "Now Book Auto Rickshaws in Bangalore via Ola Cabs". NDTV Gadgets. 20 November 2014.
  5. ↑ "This Indian "unicorn" startup just raised $226 million". Fortune. 2015-09-16. Retrieved 2016-04-28.
  6. ↑ Shrivastava, Aditi (January 29, 2015). "Olacabs to buy TaxiForSure to take on competitors like Uber; deal likely at Rs 1,250 crore". The Economic Times.
  7. ↑ Mandal, Suchayan (June 25, 2015). "Ola cabs app and Taxi For Sure get into a relationship. Twitter trolls prove how complex it is". Business Insider India.
  8. ↑ Russell, Jon (August 17, 2016). "Ola confirms it has shut down TaxiForSure, the rival it acquired for $200M". TechCrunch.
  9. ↑ "Ola aims to counter Uber with its Biz-class service". The Economic Times. September 2, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Pay gas and electricity bills with Ola Money". FactorDaily. 2016-11-28. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  11. ↑ Abudheen, Sainul K (19 November 2014). "Ola now has $250-300M annual gross transaction run rate; peek at its numbers - VCCircle". VCCircle.com.
  12. ↑ Aggarwal, Varun; Murali, Malavika (March 20, 2015). "Taxi aggregator Ola hit by tech glitches that allow free rides". The Economic Times.
  13. ↑ Anand, Kunal (August 30, 2015). "Ola Cabs Accidentally Reveals Customer Data To Chennai Girl, And Doesn't Care". Indiatimes.com.
  14. ↑ "Ola leaked its customers data, claims user; company blames manual error". The Indian Express. 1 September 2015.
  15. ↑ "Decoding OLA Cabs Billing Issues – Ola ka Gola!". Trak.in. 13 May 2015.
  16. ↑ "4: Peak Pricing [Direct Ratio depending on demand for cabs]".
  17. ↑ "80% of Uber, Ola does not have permits to ply in Delhi, says minister". The Indian Express. June 19, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Ola’s culture problem". FactorDaily. 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  19. ↑ Nellore
  20. ↑ https://www.olacabs.com/fares/asansol
  21. ↑ https://www.olacabs.com/fares/durgapur
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