The Partnership Economy

CHAPTER 9Mobile Partnerships: Be Where Your Customers Are All the Time

Sanjit is headed to a meeting in an area of San Francisco that he doesn't know well and is in dire need of a coffee (and perhaps a pastry …). His go-to local guide app, let's call it ACME Local Guide, suggests Blue Bottle Coffee, which it describes as a trendy cafe offering upscale coffee drinks. The cafe enjoys great consumer reviews and is located right where he is headed—1.5 miles away.

A quick time check reveals that Sanjit doesn't have enough time to walk to the cafe and enjoy a coffee before his meeting. Just as a sense of disappointment is settling in, Sanjit sees a new feature in the ACME Local Guide app: a “get a ride” button (Figure 9.1). The button not only will arrange a ride for him, but it gives him a time estimate of how long it will take for an UberX car to get to him and an estimate of how much the ride will cost. Seeing that a car is a mere three minutes away, Sanjit opts to take a car so that he can refuel with a red eye before his meeting. All is right in the world.

The “get a ride” feature that made things all right in the world for Sanjit is a simple mobile app integration between Uber and any number of partners that have transit, restaurant, city guides, or local business apps. The button, which Uber engineers say can be installed in 10 minutes with just a few lines of code, makes it super easy for partner customers to secure a reliable ride when their intent to travel is high.¹