This year marks our fifth year serving enterprise clients, and it’s a great time to take stock of how far we’ve come and expand on our vision for the future.
It may seem strange now, but back when Uber for Business was founded, it was a new concept for corporations to include ridesharing in their official travel policies. Meanwhile, their employees were already embracing Uber personally, and much of the initial demand to use it for business grew organically in this way. With Uber for Business in place, the Uber platform gave users a simple way to switch between their business and personal profiles within the same app.
Since then, our business has rapidly expanded into a full set of technology solutions that support employee commute programs, customer and guest courtesy rides, non-emergency medical transportation, and meal delivery. In Q3 2019, we saw strong traction in the overall business-to-business segment with $4 billion in annualized gross bookings and 65% year-over-year growth. Today more than 65,000 organizations around the globe rely on Uber for Business to help move their employees and customers in a cost-effective, efficient, and reliable way. Uber Health, part of the Uber for Business organization that serves the $15 billion US non-emergency medical transportation market, grew by 400% year-over-year during the same period.
The total global business travel spend is predicted to hit $1.8 trillion by 2023, up from $1.4 trillion in 2018, according to the Global Business Travel Association’s 2019 GBTA BTI™ Outlook Annual Global Report & Forecast, and the future opportunity is clear. As we look to 2020, we plan to continue growing and innovating at an extraordinary pace. With a number of new product offerings on the horizon, we’re excited for businesses to increasingly look to Uber for all of their mobility needs.
Enterprise-grade solutions
Our team is especially proud of the customer-focused, benefits-driven expansion of the Uber for Business product set over the years. It now encompasses the following:
- Business travel offering: simplifies ground transportation and work travel for corporate teams. For account administrators, we provide custom reporting, API integrations, monthly billing, and 24-hour support.
- Commute programs: let employees work while on their way to and from the office.
- Uber Central: helps businesses provide clients and guests with courtesy rides arranged through a dashboard. A smartphone is not required, and the recipient can get updates by text message as needed.
- Uber Vouchers: enables companies to drive in-store foot traffic and repeat business by covering the cost of guests’ rides. Vouchers are applied to the recipient’s account, and the rides are requested through the Uber app.
- Uber Health: helps health plan and healthcare providers offer patients rides through a HIPAA-secure environment.
- Eats for Business: enables companies to have food delivered to the office.
- SAP Concur integration: greatly reduces the time required to expense trips.
We also have a rewards program that lets corporate customers earn points toward personal rides. While Uber for Business is global in nature, some of our product offerings aren’t available in all of the countries where we have a presence.
Diverse client base
Our customers range from global Fortune 500 companies to small locally owned businesses. Their industries include financial services, hospitality, healthcare, professional services, insurance, technology, real estate, and more. While their verticals and market demands may vary, they all share a need for consistent, reliable programs to help get their employees and customers where they need to go within a set budget.
“It was a no-brainer. In my mind, Uber is synonymous with ridesharing, and it was our top choice from the get-go,” says Mattie Yallaly, Perficient’s Corporate Travel and Expense Manager.
Some of our most enthusiastic customers are from the healthcare sector. With a wide variety of transportation challenges, their patients appreciate not having to worry about how to get to or from a non-emergency appointment. Boston Medical Center’s radiology and oncology department, for example, can request Uber Health trips for chemotherapy patients when they schedule the appointments themselves—even weeks in advance.
“Our patients love the flexibility of Uber and the time that it saves them,” says David Maffeo, Senior Director of Support Services, Boston Medical Center. “When they are done with an appointment, they want to get back to home or work as quickly as possible. It gives them a sense of control over their schedule.”
Moving forward
As we enter our sixth year, the Uber for Business team is excited to expand its footprint in new ways. We’re continuing to listen to our customers and thinking about how we can help streamline their work lives even more. Organizations are increasingly looking to Uber for all their mobility needs, whether it’s helping to get employees to work, customers in the door, or patients to an appointment. We take this trust very seriously and are thankful our customers instill it in us.
It’s been great to see the teamwork together to expand the business at such a fast clip, and I look forward to seeing where the next 5 years take us.
For more information about Uber for Business, please visit www.uber.com/business.
