First the Taxi industry, then the limousine industry, and now the Ferry and Tourist attraction industry? Uber is doing it right!

In Croatia UberBOAT has not only become a seasonal mean of transportation but a regular as well as reliable service. The UberBOAT business model reflects that of the Uber taxi industry, whereby a driver is always paired with a car; so the customers do not need to have knowledge on how to drive a boat.

UberBOAT offers two different services, the first one transfers customers from one island to the other and is very similar to their taxi industry model, just now it competes with ferries as a mean of transportation. The other service it provides is the trip option. This option is Ubers first step into the tourist attraction industry. These boat trips allow you to go wherever you want and to book the boat for the time you requested. During this time, you can explore nearby islands, or explore hidden beaches and caves (the boat driver can even give you some local tips on the best hidden places; making your vacation more memorable than ever)!

As Croatias tourism industry accounts for 19% of the country’s GDP, Ubers entrance will likely cause a disruption in the tourism industry while simultaneously increasing Uber’s industry reach.

Uber’s strategic step to enter the tourism industry in this market will likely pay off in the future, nevertheless the company’s constant entrance in other industries will continue to increase its platform power. While in the future likely being market leader in various industries; the risk of power abuse emerges. Should there be more regulations to stop/limit these platform companies and their constant increase in industry presence?

https://www.uber.com/en-NL/u/uberboat/

https://www.businessinsider.com/uberboat-launches-speedboat-service-along-croatian-coast-2017-6?international=true&r=US&IR=T

No more CV, no more cover letters, no more “interviews” and no more (human) recruiters. Through the means of Artificial Intelligence in smartphone applications, video interviews and assessment games, you are now basically hired by a Robot. Data-based recruitment is slowly gaining traction with some big employers such as Unilever, Walmart and Goldman Sachs, and it is changing how the recruitment industry functions.

Unilever’s assessment starts through the submission of one’s LinkedIn profile. Following the LinkedIn submission, the applicant then plays several neuro-science based games to determine one’s character and how a person would react in certain situations.

For the next step, Unilever has partnered with HireVue’s artificial intelligence powered technology to help conduct the video interview and assess the potential candidate. This technology focuses on factors such as body language, choice of words and mood, and thereby is able to predict how a potential candidate might react in certain situations, figure out when a candidate is lying, analyze how emotions change during the interview as well as evaluate the candidates’ general confidence level. This allows the company to find the person with the required traits for the company and the job.

Only after this entire process will a candidate be presented to the company for a day-in-the-life scenario to determine if the manager and the candidate are a suitable fit for each other.

It seems that companies which have implemented AI in their recruitment are very pleased with the outcome. For Unilever, the diversity of the job applicants increased and the time it takes to recruit a candidate decreased, hence allowing for a faster and better recruitment process.

While companies praise the implementation of artificial intelligence in the recruitment process, how do job seekers feel about being entirely evaluated by a computer?

Sources:

Consumer-goods giant Unilever has been hiring employees using brain games and artificial intelligence — and it’s a huge success

How brands are using emotion-detection technology

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/people/your-career/what-unilevers-ai-hiring-experiment-tells-us-about-the-future-of-grocery-recruitment/554493.article