Urban Company - A IMC Approach

1. Case Study
Anoop T.S. | Baby Chandra | Bhavya Sihmar | Suchi Aeron |
Rakesh G Nair

2. 1
Company History
The rapid urbanization leads to an increase in demand for on-demand house services. Economic
growth and urbanization have forced companies to find different ways to capture the market
and reach their customers more effectively. With the explosion of the nuclear family structure
along with the dual career couples at home, urban life becomes messy when one is searching
for on-demand house services. Labour shortage for on-demand house services had become a
head-scratching problem for urban households. One-click services at the doorstep was a dream
for this sector, which have never seen any innovative transformations. The urban company has
effectively laid a bridge in this gap by using its technology-enabled innovative business model.
The main motto behind the offering of the urban company is to provide on-demand house
service to their users in the quickest possible time.
The founders of the urban company were so clear about their customers segment, and they have
effectively aligned their marketing mix to stand out from other startups. Urban Company
started operations in October, 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Khaitan Varun and Chandra Raghav.
Urban Company’s main focus is to satisfy every customer with its reliable and easy to get
services. Urban Company focuses on addressing the issue of recruiting experts for various
occupations. They want to shift the chaos in the way services are available in India according
to the founders of Urban Company. They want to have facilities readily accessible without
leaving home
Received funding till date: $110.7 m (Till November 2018) Operating Citing: Present in eight
cities (New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Kolkata),
where Urban Company provides over 100 services, has a user base of over 3 billion people and
employs over 50,000 professionals. Business Valuation: $480 billion in business value (as of
December 2018) Order Cap: Average order Every month
Vision & Mission
Their vision is to use technology and smart processes to structure the highly unorganized
services market in India and emerging markets. Urban Company aspires to make hiring a
service professional as easy and straightforward as e-commerce companies have made buying
products.

3. 2
Rebranding
To create a recognized name worldwide and to aid its global aspirations, Urban Company
rebranded itself as the Urban Company. A name that works across demographic and geographic
borders was adopted to give a clear and easy to remember identity to the company, that could
draw upon the company’s mission. Urban Company, the new brand, would go about as an
umbrella brand under which they can make diverse sub-brands as and when the need emerges.
The organization was overhauling 22 areas inside and outside India, had an organization of
25,000 experts, and were performing 800,000 assistance errands consistently.
Targeting and Positioning
Even after being such an integral part of our lives, the local services sector remains too
fragmented. While other industries were becoming tech-enabled, the local services relied on
yellow pages and telephonic directories. Identifying the growing pain areas of customers that
have less time in hand to perform mundane household tasks, the need for convenience
regarding such jobs was obvious. The disorganized on-demand service market needed an
innovative solution. Urban Company identified the customer need for utility services and
provided it through local service providers in a standardized manner, everything integrated
under an umbrella. Urban Company is a platform to make our urban lives more fulfilling by
solving our needs in a clap that is the reason behind the former name of the company-
UrbanClap.
Focusing on the urban-segment, the company started its operation in 6 major cities in India.
The surging demand for the smart home services in rapidly evolving urban lifestyle and the
growing digital penetration, the need and market for these services was growing at a vast pace
of 53% global CAGR with the year over year growth rate as 32.14% by the end of 2024.
Target cities
Urban Company is tapping on $50 billion service market that remains disintegrated. They are
targeting the mainstream audience, the urban Indian consumer from tier-1 cities, who wants to
use all the services they are offering but are finding it hard to find the right connect. Currently,
UC is operating in 22 cities in India: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar,
Chandigarh, Trichy, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow,
Ludhiana, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Surat, Vadodara, and Visakhapatnam. The company is also
planning to start operations in 10 new cities soon.

4. 3
The market size is $4-5 Billion a year in India, out of which, the online market accounts for
approximately $200 Million with a possible growth rate of around 20-30% annually.
With its expansion to further geographical region, including UAE, Singapore, Australia, UC is
leveraging on the exact customer needs for on-demand home services. The demographic
factors, including population mix and less price sensitivity with better technological support,
is giving a lucrative market to Urban Company.
Product and service offerings
The greatest challenge in developing the offering was to transform the local skilled gig workers
into professional and well-trained workers. To satisfy the customers and to provide
sustainability to its business model, they standardized operations within the UC brand, which
has brought trust in customer minds and satisfaction to the skilled workers compared to the
same work they did before in an unprofessional way with much lesser earnings.
UC aimed at providing fulfilment experience, and they solved the asymmetry of information
in the market by facilitating excellent job to professionals and the right professional to
customers. By providing the services under their brand, the urban company has created
visibility for such professionals and maximized their earnings along with better customer
expectations. The ratings by the customers ensure the professionals to maintain a better
customer relationship for continuity of their service in the platform through noble earnings with
better customer review after each job. It helped the UC to create a leadership position in the
industry by spreading word of mouth about their service offerings from satisfied customers.
The product and services offering of the company classified under seven verticals:
1. Urban Beauty: Salon and makeup services for women at home
2. Urban Spa: Massage therapy for men and women at home
3. Urban Grooming: Haircut and grooming services for men and kids at home
4. Urban Repairs: Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, AC and appliance repair
5. Urban Cleaning: Regular and deep home cleaning solutions
6. Urban Painting: Professional home painting services
7. Other services, such as fitness and yoga at home and pest control

5. 4
Pricing
Prior UC the freelancers had no standard pricing policies, UC has effectively transformed this
pricing inefficiency by bringing standards through their innovative service delivery platform.
As the key target area for the urban company remains the urban households, it has priced the
blue colour services with a standard minimum payment rate based on the nature and type of
work. Currently, UC uses two models for pricing its service; the direct buying/booking of
services and introduction of clients to professionals. The company provides several schemes
and offers to its customers like membership scheme, service discounts and such initiatives help
in assuring regularity of service, and customer retention.
Promotion
The urban company believes in creating a sustainable growth position in the market by meeting
customer expectations. UC focused more on innovation, learning and knowing the broad
customer base contours. UC uses word of mouth promotions and target potential customers by
way of direct marketing. Both online/offline media used to create an effective positioning for
UC in the customers mind-sets. Primarily the media campaigns were through TV and social
media, because of their reach, penetration and effectiveness in storytelling. About 40% of urban
company advertisement budget is for social media platforms; promotions are relatively heavy
on Instagram, Facebook, as well as YouTube.
Place
The users can easily access the UC Mobile App/website to book a service within minutes. The
company focused on convenience and fulfilment of consumer experience with 24x7 customer
support. Anyone can book for any services quickly and be able to access all other related
features.
Post-Covid
UC used to fulfil around 50,000 orders in a day, and it came down to almost zero by the end of
March 2020. Because of Covid-19, UC’s team of thirty thousand service professionals and
their families were affected.
Being a startup, UC has its limitations to support all of its stakeholders. The company’s
leadership has decided to maintain its human resources with different offerings like the soft

6. 5
loan, interest-free loans, free health insurance and income protection insurances. UC also
associated with Srinidhi foundation to support the contract workers and gig workers by
providing relief funds and kits during the crisis period. UC has successfully distributed more
than 1.5 crore rupees to the workers. In addition to that, UC has introduced the ‘Suraksha
holidays’ program for employees to undergo quarantine once the need arises, and one to one
counselling programmes.
Once the Lockdown policies softened, UC started operating with the updated standard
operating procedures (SOP). As an effect of Covid-19, safety needs moved down as
physiological needs. With the changing customer needs, UC needed to communicate the
changes they made throughout the organization to leverage on synergy effect, so more
emphasis was on integrated communication, as it is not possible through standalone
communication. Everybody is giving importance to safety as well as the perceived benefits of
the particular service. Here comes the challenging task of educating the stakeholders about the
updated SOP. Urban Company has created an impressive advertising campaign to educate
customers about the new SOP.
UC has leveraged their social media handles to complement these efforts. UC has initiated a
training and awareness program for their partners to maintain hygiene, use the respiratory mask
and reassure washing hands once they reach and leave customers place. UC made it mandatory
for their service providers to sanitize their equipment in front of the customer. Also, assure
their satisfaction before starting the work. UC has started using single-use products such as
sachets and grooming products to reduce the risk and ensuring hygiene. Moreover, the
company started addressing customer concerns via social media and UC Apps to double-check
the updated SOP. UC has also introduced UC Academy for upskilling the employees by top
management leadership. The topics were across all functional and situational problems.
UC has adapted to the new normal by adjusting their offerings they added disinfectant services
for vehicle and commercial spaces and opened salon services in green zones to reach out to
customers. Since individuals are under house arrest and have restricted admittance to almost
every service, Urban Company did some social tuning in and delineated a couple of patterns.
It changed its logo across platforms to address the significance of social distancing norms.
Apart from that, they came up with DIY videos for customers so that their customers could
make the best of their time.

7. 6
Results
The novel COVID-19 outbreak has changed how a large number of organizations work
remarkably. For a company like UC that serves as a platform connecting users to service
providers, which requires a substantial amount of trust on the user’s part, the pandemic created
a grave threat to which UC has adapted with great agility. As a result, they have received a
phenomenal response, and just in 4-5 months, they are back to pre-COVID-19 levels. UC has
acquired 33 per cent of new customers during the lockdown period, the company’s revenue in
July recovered to 77 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 heights in February, and it crawled up to 80-
90 per cent as of August 10.
Questions
1. Comment on importance of changing the brand name with respect to different markets
2. How could environmental threats change the course of operations? How could IMC
facilitate such changes?
3. What different kinds of IMC approaches should UC adopts in different foreign markets
with regard to demographic factors?