Week 1

Group Assignment - Mashweer

The Mashaweer Story:

Mashaweer started as an idea in Alexandria with 3 motorcycles and an investment of 30k EGP. We built our own system through blackberry handhelds managing the orders. It took a while to be able to cover the whole city of Alexandria growing to a number of 30 motorcycles and 5 cars. We had always planned to expand business to Cairo but we wanted to make sure that we were established and strong enough to operate in such a huge scale. We recruited professionals from the field to help us build the prototype and manage the soon to discover very complicated operations plan.We started with a pretty simple call center that we built and recruited in-house which is currently being expanded in Cairo with a professional call center planned to be rented and outsourced by others as well.

The shares in Mashaweer started to grow, we needed to invest higher in our system so we bought PDAs for our representatives. We have been planning for our launch in Cairo, discovering an obvious need of having branches all over the city to be able to cover the orders efficiently with at least 130 motorcycles plus 15 cars and also a speed boat. Mashaweer plans to expand to cover the whole country and then internationally through bikes, cars, boats, and planes. We also have corporate objectives of dealing with organizations as their exclusive courier. Mashaweer has one main Corporate Social Responsibility which is to decrease the traffic crisis in Egypt, we want to produce documentaries and projects to educate people of this crisis. Maybe even collaborating with a governmental entity to provide good quality public transportation through the Nile River.

We also plan to establish an education institution or school to train representatives in the field of courier, delivery or transportation as well as customer service. We already take responsibility for training our own staff; we want to provide this experience for the public as well.

One of the services that we are working on mastering is the public and legal services such as driver’s licenses and so on.

What Kinds of applications are described in this case? What business functions do they support?

The applications described in this case are: PDA, centralized application and SCADA. The business functions that the case supports: Manufacturing and production, finance and accounting and human resources.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) 

A process by which a company (often a manufacturer) manages and integrates the important parts of its business. An ERP management information system integrates areas such as planning, purchasing, inventory, sales, marketing, finance, human resources, etc.

CISCO

A leading manufacturer of networking equipment, including routers, bridges, frame switches and ATM switches, dial-up access servers and network management software. Cisco was founded in 1984 by Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner, a married couple both employed by Stanford University. Initially targeting universities, Cisco sold its first router in 1986.

Mashaweer’s Server

Another software components developed by Innov8 include the Mashaweer Server. 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 or representatives and satellite offices
•   Asset tracking and satellite offices
•   Asset tracking of vehicles, PDAs and mobile printers 
•   Management reports.

Application Programmers’ Interface (API)           

The Application Programmers’ Interface (API) is a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing a web-based software application or web tool. A software company releases its API to the public so that other software developers can design products that are powered by its service. 

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)

SCADA is a category of software application program for process control, the gathering of data in real time from remote locations in order to control equipment and condition. SCADA is used in power plants, as well as in oil and gas refining, telecommunications, transportation, and water and waste control.

Major Business Functions:

1. Manufacturing and production: Assembling the product

2. Sales and marketing: Identifying customers

3. Finance and accounting: Creating financial statements

4. Human resources: Hiring employees

What are the benefits from equipping their riders with PDAs?

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. And also to manages the following: 

1. Tracking the order items progress.

2. Track the collecting of order fees.

3. Messaging the riders.

4. Track the cash and expenses.

5. Synchronizing data periodically and at the beginning of each shift.

Was it a good decision to expand the business to Cairo? What are the implications of information Systems?

Yes it was a good decision to expand the business to Cairo since the succeed in Alexandria. 

The implications: 

Mashaweer heavily depends on technological advances that occur every day and depends on the tools so it benefit from the advancements and prices reductions that continuously take place. As a result Mashaweer’s total costs will be decrease, enabling it to decrease its prices and further improve its quality to become even more convenient for a large number of people.

Do you think that Mashaweer will be able to accomplish their future strategy and sustain its market share?

Yes, Mashaweer will be able to accomplish their future strategy and sustain its market for below reasons:

Mashaweer is an online supermarket that will enable people to do their grocery shopping through Mashaweer’s website and get it delivered by its representatives within 30 minutes of placing the order. 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 marketing campaigns. 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 as a very low initiation cost.

Do you think in near future, the competition between Mashaweer and Wassaly will be aggressive? Why?

No. the competition between Mashaweer and Wassaly will not be aggressive as 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. 

Wassaly cannot compete with Mashaweer because they have following advantages:

•  Database of thousands of loyal clients.

• Self-investment is manageable

• Highly qualified and carefully selected riders 

• Delivery sector in the Egypt.

• Various revenue streams.

• Being the owner of the IT company