Will young startups cease to idolize Uber in the light of sexism at its workplace?

During last year’s Startup India event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Kalanick to share the dais with him, despite the company having been banned in New Delhi in 2015 by courts after the rape of a woman executive by a Uber driver partner.

Kalanick continued to enjoy a clout with top bureaucrats across the world even in countries which had blocked Uber or where it was facing massive opposition from local courts. Must Watch: Uber faces a bumpy ride after Travis Kalanick’s exit

At the event with Kant, Kalanick talked about the company’s value of principled confrontation in front of several government officials – a value which professed confrontation with local laws to what the company thinks is right.

So much so that during the conversation Kant had to agree that innovation will always be ahead of regulations and that the government had to be receptive to change.

Despite all the clout it enjoyed, not all was fine within Uber's workplace. Behind the curtains of overly focused, work centric environment, soon emerged cases of sexism. Multiple issues involving the driver partners came to light with a video of Kalanick himself being involved in a heated argument with a driver going viral.

A former engineer at Uber called Susan Fowler wrote a blog-post enumerating incidents of harassment she suffered in the workplace.

The most recent incident of allegation of a senior executive possessing medical record of the rape victim involving a Uber driver, proved to be a final nail in the coffin.

The developments finally pushed the much celebrated founder and chief executive to resign from the company.

Rivals could gain with Uber's internal strife

While operations of the company may not or least be marginally affected specially in the US-headquartered Uber's second biggest market -- India, the brand image is likely to go for a toss, according to experts.

According to communications consultant Dilip Cherian, there are two things to be considered in Uber’s case. One is operations in terms of customer satisfaction, services offered etc. The other thing is how the regulator, law enforcement agencies and policy makers look at the company.

"Companies which have caused sectoral disruptions globally tend to suffer a lot of damage (to image)," Cherian said adding that a lot will depend on who is brought by the company as the new chief executive officer and if the person is able to make sure that the company's image is reformed.

Uber will also be in a vulnerable position while competing with local rivals across respective markets.

According to Jaspal Singh, co-founder of transport advisory firm Valoriser Consultants, the immediate focus of the company now will be more on correcting things than targeting growth.

"Players like Didi are quite aggressively looking to expand in different markets. Similarly Ola too is getting aggressive when it comes to expanding into newer categories such as electric vehicles. Grab in South East Asia is also playing very aggressive now too. Whereas Uber is drastically looking at improving things internally. When you do things like that, it impacts your partners and stakeholders," he said.

Analysts however unanimously agree that the recent incidents are unlikely to have much impact on the business, provided there are no further rabbits coming out of the hat.

"India is not a politically correct market," said Harish Bijoor, chief executive officer of brand and business strategy firm Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. He added that the key issue is the size of the business and the way it touches the common man.

According to him, if at all there will be any effect on the consumers, it will solely be if there is a degradation of the services and not from the immediate developments.

According to a recent report in tech blog Recode, Uber's Asia Pacific head Eric Alexander had allegedly obtained confidential medical records of the rape victim, which were passed around in the company up to CEO Travis Kalanick.

The report also stressed that Uber’s executives spread rumours that rival Ola was trying to sabotage company’s image through an incident that involved a sexual assault on the woman passenger.

"Based on facts in public domain, it's possible that Travis' resignation could have been avoided if it was proven that he didn't look at the medical report of the victim or other goings on or had acted swiftly against the executives involved," said Avimukt Dar, a partner at law firm IndusLaw.

Startups could stop identifying with Uber

Uber was looked up as the holy grail of successful startups globally. It has raised close to USD 10.7 billion since its launch in 2009 making it as world's most valued startup at over USD 70 billion.

Launched in 2009, Uber has raised over USD 10.7 billion, making it as one of the highly successful startups valued at over USD 70 billion. Brand consultants say the recent incidents could damage the company’s image in eyes of those who idolised the company.

Younger startups could refrain from calling themselves -- Uber of xyz, a connotation very popular amongst companies trying to aggregate local businesses.

"Events like this do change the perception of savvy founders who don't want to then take on any of the negative rub-off of a company that is affected by problems of its own," said Cherian.

priyanka.sahay@nw18.com