This document describes a case study about Mashaweer, the first company in Egypt that offers personal assistant services. Mashaweer employs riders on motorcycles equipped with PDAs to help clients run errands and deliver packages. The GPS and SCADA systems allow Mashaweer to monitor riders and operations. Expanding the business to Cairo was beneficial due to the large market and information systems helping to coordinate processes.
1. LECTURER : Prof. Dr. Rusli
1
Team Members:
§ Cherry Linda Keripin (P14D393P)
§ Elina Tiu Chai Hui (P13D160P)
§ Alexander Mathew Kana (P14D384P)
§ Gesna Michael Jepus (P14D400P)
§ Teo Chiat Hua (P14D395P)
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Mashaweer Case Study)
2. GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1(Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
BRIEF SUMMARY OF CASE STUDY:
2
Mashaweer is the first company in Egypt that offers personal services. They act
as personal assistants, helping their clients to save time and money to run
errands for them and their service is 24 hours a day. Their common services
comprises but not limited to, are buying groceries and goods at other
places, pay bills, deliver documents and packages and the unusual ones
are like delivering presents to client’s fiancé every 15 minutes.
3. GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
BRIEF SUMMARY OF CASE STUDY:
3
Everyone in Egypt faces traffic problem which makes it difficult
to do couple of errands on the same day. Mashaweer
employs riders with motorcycles to help the people of
Egypt to do their errands. Since they are riding a
motorcycle, it is easy to maneuver through the traffic. Each
rider is equipped with PDA (Personal Digital Assistants)
which includes a GPS to provide detailed directions. The
GPS is also used to monitor rider’s location and thus the
operation process can be monitored accurately. Each rider
will receive their tasks via their PDA handheld. Through
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system,
Mashaweer will be able to monitor all live orders and
measure traffic during rush hour, thus enabling the
operation team to react and try a preventive and
4. GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
BRIEF SUMMARY OF CASE STUDY:
4
People assumed that using Mashweer
is too luxurious and costly, but when
they have started using the service,
this perception changed and now it
is a service that one must have. It
creates a cultural change that
significantly affects the demand on
the service. They find that using the
service actually helps them to save
time and money. Technological
tools and information system has
successfully reduce the cost of
getting errands done within a day.
5. 5
1. What kinds of applications are described in this case? What
business functions do they support?
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
6. 6
1. What kinds of applications are described in this case? What
business functions do they support?
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
Continue…
7. 7
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
What are the benefits from equipping their riders with PDAs?
The benefits of equipping their riders with PDAs are :
They are able to monitor the representative’s delivery process via
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and aid him
in getting to his destination faster, all tasks for representatives
are given through their PDA handheld, which reduce the amount
of errors in term of delivering the package, which also reduce
the costs involved in transporting goods.
8. 8
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
What are the benefits from equipping their riders with PDAs?
9. 9
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
Was it a good decision to expand the business to Cairo?
What are the implications of information systems?
It was a good decision to expand the business to Cairo. When Mashaweer was first
introduced in Egypt, it captured 100% of market share for such a service,
because it was the first and only company of its nature. When the company
started operating in Cairo, it grew at a surprisingly fast pace. Cairo is
considered a new pool for Mashaweer to swim in which provides the
opportunity to further expand their business. Mashaweer being the pioneer in
the business has several advantages which makes them a stiff competitor. On
top of that, their service which is enjoyed by the people of Alexandria has
given the people of assurance that the service is affordable and can help to
save cost of travelling or getting goods to its destination.
10. 10
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
Was it a good decision to expand the business to Cairo?
hat are the implications of information systems?
Continue…
Mashaweer has invested heavily into their systems to ensure people the quality of
their service. By investing heavily into the technology, they have set a high
entry barrier for newcomers. Information systems has helped them to
coordinate their processes better which helps their clients to save more
without jeopardizing their quality of service.
11. 11
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
4. Do you think that Mashaweer will be able to accomplish their
future strategy and sustain its market share?
12. 12
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
4. Do you think that Mashaweer will be able to accomplish their
future strategy and sustain its market share?
We think Mashaweer will be able to accomplish their future strategy as
long as these strategies have been implemented and executed
correctly. Utilizing the call center for other business practices could
greatly improve profits and sustain its market share because it is a
small impact on current business if they move the operations
online they can fully utilize call center for other business and
market strategies. Expanding into the rest of Egyptian and the
Middle East could prove to be success so expanding into the rest of
Egypt and Middle East could huge profits and dominate the
personal assistance business.
13. 13
GST5083 : INFORMATION SYSTEMMS AND E-COMMERCE
Week 1 (Assignment 1 – Designing Drugs Virtually)
5. Do you think in near future, the competition between
Mashaweer and Wassaly will be aggressive? Why?
§ We do not think the competition between Mashaweer
and Wassaly will be aggressive. As of now, Mashaweer is
the only organization that operates on this scale. They
have invested heavily into the technology and they are
able to set a high entry barrier to any newcomers.
§ They are self-investment – which means they do not take
any bank loans to support their business.
§ They have database of thousands of loyal customers.
§ They owned their own IT company called Innov8.
§ They have carefully selected their riders and they are
among the best in the industry. The riders are also highly
paid which makes it difficult for competitor company to