Product Manager- Ola

How OlaMoney can turn more profitable?

1. Introduction

OlaMoney is though a huge asset, is under pressure to show returns to their investors. At the same time, drivers regularly beseech the operators to give them a larger share of the revenue pie. And customers are always looking for ways to reduce transportation costs. This study is an attempt to look at alternate ways that Ola could use to create driver reward programs, generate more revenue and reduce hassle to customers at the same time.

2. Understanding the Challenge

A user’s experience with Ola typically starts with the point of onboarding the platform till the point of booking and subsequently boarding the cab. User uses pre-selected payment modes to pay once the ride ends. The problem begins when the money already available in OlaMoney wallet is only of little usage to Ola User(both passenger and driver partner). Focusing on driver partners, in a step to encourage Ola Money and cashless payments, Ola can support payments at petrol bunks and CNG stations — for which I believe competition from other players won’t be a concern as Ola already takes payments through Ola Money in segments where there are other players present; Example: Mobile recharge, electricity bill etc.

3. Research Methods

I extensively traveled by Ola over a period of 2 weeks to observe and interact with other users. During the ride, I spoke with the driver partners and asked them a few questions. The purpose was to determine the basic ‘pain-points of people who are the face of the organisation i.e. Our Driver Partners. I used the responses that I got to come up with ideas that would take away some of the pain points.

4. User Personas

Needless to say, there are several types of drivers, with varying needs, who drive cabs, only some prefer to serve as shared ride pools and others prefer dedicated non-pools. I decided to focus on the more common user persona that came out during my research. This would help to design a feature for a specific customer segment.

Quote: “I like serving as a shared cab as it helps me meet my target faster during peak hours. I wish the routes could be optimised or I could get money instantly to reduce hassle so that I could use it for my expenses during the day.”

About: (Manjunath Gowda, 30) Manjunath works as a driving partner with Ola in Bangalore. He lives with his wife and 5 yr old daughter. He has stayed in Bangalore for more than 7 years now. For his livelihood , he starts his duty at 6 o’clock until 10 o’clock. He makes sure that his car is serviced, clean and has enough fuel for the day. For service type, Manjunath prefers serving as a carpool to meet daily targets. Manjunath usually stops at fuel pumps, grocery stores for his own needs.

5. Goals / Needs:

• Get daily/weekly payment.
• Time spent and pooled-passenger distance should be less dreary.

6. Pain Points:

• Not always possible to serve as a carpool due to varying routes or far destination .
• No money in-hand for refuelling cab/buying groceries at the end of the day.
• Deviations along the route to pick up co-riders can make the journey long and boring.

7. User Journey:

8. Business Goals

Increase utility and utilisation of Ola Money feature.

Introduce a new way to monetise the existing user base.

Improve loyalty among customers/drivers towards the Ola platform, thus increasing ridership/driver partnership.

9. Feature Overview (About the Idea)

Payments for fuel, petrol, diesel or CNG, may be made directly from the driver’s Ola Money accounts, which would bring onboard a large repeat user base, all of Ola’s drivers, which may also include other Ola customers.

• When the driver wishes to refuel the cab/have a meal, he/she would be given an option to route them to the nearest refuelling/mealing station from within the app.
• The driver can select the type of fuelling station he/she is looking for.
• Locating the nearest fuelling/meal station, he/she can route him/herself to the nearest station.
• Post fuelling/meal, makes the hassle-free payment via Ola Money instead of cash or any other payment mode.
• Driver knows he is being taken care of by the company and need not to ask riders for cash payments.

10. Press Release

I would like to take a cue from Research Gate, which uses the “mixed method study” approach, where the researchers write an internal press release announcing and showing the daily expenditure and background of most of the drivers associated with cab-hailing services.

Here is how a press release, talking about the new feature, would look like.

11. User Stories & Acceptance Criteria

12. Storyboard

I made a visual storyboard to show how users would explore the new feature.

It helped me outline the app and visually imagine it.

13. Wireframes

Following wireframe designs represent the skeletal framework of the app. I have kept it minimalist so that I can quickly test the idea without diving into the implementation details.

Screen 1: Ola Money Station button is enabled within the Ola app in nav-menu

Screen 2: Option to choose the type of station to go to.

Driver clicks on the desired option, follows the route, arrives there

Screen 3: User enters the amount and hits PAY.

14. Monetisation

There could be a couple of approaches towards monetising this feature.

a. Tie-ups

Since Ola Money Stations will have more traffic of incoming cabs, tying with selected Fuel Stations to offer as Ola Money Station would increase their incoming traffic and increase their revenue which in return is a high monetisation parameter.

b. OlaMoney Feature

As mentioned earlier, this increases both the utility and utilisation of Ola Money feature increasing the ROI.

Provides convenience to drivers, a hassle-free (cash-free too) payment for the fuel each-time each-day, as this is a very frequent transaction that is made almost every day, and tackles one of the main reason why drivers still request passengers for cash, as balance in Ola Money account cannot be converted into fuel.

15. Final Thoughts

The idea behind this study is to formulate an approach to generate an additional revenue stream for the company and increase usability of the OlaMoney Feature.

I have proposed a feature wherein the driver partners can make use of OlaMoney feature to pay for their daily expenses made during their service with Ola which could create a community experience and enhance trust with drivers. Also, it will increase a great rider experience when most of the drivers end-up asking the user to make a cash payment and sometimes asks customers to cancel the Ola ride to service them directly for handy cash.