The world is a unique place to live, where sometimes you wait for your opportunity, sometimes you have to struggle to get your chance in your personal and professional growth, and sometimes destiny seems to come at your doorsteps with welcoming hands. We all know about Ola, the cab aggregator in India and probably, one of the biggest one out in the market.
The experience of availing of a cab has been made smooth and hassle-free. The company is owned by ANI Enterprises Private Limited. Business Outreach Magazine has drawn relevant details about the company in our previous article, where we shared a lot of information.
OLA- A Background
Ola, previously known as Ola Cabs, was first founded in the year 2010 by two graduates from the Indian Institute of Management in Bombay. The system of Ola has allowed customers to book their cabs through the online platforms without any difficulty and have made the process extremely accessible.
The company did not rent out cars, but collaborated with tax drivers and added them to the database with the help of technology. Ola is an indigenous brand that employs more than 2.5 million drivers in India and has users from more than 250 cities.
The company is based on a hyperlocal method and has plans to establish hassle-free mobility for more than a billion customers. The company also launched auto and bike riding services to further validate its strength.
Ola has made payment mode super easy for every customer along with looking after the passengers being entertained with the help of ‘Ola Play. Ola also launched self-drive cars and allows the customers to select from different trims of cars, depending on the total number of passengers, budget for the trip, and convenience.
Ola- Types of Services
Customers can book different types of vehicles like auto, taxi, e-rickshaw, and also bikes. There is the availability of ’Ola outstation’ for people who want to go to other cities. The ‘Ola Rentals’ offers cabs and vehicles at an hourly base. The ‘Ola Select’ is the company’s subscription-based business model that gives premium services to customers while they are riding.
In the year 2016, Ola came with ‘Ola Corporate’, where the employees can get a deduction of the fare of their ride from the company’s prepaid account. The ‘Ola pedal’ is a phenomenal success in the IITs of Kanpur and Madras, where students have the availability of about 500 cycles.
Ankit Bhati’s Contribution to Ola :
In the beautiful ecosystem of Ola, Ankit Bhati is the co-founder and the CTO (Chief Technology Officer). He is also the co-founder of ANI Technologies. Being born in the year 1987, Ankit Bhati’s birthplace is in Jodhpur. Ankit loves to code and that is what he prefers to do most of the time. When he is not coding, we can find Ankit playing video games with his peers. Ankit Bhati has active social media accounts in Twitter, Instagram, and Meta. Since childhood, Ankit Bhati has loved computers more than any other extracurricular activity.
His love for computers made him freelance for projects during his college days when he built websites for recreation and financial sustenance. Ankit is an avid admirer of trips and cycling, which he goes often and tags his friends on his social media handles. The ‘Ola Trips’ is an inculcation from such road trips and adventures.
Ankit Bhati- Education :
In the year 2004, Ankit Bhati enrolled in the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay for a B.Tech degree in the subject of Mechanical Engineering. After that, he took admission in CAD for his master in the year 2010.
Ankit’s freelance projects initiated from the year 2009 and he played an important role behind the development of startups like Make Sense, Wilcom, and several others. In the year 2021, Ankit invested in an edtech startup called Qin1.
In January of 2022, Ankit Bhati co-founded a SaaS (Software as a service) startup with Nimish Joshi and Satya Nagarajan. The co-founders of Ankit held senior positions at Ola as Vice President and Head of Strategy and Business Development and Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence head. This new SaaS startup named Amnic operates on a DevOps toolchain system.
Growth of Ankit Bhati :
Ankit has always admired the shift to the digital age. He recollects those times when frequent visits to cyber cafes required him to lead a frugal life, only to learn more about the internet and data. His span of about 10 years of experience allowed him to surpass several technical glitches and create a seamless app for Ola to help driver-partners and customers generate smooth business transaction.
When Ola was founded in the year 2010 by Ankit Bhati and Bhavish Agarwal, it was just an app that offered holiday packages to customers. Ankit Bhati used to spend his mornings consuming more knowledge about data so that Ola can have an impeccable app.
His day to day included understanding quickest routes for a ride, reviewing driver’s feedback, figuring out a stand ETA for a driver to the customer, and many others. With several rounds of funding, Ola also expanded its operation to global countries.
The Impeccable Innovator- Bhavish Aggarwal :
Bhavish Aggarwal is an innovator, entrepreneur, and visionary, who co-founded Ola Cabs and Ola Electric. In 2018, Bhavish Aggarwal was included in the list of ‘100 Most Influential People’ presented by Time magazine. Bhavish was born and brought up in Ludhiana, Punjab.
In the year 2008, Bhavish Aggarwal completed his Bachelor’s degree in computer science and in the field of engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. Bhavish’s career started in the research team in Microsoft India as an Intern.
He was later accepted by the company in the role of Assistant Researcher. In Microsoft, Bhavish Aggarwal worked for two years and published a number of papers for global journals. The inception of Ola came to Bhavish’s mind when he had a terrible experience in a cab.
Strategy of Bhavish Aggarwal :
Ola is now one of the biggest transportation providers in India and they are available in most of the cities in India. To tackle the losses incurred in COVID-19, Ola laid off about 5,000 employees in the month of May in 2020. At the lecture in Bennett University, Bhavish addressed the students that the pandemic expedited the process of advancing our current technologies.
People are considering opting for a subscription-driven model in using a car. The Ola Electric is the vision of the future and Bhavish Aggarwal seems to put his mind and effort into that. Ola had created several options for customers to avail themselves of a safe and inexpensive ride. The company also has drivers that have ‘All India Permit’, so that people can take their cabs to different cities.
Business Outreach Magazine is thrilled to have portrayed the success stories of these two innovators. All of these hard work and resilience is only to put India to greater ranks, when it comes to economy and technology.
Ola is currently valued at about $40 billion. And it is expected that the market will grow at a CAGR of 6.3% between the year 2022 to 2024. Such scenarios are due to the change in lifestyle of people and a rapidly growing economy. It is certain that India will continue to shed more wonders into the economy with the presence of such entrepreneurs and better government policies to boost the development and scalability of industries.
