Kaza Order, a subsidiary of eSmart Company, is making gains in the service economy in Egypt. Since the company’s founding in mid-2015, it has seen a growth rate of 250%, providing ordering and delivery services for approximately 300 prominent restaurants in Greater Cairo including Americana, Mo’men, Pizza King, El-Dahan, Monginis, and Koshari Abu Tarek.
The company hired its own fleet of delivery drivers to better manage quality control and is looking to increase the volume of its order through its online infrastructure.
Daily News Egypt spoke to the company Managing Director and Vice Chairman Mohsen Khallaf about its history, its plans for future expansion in Alexandria and the Gulf, initial investment offers the company has received, and the origin of the name Kaza Order.
Why did you resort to the internet to provide your services?
Many indicators show a potential for growth in the online services market. There are approximately 36 million internet users in Egypt out of the approximately 92 million registered devices in use. In addition, e-commerce attracted high demand in the past two years, indicating potential for further economic growth.
The market’s indicators show that the demand for online services rapidly increased after 2011, a period that witnessed the establishment of many e-commerce companies. This was one of the factors that encouraged us to make the foray into the online services market.
Why did you not specialise initially in e-commerce, given its evident potential for growth?
Having conducted studies at the time of the company’s founding, we considered specialising in e-commerce. However the fact that the market already had two large companies operating in this field would had made it difficult to compete, and would have decreased our chances for growth. Therefore we decided to specialise in providing services to e-commerce companies.
What is the nature of Kaza Order’s services?
We provide ordering integrated internet services to restaurants. Our services are also available through a call centre, in addition to the delivering services we provide to some of our customers. We began offering these services in mid-2015.
With the presence of other e-commerce service providers in the Egyptian market, how do you find the competition?
Yes there is strong competition in the Egyptian market. However the advantage we have is that we provide integrated services. Our services give customers the chance to order several meals from several different restaurants in the same order. The competitor does not have this option; their customers have to do so through separate orders. In addition, the competitor does not have the option of ordering through a call centre. Moreover we deliver using our own delivery team, which guarantees delivering orders to our customers on-time.
What is the size of your delivery team?
We have a staff of 70 people working in delivery; our plan is to increase that number to 500 by the end of 2016.
Why did you decided to staff your own delivery team?
Using delivery companies may reduce expenses. However it would decrease the quality of our services. We specialise in food delivery, which is a job with a special nature in terms of the time it takes to deliver and the methods one must take in dealing with customers. It was our assumption that transport companies do not always handle these aspects well and we wanted to develop our own programme to ensure quality control.
What is the ratio of orders of online orders against those placed via the call centre?
The rate of orders placed online has accelerated. However the order rate through the call centre still far exceeds the online framework. Online orders make up 20% of Kaza Order’s total volume while orders place through the call centre make up the remaining 80%.
How do you see Kaza Order developing in the upcoming period?
The plan is to continue decreasing the burden on restaurants, to allow them to focus solely on food preparation, while we take on a greater share of communications and delivery. In this way, we will reduce restaurants’ expenses while ensuring high quality services.
How many restaurants does your service cover?
We currently have 300 prominent restaurants in Greater Cairo including Americana, Mo’men, Pizza King, El-Dahan, Monginis, and Koshari Abu Tarek. Kosahari Abu Tarek is considered one of the most successful examples as our services helped to contribute to a significant growth in the restaurant’s sales. We plan to increase the number of restaurants we service to 500 in 2016.
What is the company’s growth rate?
The company has seen rapid growth in the number of orders it provides, as we are relatively new to the Egyptian market. I would also attribute the increase order volume to the marketing strategy we recently launched, which has seemingly proved effective. The company has recorded a growth rate of about 250%.
How does the company record profit?
The company’s profits come through the commission fee we impose on the bill delivered to the customer. So we do not get paid unless we provide a service.
How did you choose your brand name, Kaza Order?
It took us more than a month to choose that name. Our choice of the name was based on the daily language of our potential customers. It was suggested by a young employee in our company.
What are your plans for expansion, locally and abroad?
Our services currently are offered in most of Egypt’s governorates, including Greater Cairo. We will expand to Alexandria in the upcoming months. On a regional level, we have an plan that has a terminal point of 2018 and will focus initially on the Gulf region.
We also have plans to develop our delivery service in 2017, which will benefit the whole sector in Egypt even beyond our company. We also plan to establish a sister company operating in electronic devices. We are not however ready to announce any details regarding this as of yet.
What have been the main challenges in the Egyptian market?
The biggest challenge has been the cost of advertising locally, especially advertising on TV channels.
Have you received investment offers from specialised investment funds?
We have already received three offers from two companies operating in the local market and a foreign investment fund company to acquire a share of the company. We are still studying the offers. We however tend to postpone the idea of receiving investments until we increase the volume of orders so as to get a better evaluation of the potential size of the company and to increase our investment value.
How many people does the company currently employ?
We currently have about 250 employees and we plan to increase this number to fit our expansion plans.
