Chinese dancers perform during the launching of a promotion in Shanghai in 2004, the year China became Coca-Cola’s biggest Asian market.
Claro Cortes IV/Reuters
Uber’s ‘retreat’ from China has led to soul-searching about whether the country is worth it. Don’t tell that to Coca-Cola and GM, however, which have found great success in the People’s Republic.
Workers aren’t the only people worried about Uber’s business practices.
Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
Business Briefing: we’re overusing and underestimating ‘disruption’
The Conversation13.1 MB(download)
Disruption might be a buzz word at the moment but it shouldn't be ignored. It may be impossible to predict but businesses can have stakes in creating it.
E-hailing services have vowed to revolutionise the transportation industry. But they’ve also left city officials scratching their heads about regulations and traditional metered taxi drivers fuming.
Taking the drive out of the car will change the transportation industry.
Shutterstock/Rob d
It’s a race that’s pitting the motor industry against tech giants and even the ridesharing company Uber. But what will be the impact when driverless cars take to the roads?
Taxi drivers protest against Uber in Melbourne.
Melissa Meehan/AAP
Uber did everything right in China. That’s where it really went wrong and why it should serve as a cautionary tale for Western CEOs looking for growth in China.
A self-driving bus completes a demonstration drive in Tokyo in July.
Toru Hanai/Reuters
New technologies do not exist in a vacuum. To succeed, new transport technology needs to match the ways we want to move around cities and be accommodated by laws and regulations.
Uber actively encloses what could be a more open city in which riders and drivers work to benefit city residents.
Rather than create regulatory frameworks that allow innovations to thrive, governments have created hurdles to transformative applications like Uber or Airbnb.
Torrenegra/flickr
Carlo Ratti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Governments too often hinder change, when instead they should aim to foster an organic innovation ecosystem. This is more about bottom-up innovation than top-down schemas.
Computers aren’t a magical silver bullet for learning.
Shutterstock
While there has been a rise in contracting out and ‘disruptors’ such as Uber, employment is an will remain the dominant method of business operation in a capitalist setting.
Uber chief Travis Kalanick has agreed the company will create and fund a driver’s association as part of a recent class action settlement.
Danish Siddiqui/Reuters