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Chapter 1 Information Systems in Global Business Today 67

all over the country had come to a standstill, they • Packages tracking
made several large purchases such as motorcycles and • Contracts
advertising space for fractions of the price. When oth- • Call center
ers saw it as a time to slow down, the entrepreneurs • Satellite offices
saw it as an opportunity to start marketing for their • Representatives
business. By March they realized that they needed to • Cash transactions and expenses tracking for
increase the original investment so that they can grow representatives and satellite offices
large enough to capture the market in Cairo. To do • Asset tracking of vehicles, PDAs and mobile
so, they brought in other investors, mainly from their printers
friends and family, to raise the capital investment up • Management reports
to $1.67 million. They planned to enter Cairo with full The API is a method of integrating Mashaweer
force so that there would be a high barrier of entry for ordering system with third parties. This allows third
any competitor they decided that their competitive parties to automate their delivery system and inte-
advantage would have to be in investing in technol- grate Mashaweer into their existing CRM/dispatching
ogy. They wanted to get an ERP (Enterprise Resource systems, opening a wide opportunity for business
Planning) system but found quotations to be too high. expansion.
To fix this they started their own information technol- The Mashaweer PDA application is installed on
ogy company, Innov8 (innovate), where they created each representative PDA and manages the following
a customized ERP system, which they then connected elements:
to their customized PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) • Order items progress tracking
through a cloud computing system that was made by • Collection of order fees and other costs,
LinkDotNet and Mobinil. Each rider receives tasks against a printed invoice
one at a time on the PDA, which also includes a GPS • Package handling (barcode scanning and
to provide detailed directions. The GPS monitors the destinations)
rider’s location. • Messaging
To reduce cost and ensure quality, Mashaweer • Cash and expenses tracking
does not rely on outsourcing in any of its stages • Synchronizing data periodically and at the
as long as it can do the work with the same or bet- beginning of each shift
ter quality. This explains why Mashaweer founded When Mashaweer was first introduced in Egypt,
Innov8 in order to build its system and manage its it captured 100 percent of market share for such a
technical work. Now, Mashaweer only owns part of service, because it was the first and only company
this company and is one of its numerous clients. One of its nature. However, the market was not aware or
further example of Mashaweer’s in house capabili- used to such a service, so it started growing slowly
ties is its call center. The company preferred to have in Alexandria until people grasped the idea and got
an internal call center after rejecting a number of accustomed to the fact that there is a company that
offers for an outsourced one. The reason for this was can take over your errands. In contrast, when the
to be able to monitor the performance of the agents company started operating in Cairo, it grew at surpris-
and always work on improving the quality of their ingly fast pace. There are several factors are expected
customer service. Investing in an innovative contact to affect the target market and make it easier for
center and using CISCO, which supports up to 300IP Mashaweer to penetrate it aggressively.
phones, a reporting module and a recording sys- At the beginning, people’s assumption is that using
tem made it much easier for Mashaweer to track its Mashaweer is too luxurious and costly. When they use
received calls and work on any problems that might it for the first couple of times, this perception changes
face its customer service agents. and they begin to rely on this convenient service.
Software components developed by Innov8 include As more and more people get accustomed with the
the Mashaweer Server, Mashaweer API (Application service, it creates a cultural change that significantly
Programmers’ Interface), and Mashaweer PDA client. affects the demand on the service.
The Mashaweer Server is a centralized application Another factor that is expected to facilitate work-
that manages the following elements: ing conditions and reduce costs is the technological
• Orders (placement, editing, pricing, review, advances that occur every day. Mashaweer heavily
tracking and reports) depends on technological tools, and would benefit
• Routes management and optimization from the advancements and price reductions that
• Clients (management, reports, discounts) continuously take place. As a result, Mashaweer’s total

MIS_13_Ch_01_Global.indd 67 1/17/2013 2:24:27 PM