Drooto, a web and app-based on-demand service platform that aims to provide technical repairing and installation services, has launched in Dhaka recently. Anyone from anywhere in Bangladesh can avail Drooto's service using its mobile and web platform.
It currently operates in two verticals 1) technical services 2) and express logistics service called Drooto Express through which it offers logistics service to ecommerce companies.
On the technical service end, it offers a host of services including 1) repair and installation services for almost all types of electronics products and appliances starting from TV, PC to kitchen items 2) it also offers the same services to commercial organizations including corporations, large organizations and institutions 3) It also offers an express logistics service called Drooto Express that aims to serve ecommerce companies.
From Drooto’s website:
“At Drooto, we understand that your home, electrical or kitchen appliances play a major role in your life. When these key appliances break down, you definitely would require an expert to handle the repair. That’s when you need Drooto. With over 30 years of experience in the electronics and electrical field, Zaman Group is proud to introduce Drooto – a web and app-based platform created to solve all your home electronics and electrical service needs.”
There are two important points here: 30 years of experience in the electronics and electrical field and Zaman Group. Zaman Group owns the Best Electronics, one of the fast-growing electronic products retail companies in Bangladesh with over 115 showrooms.
Started in 2013, Best Electronics has managed to build a strong position in the market. This is where Drooto comes in and this is what gives Drooto advantage over other similar on-demand service platforms that offer similar services. More on that in a moment.
Drooto originally started as a service wing of Best Electronics. Since Best Electronics requires providing regular repair and installation service to its customers, at some point, it decided to put together a separate company that takes care of that part. That’s Drooto.
In the past, Drooto and its team used to serve only Best Electronics customers. Through the process, it has built capacity and now it feels that it is also capable of serving a larger group of customers, in fact, anyone who needs repair and installation service.
The company wrote on its website that it now operates in over 10 major cities in Bangladesh including Dhaka, Tongi, Sirajganj, Bogra, Rangpur, Pabna, Jhenaidah, Khulna, Barisal and Feni and has over 13 service centers.
It employs more than 100 full-time professionally trained technicians to provide on-demand services to a consumer. It claims that it can provide satisfactory customers service within three days when the service delivery requires extra time.
Drooto is not the first on-demand service platform in Dhaka. There are a handful of other similar platforms on the market that also offer electronic repairing and installation service.
However, Drooto enjoys certain advantages over other similar players such as Sheba or Handymama, at least theoretically, - 1) it has an extensive experience in electronics services that comes with expertise in both service quality and pricing, pricing is critical here because service pricing is tricky affairs 2) a network of showrooms and centers that can ensure timely service delivery, thanks to Best Electronics established business, 3) and it is, at least for now, only focuses on repair and installation and that too for only electronics products 4) dedicated trained service professionals
While first two advantages are apparent, the latter two might sound not that obvious. But to my reading, former two advantages - experience and Best Electronics network coupled with the latter two make a formidable competitive advantage for the company. I have a high regard for focus, more on that in a moment before that on-demand and dedicated service professionals.
Drooto’s strategy to have dedicated service professionals, it has a team of 100 people now, might raise the question that it would not be able to scale quickly enough which a platform that uses third party vendors or independent professionals could easily do. I have a different opinion though.
While it does offer certain advantage when you open up your platform to third-party vendors, it is also a challenge when it comes to ensuring proper customer service, especially when you don’t have a strong process in place that can take care of service quality for itself, which is apparent in the case of many similar on-demand platforms.
Having a dedicated team would allow Drooto to ensure best customer service, at least for now, build a process to ensure service quality that it can easily replicate for independent professionals once it decides to open up the platform. Again, my guess is that the platform will open itself up to service professionals in the near future.
The focus is critical for an early stage company. While Drooto has been around for a while as a service wing of Best Electronics, and this is the beginning for it as an on-demand service platform.
And its focus on Electronics products will help the company to build an identity within a short period of time, ensure the best service for its customers, build specialization and then eventually take that reputation to build out in other verticals. This is exactly what no other service platform in Dhaka is doing.
At the beginning of this year, we have identified on-demand service as one of the 12 tech-trends that we believe has huge potential to go big in 2018 in Bangladesh. This is not a hypothetical assumption, there are enough signals and socio-economic dynamics that support this understanding.
Take, for instance, our urban life is becoming increasingly hectic. Time has already become a scarce resource for most of us. Similarly, urbanization has also been growing rapidly for a while now.
We are seeing a rapid change in family dynamics across the board. An increasing number of women are working today. The number of nuclear families is on the rise making it difficult for families where both husband and wife work full time to manage household chores like cooking and cleaning among other things. We don’t have any time today to look for a technician to fix my refrigerator when it fails.
All these changes are contributing to a growing on-demand service culture. This is where Drooto and other similar services come in. Using the power of technology, these companies aim to build a new layer of service delivery system that solves problems for enough customers and in the process makes a business case for them as well. (1)
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Notes
1) (1) From this story on Handymama
2) You can learn more about Drooto here.
3) Cover photo credit: Drooto FB page here.
