At a time when Ola Corporate has seen massive growth in India, rival Uber too has launched its business solution Uber Central in India. This enterprise-ready feature has been built on top of the Uber for Business platform.
The company’s Uber for Business (U4B) is the company’s corporate service that let companies or teams set up a corporate Uber account. This lets companies manage rides and pay for them centrally.
As per a statement by Uber, customers who receive rides via Central do not even need to have an Uber account or the app to avail a ride. It is all managed by the organization on a single dashboard.
With this launch, Uber for Business is expanding beyond business travel in India and takes it one step ahead of its rival Ola.
Speaking of the launch of Uber Central, Arjun Nohwar, APAC head for Uber for Business said, “Our technology makes it possible to create specialized solutions that help our users have access to reliable transportation options at affordable prices. Uber Central is a great example of such innovation. By Using Uber Central, organizations can now provide on-demand rides to anyone from a central dashboard, even if the traveler doesn’t have a smartphone.”
How this works it, companies booking rides for customers have to just enter the contact number, pickup and drop-off point and choose the ride category to request a ride. Operators can track real-time status of the ride as well as ETAs. And the rider will immediately get an SMS with the details of the driver and a link to the location of the car.
In the pilot program done by Uber, 8,000 companies took part including over 50 Indian customers like The Leela Palaces Hotels and Resorts, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Dell and Groupon.
Uber for business was first launched in India in December 2015. And Uber Central was initially launched in July 2016 in the US and Canada.