SWOT on CITYMAPPER!

 CITYMAPPER IS A SUCCESS! BUT WHY? HOW? AND CAN IT LAST FOREVER? 

Empirically, this application is taking off, big time. Facts and figures cannot ‘lie’! And yet, it begs the question of what it is that this particular application did to succeed and, logically, therefore, whether any possible loopholes exist whereby its dominance is potentially at risk.

A simple SWOT analysis is a natural starting point here and so, that is where I begin, in my mapping of CityMapper! Here we go..

STRENGTHS: 

1: They turn challenges into opportunities. Sustainability! Mobility! Environmental Repair! Economies! Overcrowding and population! CityMapper cleverly uses terms of that nature in its mission. That means they can use whichever obstacles they define in the definition of the solution they provide. It also ensures a pastoral and civil vocation to the work, thereby lending a socio-political edge that competitors may lack. 

2: Global Reach via Incremental Steps. Notice that the growth of the application and its ambitions are inbuilt to the narrative of the company story. At no stage are they claiming to have taken on the entire world, overnight. They have a sequence of products and licenses available, meaning that both cities and individual providers within those territories can harness the technology on offer. 

3: Multimodal: People forget, all too easily, that legal duties of care can be pervasive, across branches of law (contract, tort, possibly criminal, IP etc). So CityMapper has rather cleverly worked in the legalise to its core definitions. Multimodal is part of its USP. IE: One contract of ‘carriage’, with an inbuilt liability, but also a total assurance, that one journey can indeed encompass multiple modes of transport. 

4: They took their Time! CityMapper ‘got’ what many tech start-ups did not. OVERNIGHT SUCCESS IS IMPOSSIBLE! As in, yes, very occasionally, one has a big idea. A Facebook or the like. Yet even there, one must allow at least a decade of research and development to ensure absolute clarity in mission and a calm, adaptable, varied set of tests, models and experimental phases. Ten years is not a long time in tech but it is a lifetime in business and personal development. So the developers of CityMapper have simply been rewarded for a strength of vision, persistent work and a measured, modulated yet unrelenting ambition, over a decade. There is a lesson in that, to all of us, even outside the technology business. 

5: The Tech developed, in House, is adaptable and can grow with the Brand! CityMapper is not just one app or iteration of tech. It is a manifestation of many. A constantly evolving animal, with in house developments, supporting each other and fusing into a whole, whilst remaining detachable and self contained. Yes, it is in Apps that the company makes its money and builds a profile. But that is simply the shop’s front window. Think: Data! Algorithms! Ticketing systems! This outfit is very good at developing all the possible individual worlds and tools which ensure its ongoing success. 

AND YET! Every strength, overdone, is simply a weakness in waiting. Every commercial and technological star can be taken down by a threat, in waiting. And it is imperative that CityMapper remain on top of those possibilities, thereby turning challenge into mutual opportunity. 

Weaknesses in this case simply involve flipping the narrative. So whilst there is indeed an in-house technological empire at work? So a smaller outfit  could develop even one iteration of an application where CityMapper is found wanting. That, in turn, could evolve into its own animal which thereby deposes the perceived King of the trade. 

Cases in point include the real-time dimension to data and visualisation provided. That IS a prima facie THREAT to CityMapper. It is only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, cracks the codes on limitations innate to the current models and in turn, launches a valid and viable rival. But therein lies an opportunity, both for those budding competitors and indeed, for CityMapper itself, to remain vigilant, stay on top and never rule out some possible collaboration with a young pretender.

Watch this space! Better still? Watch this www.urbanhawk.space

Images: public domain / fair use /Google

Words: James Murphy