Price wars, Acquisitions, PR crises, New Segments, Geographical expansion, Mobile wallet, Cutting edge technology, Alliances, Ecosystem of driver-preneurs, Dynamic pricing, Investor Funding, Promotions & Offers, Data Analytics, Services, it is all happening in the world of technology enabled radio taxi hailing apps of Uber, Ola, Meru and more. While opportunities abound to grow market share, am going to pen down some potential cross app integrations. App integration, in my opinion is a key B2B lever for acquiring customers. A distribution network which can catapult the touch-points for bookings. The northward statistics on mobile usage is stodgy. The application of this trend, however, is exciting. Customers demand and deserve a seamless integrated user journey, on-demand, at the touch of a finger-tip and most importantly in their native environment. Which are these native environments?
- Healthcare: This could be integration with apps that a hospital builds or for service aggregators like Practo. Either way a single click to a doctor’s appointment and cab booking can be quiet convenient.
- Travel: From holiday packages, to flight bookings with airlines, train reservations to out-of-station bus rides, everything is online. Yet I have to book cabs separately each time. How I would like my cabbie to receive flight details and pick me up to and fro airport. Partners you ask? The world of Aggregators; MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, Yatra, Airlines: Indigo, Jet; Corporate Bookings, Amex; Trains: IRCTC; Bus: Red Bus. This category is so vast it would deserve a post by itself.
- Accommodation: Hotels are moving servicing, house-keeping, in-room dining and wake-up calls on their apps. It’s only natural that they will need a trusted concierge to book cabs, online. Aggregators are intuitive; Hotel.com, Booking.com, AirBnB, Oyorooms and the list is long.
- Events: When booking myself for a play, a movie, a concert only if I could book myself a ride. Bookmyshow, Timescity, Buzzintown, Eventshigh are the obvious choices. Then there are large scale events on Travel & Tourism, Music Festivals, Advertising Awards, Marathons, Technology Conferences which are large enough to have custom application development. How about white label event app publishers like Procialize? People registering for the event would find it very useful to take the pain of booking out of their trip. Oh by the way wedding planning apps are quite the rage these days. Picture getting all those baraatis packed-in for a nice family ride. One logistical nightmare off your back.
- Real Estate: I have often observed that people scouting to rent or buy properties find it difficult to get to the place on their own. Many times because they are new to the city, don’t know directions to the location, have not got their car yet, are not sure of parking facilities and sometime sheer lazy to drive. A service by 99acres, Magicbricks, Housing, Commonfloor can be quite handy.
- Marketplace: We speak of buying and selling. Chat and Calls. Collectibles and Connections. How about helping me get there. Navigation Maps or then maybe a cab. Olx and Quikr.
- Social: Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp all get my location. Can I simply book using a chat window? A tweet? A ping? What more, a group discount?. Now don’t just use social to market but to monetize the market on social.
- Carpool: Whenever you do decide to cater to this category please do be a part of the carpooling app destinations. I would have loved this facility back in college. More than many would love it today. Carpooling, Tripda, Poolmycar.
- Classifieds: Justdial is quite a wiki. They now facilitate booking appointments with service professionals like doctors. Am I going to repeat the opportunity? No
- Beauty: This is not quite an organized sector yet. Let me qualify that. Neither is there an aggregator nor is the individual player technologically savvy. A potential for an entrepreneur to aggregate the bookings and utilize the lean hours. But for those parlors and spas that do facilitate online booking via apps, a ride would complete the experience.
- Fitness: This is a bit of a repeat customer base category. Only if the customer is not like me. Paying annual memberships when paying them an annual visit. Given the increased emphasis on fitness and multitude of activities spawning, a trip to the Gym in a mall with little or no parking to bicycling trips. A pick up and drop could be a treat.
- Food and Beverages: The Zomato and Uber integration is rather cool. Love it. Am greedy about more players joining the bandwagon.
Rounding-off number of ideas got boring: Hence 12 🙂
Curio-Cities by Dilpreeta Vasudeva 