ANI technologies Private Limited is the owner of the Ola. It is formally known as OlaCabs. The company was brought to life by 2 IIT students. Ola appears to be a prominent mediator and fill in the gap between the daily travelers and the owners of the cab. It is actually a good get away situation for people from pushing away to use more private vehicles and rent one instead.
Ola has collaborated with a huge number of taxi owners and drivers and provided a modern day touch of new tech to the whole framework. This is where people can book cars on a very short notice with the mobile application. The fact about Ola is it’s a company born in India which has about 60% control over the market over other service providers with more than 109 cities and about 1 million drivers. This idea came out of a hyper local concept. Ola is dedicated to their aim of creating easy mobility for a country with a population that has gone over a billion now.
Industry Details of OLA
The Indian Taxi market is acclaimed to have a market value of over $10 billion. At a rate of CAGR of at least 14% it can expect a boom any time soon. The boost is expected to take place due to the rapid lifestyle changes of commuters and rising consumable incomes specifically in suburban cities and towns.
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The founders of OLA
There are 2 founders of OLA. Both of them graduated from IIT Mumbai. Have successfully grabbed a B.Tech Degree in C.S i.e. (Computer Science). One of the founders is Bhavish and has worked for the Microsoft research division in Bangalore for 2 consecutive years after degree. He made his journey great when he filed 2 patents and 3 of his research journals which was international.
As he was pursuing his dream of starring something of his own, he kicked off with his innovative idea of an internet based company which used to offer short tours and online holidays and this all before it transformed into OlaCabs. Now he is the Chief Executive Officer of OLA. In the year 2019, the personal net worth of Bhavish was estimated to be about $350 million. The cofounder of Ola is Ankit Bhatia and he heads the technical division of the company.
The company hereby assures instant, comfortable and memorable experience for partners and customers. Ankit came into IIT Bombay in 2004 which is over a decade ago now and opted to go for B.Tech in Mechanical engineering which he completed and later to that he also did his M.Tech and CAD Automation. Till the year 2009 he did worked on some major projects on contractual basis such as QED42 and Wilcom etc. And at last he decided to quit working for someone else’s company and start with something of his own. His journey in OlaCabs began in November 2010. He thereby became the Ola owner.
Launching Startup: OLA
Bhavish was born in Ludhiana and was like any otherentrepreneur who was hardworking towards his dream of achieving something. On the other hand to let his tour and holiday planning business running, he went on a trip from Bangalore to Bandipur. He had to rent a car and the experience was awful.
According to Bhavish the driver stopped the car in the middle of nowhere and started to bargain with the prices with which he earlier accepted to agree with. And when Bhavish refused to pay anything more than what was promised, the driver left him behind in the middle of the journey. This is when the idea struck his mind when he saw the condition with all the people who likely travel here and there and get stuck in such a situation. The Ola founder Bhavish, it was then when he thought all of starting it up and offer quality cab services for the ones who demand so.
On the other hand he also was aware of the market size who were eager to use quality cab services and also he knew that people are already looking for such services and he then switched his earlier business to something that the world knows by the name of OlaCabs. All this happened in the last month of December 2010.
He was accompanied with his friend and cofounder Ankit Bhatt for help in his startup today. Like any other Indian parents who would definitely ask the child to go for a professional 9 to 5 job, even his parents did not wanted him to opt for such a thing. But all of thisdisappeared into thin air when the founder of Snap deal Kunal Bahl, Anupam Mittal and Rehan Yar Khan came into be the first investors of the company. Bhavish had the firm belief that anyone could have a flourishing business idea but it surely needs a dependable business model to work out. So he is said the safest and the best model is opting for a business that needs zero investment is the best.
The First Team of OLA
Right after the idea, vision and design were completed with Ms. Usha Loutongbam who along with Bhavish was the product manager. The developers who transformed the thought and a dream into reality. Ajinkya Potdar was the one who designed the Android application for Ola whereas the first iOS application was done by Bokadey Khushal.
These two application developers completed the app well before time and did a marvelous job in designing the application. Later to that the backend APIs were taken over by Neeti Birla and the IOS was Atul Manwar and android by Ankit Kumar. The primary aim of the fresh release of the application features was to make it user friendly and help in improving the user experience while not losing track with a one touch cab booking essence.
How the Name, Logo and Tagline was determined?
Hola in Spanish means ‘Hello’ as the name possibly show that the services are simple and user friendly just like pronouncing Hola so the company styled it simple OLΛ. The O indicates a TYRE in the logo.
Understanding the Product
For the past one year, the services by has been seeing a expansion – if provides a great range of riding alternatives from subscription deals, budget to luxury deals, and the most recent is in cab real time entertainment to compete with the strategies provided by Uber in terms of pricing. The company do provides an exciting service termed as Ola Corporate for the corporates. When Ola Corporate people are in a constant hunt to keep a track of the expenditures done during travel of the executives where their safety is ensured. To make things more comfortable Ola did came up with Ola Money which was an e-wallet or m-wallet making it easy for the Ola commuters to pay up when they ride.
The Revenue and Business Model of OLA
The Ola business model runs on a simple concept. Ola acts a mediator in offering the cab-booking services with affordable reliable cab booking services. Cabs are booked by the commuters in real time through the mobile application. The cabs that run with the Ola tags is not owned by Ola at all.
They belong to their respective owners who own a valid permit which is certified and verified by the authorities of transport who decide to sign a contract with the company. They can either be self-employed or work for the one who owns more than just one car. Similar to using the Ola application the drivers are given an access to mobile application but it only works on a smartphone after being registered with Ola.
This all can be done after a check with the verification and due diligence of the commercial and paper documents of both operator and driver. The drivers are blessed with the flexibility of any time login and accepting of all the requests from the rides of the commuters. They may opt to stay logged out of the network from the log out feature as per their wish. The Ola funding history is the reason for its giant success. Ola charges a convenience fee of roughly about 15% on every booking done via their application.
The below factors are considered to generate the final bill for the users
- Distance Fare – According to Kilometers
- Base Fare- Charged Flat
- Ride Time Fare – The charges for entire travel time
- Service Tax i.e. 5.6%
- SBT (Swacch Bharat Tax) i.e. 0.2%
- Peak Charges – Independent ration according to cab demand
- Charges for Toll – Just in case your cab crosses Toll junction on freeways and interstate.
Final Words
It is a direct competition with Uber, the global car rental service which is very well finance backed up by raising more than $15 billion in funding in debt and equity with a fresh valuation of +$60 billion. There are various competitors such as Meru cabs Private Ltd, followed by Zoom car India Private Limited and Carzonrent Private Limited.
After cabs Ola has now decided to get into bike rental service too. Nobody thought that Ola startup would be such a success in India except the founder Bhavish and cofounder Ankit had a vision for this.