" mshaweer " case study

M a s h aw e e r CASE STUDY

M ashaweer is the first personal service

company in Egypt. It’s purely dedicated

to saving its clients’ time and effort

acting as a personal assistant 24 hours

a day. The personal assistant is a rider with a motor-

cycle who runs any errands for individual clients or

corporations at any given time. The most common

service they provide is buying groceries or other

goods from stores, paying bills, and acting as a courier.

Mashaweer’s success relies heavily on their flexibility,

and they have often received unusual requests that

they have fulfilled in order to gain customer loyalty –

including: going to the gym to tell someone to turn on

the phone as someone is trying to reach them, deliv-

ering presents to a client’s fiancée every 15 minutes,

and carrying a client’s shopping bags from the car to

the house.

Mashaweer is an essential service for the Egyptians

because traffic is a problem that everyone in Egypt

faces, making it difficult for an individual to get a

couple of errands done on the same day. Mashaweer’s

service has achieved such success in Alexandria and

Cairo, where traffic is an issue, saving people one of

the most valuable commodities out there; time. The

service is able to give people more quality time to

spend with family or friends, instead of taking care

of the daily errands that usually take up half of one’s

day. They also act as a security or safety measure as

they perform people’s errands in unsafe times, such

as the period after the revolution or simply late at

night. Most individuals cannot afford having a full

time assistant to perform their errands whenever

needed. Mashaweer’s agents act as full time assistants

for every individual at a part time cost.

Since starting the company in Alexandria in 2010,

Mashaweer has since expanded to Cairo and oper-

ates around 600 orders per day. They plan to expand

even further geographically within Egypt and to other

countries in the region as well as enhancing and

increasing the services they provide.

The idea of Mashaweer was created by Mohamed

Wahid (24 years old) and then co-founded with his

partners, Ahmed El Kordy (25 years old) and Aly El

Shazly (27 years old). They were all born and raised

in Alexandria. Ahmed El Kordy and Mohamed Wahid

met when they both transferred from different schools

to IGCSE Academy (AAST) for high school. Ahmed El

Kordy finished high school in 2 years and went on to

achieve his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering

from The Arab Academy of Science and Technology

(AAST), graduating in 2008. Part of his undergradu-

ate degree was spent doing a year abroad in Carleton

University in Ottawa, Canada. During the summers

of his undergraduate years, Ahmed completed sev-

eral internships in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Mohamed Wahid also went to AAST graduating in

2009 with a bachelor’s degree in construction engi-

neering. Aly El Shazly attended St. Marks School for

his entire school career, he then went on to Alexandria

University where he studied business and graduated

in 2007. After college, Ahmed El Kordy went on to

work at his father’s import/export business. Mohamed

Wahid went on to establish a company called X-trade

for trade and contracting, followed by a marketing and

advertising company called Green Media. Currently,

he’s a main shareholder in both, in addition to being

the vice-chairman of Green Towers, a real estate com-

pany with a net worth of about $16 million.

Wahid thought of the idea of establishing

Mashaweer while he was preparing for his wedding.

His bride-to-be was overwhelmed with errands that

she had to get done within a few days and he started

wondering what she would have done if she couldn’t

afford having a full time driver who did all of her

errands for her. While on his honeymoon, he kept

thinking about this idea and how much time people

could save and what a valuable service it could be, so

he decided to call his friends to start transforming the

idea into an actual business plan. After developing

a business plan, the three entrepreneurs decided to

go into the implementation phase and actually build

this business. They started small and grew organically

as the demand for the service increased. Each of the

three entrepreneurs invested $5,000 into the project

to total a starting capital of $15,000. They started with

only 3 motorcycles, 6 riders, and a hotline.

As the three friends realized they had actually suc-

ceeded in Alexandria, they decided they wanted to

move to the next phase by establishing Mashaweer

in Cairo. When they decided to expand to Cairo, they

decided to adopt a completely different strategy.

They wanted to be able to cover all of Greater Cairo,

as a whole, and not just specific areas, from the very

beginning. During the Revolution in January 2011

they started gathering market research to expand in

Cairo and started investing heavily. Since business

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all over the country had come to a standstill, they

made several large purchases such as motorcycles and

advertising space for fractions of the price. When oth-

ers saw it as a time to slow down, the entrepreneurs

saw it as an opportunity to start marketing for their

business. By March they realized that they needed to

increase the original investment so that they can grow

large enough to capture the market in Cairo. To do

so, they brought in other investors, mainly from their

friends and family, to raise the capital investment up

to $1.67 million. They planned to enter Cairo with full

force so that there would be a high barrier of entry for

any competitor they decided that their competitive

advantage would have to be in investing in technol-

ogy. They wanted to get an ERP (Enterprise Resource

Planning) system but found quotations to be too high.

To fix this they started their own information technol-

ogy company, Innov8 (innovate), where they created

a customized ERP system, which they then connected

to their customized PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants)

through a cloud computing system that was made by

LinkDotNet and Mobinil. Each rider receives tasks

one at a time on the PDA, which also includes a GPS

to provide detailed directions. The GPS monitors the

rider’s location.

To reduce cost and ensure quality, Mashaweer

does not rely on outsourcing in any of its stages

as long as it can do the work with the same or bet-

ter quality. This explains why Mashaweer founded

Innov8 in order to build its system and manage its

technical work. Now, Mashaweer only owns part of

this company and is one of its numerous clients. One

further example of Mashaweer’s in house capabili-

ties is its call center. The company preferred to have

an internal call center after rejecting a number of

offers for an outsourced one. The reason for this was

to be able to monitor the performance of the agents

and always work on improving the quality of their

customer service. Investing in an innovative contact

center and using CISCO, which supports up to 300IP

phones, a reporting module and a recording sys-

tem made it much easier for Mashaweer to track its

received calls and work on any problems that might

face its customer service agents.

Software components developed by Innov8 include

the Mashaweer Server, Mashaweer API (Application

Programmers’ Interface), and Mashaweer PDA client.

The Mashaweer Server is a centralized application

that manages the following elements:

• Orders (placement, editing, pricing, review,

tracking and reports)

• Routes management and optimization

• Clients (management, reports, discounts)

• Packages tracking

• Contracts

• Call center

• Satellite offices

• Representatives

• Cash transactions and expenses tracking for

representatives and satellite offices

• Asset tracking of vehicles, PDAs and mobile

printers

• Management reports

The API is a method of integrating Mashaweer

ordering system with third parties. This allows third

parties to automate their delivery system and inte-

grate Mashaweer into their existing CRM/dispatching

systems, opening a wide opportunity for business

expansion.

The Mashaweer PDA application is installed on

each representative PDA and manages the following

elements:

• Order items progress tracking

• Collection of order fees and other costs,

against a printed invoice

• Package handling (barcode scanning and

destinations)

• Messaging

• Cash and expenses tracking

• Synchronizing data periodically and at the

beginning of each shift

When Mashaweer was first introduced in Egypt,

it captured 100 percent of market share for such a

service, because it was the first and only company

of its nature. However, the market was not aware or

used to such a service, so it started growing slowly

in Alexandria until people grasped the idea and got

accustomed to the fact that there is a company that

can take over your errands. In contrast, when the

company started operating in Cairo, it grew at surpris-

ingly fast pace. There are several factors are expected

to affect the target market and make it easier for

Mashaweer to penetrate it aggressively.

At the beginning, people’s assumption is that using

Mashaweer is too luxurious and costly. When they use

it for the first couple of times, this perception changes

and they begin to rely on this convenient service.

As more and more people get accustomed with the

service, it creates a cultural change that significantly

affects the demand on the service.

Another factor that is expected to facilitate work-

ing conditions and reduce costs is the technological

advances that occur every day. Mashaweer heavily

depends on technological tools, and would benefit

from the advancements and price reductions that

continuously take place. As a result, Mashaweer’s total

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costs will decrease, enabling it to decrease its prices

and further improve its quality to become even more

convenient for a larger number of people.

Mashaweer is the only company of its kind in

Egypt that operates on this scale. However, there is a

company called Wassaly that was established in Cairo

after Mashaweer’s success in Alexandria. This com-

pany operates on a much smaller scale. Their indirect

competitors include other courier services (e.g. DHL,

UPS, TNT, and FedEx). However, they have posi-

tioned themselves as the flexible courier in contrast

to the couriers available in the market today; they

offer same day delivery rather than next day delivery.

Mashaweer has several other advantages that make it

very hard for others to compete:

• Database of thousands of loyal clients.

• Self-investment is manageable.

• Highly qualified and carefully selected riders due

to the high salaries compared to the delivery sec-

tor in the Egypt.

• Various revenue streams.

• Being the owner of the IT company Innov8 fos-

ters technology integration in Mashaweer.

Mashaweer has several unique selling propositions.

The main two aspects are being the first in the mar-

ket, and the only of its kind. Also the most important

differentiator is the flexibility of their service, which

addresses all of their customer’s needs and requests.

Unlike new entrants or copycats in the market,

Mashaweer have invested highly in the systems they

use. They invested in PDAs to enable the opera-

tions process to be monitored accurately since it

provides data like GPS tracking to track each order

and the location or stage the messenger is located.

Through this technology, Mashaweer decreases the

amount of errors due to the fact that the messenger

is tied to an automated process where he receives

his tasks through the PDA handheld. Meanwhile, a

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)

system presented on a big screen will be available at

Mashaweer headquarters to monitor all live orders

and measure the traffic in case of rush hours, thus

enabling the operation team to react and try a preven-

tive and corrective action.

Mashaweer’s infrastructures includes the following.

Equipment: 130 motorcycles units and 10 cars.

Software: A logistics management solution system

was developed specifically for Mashaweer, and served

from a cloud-hosted server. The solution consists of a

web-based portal where call center agents, logistics,

and managers can add, edit, track, and view reports.

PDA: A PDA client was developed to connect to the

server in order to allow Mashaweer representatives to view

and update their assigned orders via an XML-based web

service. Except for the PDA client, the solution is based

on open source technologies (PHP, CodeIgniter, MySQL,

jQuery, Ubuntu Linux). The PDA devices will be a main

factor in integrating the operational team with the fleet of

riders.

Hardware: Windows Mobile PDAs were used for view-

ing and updating orders on the move. Each PDA is paired

to a Bluetooth mobile printer for printing receipts. The

printer is also equipped with a swipe card reader module

so that it can be used in the future for credit card payment

collection, and for promotion cards. Mashaweer server is a

Linux VM hosted on a cloud solution provided by Innov8,

the sister company that developed the entire information

technology system.

Head Quarters: The decision was made to buy a new

headquarters instead of renting an existing one.

Mashaweer’s future strategy is as follows:

Mashaweer Market: Mashaweer Market is an online

supermarket that will enable people to do their grocery

shopping through Mashaweer’s website and get it deliv-

ered by its representatives within 30 minutes of placing

the order. This will be made possible by having access

to a large number of supermarkets around Cairo and

Alexandria, so that representatives can pick the order from

the closest outlet and deliver it to the customer as quickly

as possible. All products will be displayed on the website.

Mashaweer is hoping to reach an average of 4000 orders

daily in return for a delivery charge of 5 Egyptian pounds

per order.

Call center: Mashaweer’s call center is expected to

make up an important revenue stream for the company

in the near future, as the company starts introducing mar-

keting campaigns. In addition, Mashaweer is planning to

expand its call center to include other companies other

than Mashaweer.

Geographical Expansion: Using the technology they

have invested in building their infrastructure, Mashaweer

now has the potential to easily enter and penetrate other

markets in different regions at a very low initiation cost.

They plan to expand to other regions within Egypt, in

addition to expanding to other countries within the Middle

East. In October 2013 they will open their first franchise in

Beirut, Lebanon. They are also looking to expand to sev-

eral countries in the Gulf.

Sources: Mashaweer web site, http://www.mashaweeronline.com/,

accessed Novemeber 2012; interviews with Mashaweer owners, con-

ducted November 2012.

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CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What kinds of applications are described in this

case? What business functions do they support?

2. What are the benefits from equipping their riders

with PDAs?

3. Was it a good decision to expand the business to

Cairo? What are the implications of information

systems?

4. Do you think that Mashaweer will be able to

accomplish their future strategy and sustain its

market share?

5. Do you think in near future, the competition

between Mashaweer and Wassaly will be aggres-

sive? Why?

Case contributed by Niveen Ezzat, Cairo University

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