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Introduction

Bangladesh as a developing country is still lacking behind in terms of servicing sectors such as
repair of various appliances and gadgets, laundry, cleaning and pest control, home/office
shifting etc. While there are stores and freelancer available for individual services, there is no
way to determine the quality and efficiency of the service. As most the service is being
performed in our households, there is also a matter of security that arises along with the provided
service. From a different perspective, there are many people who come to the city in hopes of
better livelihood. Those groups of people learn to repair appliances and does manual labor work
in order to contribute into the society. Some of them open a shop and start a business , some of
them work in a shop and the others go from street to street looking for odd jobs but most of them
don’t get enough customer due to lack of publicity and proper guidance . Sheba first saw that
potential and created a bridge between these two group of people, the one in need of service and
the one providing the service. Sheba started their journey way back in June 2015 and
commercially lunched their project in July 2016. Initially they started off with a website and 40
people in a call center. Customer could ask for a service via the website or by making a call in
the call center. Then the request was placed to a service provider whose location was nearby
where the service was requested. The whole process was done through phone and sms which was
both manual and costly considering the profit margin. Over the time they have made
modification to their business model and finally came up with the current system they are
operating right now on December 2016 in the form of mobile application .Basically, there are
three platforms which are admin portal, manager portal and expert portal which works co
dependently in the form of three different apps to make a request by customer and provide
service possible accordingly. Now they have only 9 people working in their call center but able
to take 30 times more request than before. Sheba formally do an intensive background check
before hiring service providers both self-owned businessman and the person meaning to start a
business and provide them proper training with respect to their field, capital if needed and
common etiquette regarding how to approach and behave with a customer if they are being
called for a service which neutralizes the efficiency and security problem that was a big issue.
Not only that, Sheba also offer 7 days service warranty which also attracts customers to choose
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Sheba instead of other available service. Once the primary concept has been transformed to
reality with proper implementation, Sheba expended their service for those people who are a
little bit behind with the current technology and has difficulty using the apps to make a request
for service. They came up with a process which is that those people will go to agent like the one
we go for recharging our phone and ask them to make a service request. This app is called Sheba
bondhu and the agents get a little bit of commission from each request. Not only that, they are
planning to connect virtual wallet with the service so that people can pay from their virtual wallet
like Bkash, Upay, Rocket etc. This is how the service of the company is gradually expending by
making our lives easier.
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Detailed discussion about the application:

The whole process works with the collaboration of three applications: Sheba.xyz, Sheba
Manager and Sheba Expert. By Sheba.xyz app a person can make a request for a specific service
they require which goes directly to Sheba’s centralized admin portal where they find the nearby
Sheba accredited service shop from the requested location and send the request that shop’s
manager. That specific manager/owner of the shop get the notification via his Sheba manager
app and assign the task to one his/her service providers. Then the service providers get their tasks
from the Sheba expert app and goes to the location and complete the requested service and get
paid.

Sheba Manager
•Sends request for •Gets the assigned
the service via the •Recieves the request done and
app request and recieves payment
assign to a service
provider
Sheba.xyz Sheba Experts

All the apps are available for download from Google Play Store except Sheba.xyz which is also
available on Apple App Store. User interface of the apps are is simple and easy to use.
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After downloading Sheba.xyz app, the App will ask for user verification which can be done by
either of three ways; Cell Phone number, Facebook and Google. After verification it will ask for
location which can be chosen by GPS location or manually. Then it will take you to home page
of the app where all the available services are visible which are

 Car Rental  Beauty Services

 Cleaning & Pest Control  Gadget Repair
 Appliance Repair  Home Renovation
 Home Shifting  Business Support
 Electric and Sanitary  Road Trip
 On Demand Driver  On Demand Cleaner
 Food  Vehicle Repair
 Laundry

After Selecting the desired Service, the app will show the amount payable and the request is sent.
There is also a Notification and history tab where an individual can keep track of all requests that
has been sent and completed as well as a chat box and a call service which is 16516 in order to
contact with Sheba authorities if needed.
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In order to use the Sheba Manager App and get request from Sheba.xyz apps, the entrepreneurs
and the shop owners must verify their business under Sheba with some extensive training and
register the shop/business with some general information. After registration, the entrepreneur
must download the app from Google play store and enable the app with the registered phone
number and he/she will get service request from Sheba.

The UI is pretty simple. First it will show the Current balance that is earned via completing
requests, order graphs to show the trajectory of business, total resources along with assigned and
unassigned, accepted jobs, in process job and completed jobs. From this overview, a person can
summarize and monitor their whole business that they get from Sheba. On the ongoing tab the
manager can observe all the request and check whether the service providers are doing their job
properly or not. In the New tab, the Manager can see incoming request. He/She has 15 minutes to
accept the request. After accepting, the app will show all the service provider available under
that particular Manager and he/she will have the option to pass it through one of his/her service
provider.
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Now the app will show a detailed version of that request including the ability to call both his
customer and service provider and also to change service provider or reschedule some other time
if needed.

All the Service Providers who want to work for Sheba should keep several things in check before
starting to work for them. At first the individual must have a proper background check and
training performed by Sheba themselves. Then they have to be a registered service provider for
Sheba as well as should belong one of the Sheba authorized shops. If these terms are met by an
individual, he/she can download the Sheba Expert app from Google play store and put their
registered phone number and start getting work request from their respective manager. After all
the formalities when a manager forwards a task to a Service Provider, He/She will get a
notification in their app showing the type of service requested , the scheduled time , name and
address of the requester along with the option to call or reschedule .
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They can also see all the work done, the amount paid and due in the app which is really helpful
for keeping records. After a job is done the Service provider clicks finish and receives the
money. One service provider cannot accept two requests simultaneously. Once he/she is paid for
completing a job then and only then they will get another request to complete.

This is how the whole Sheba platform works. Apart from that there is also another app called
Sheba Bondhu which has been launched for only 1 month. The main purpose of this app is to
help those who are unable to make a request rather they will go to an agent to make the request
for them for which the agents get a commission from each request.
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Target Market

Target market refers to a specific and well-defined consumer segment within the business’s
serviceable market which the business wants to sell its products and services and direct its
marketing efforts to. Defining a specific target market eases the marketing decision making the
process as marketers get to know about the most profitable set of customers and use most of their
efforts and resources to woo them. [T1]

The demand for Sheba XYZ depends on the need, want, time and getting the solution in an easy
and simple way from the desired service provider. These needs want, time and getting a solution
easily are different for several customer segments and areas.

At the first stage, they provided their services in a short area (Mirpur DOHS) and before that,
they pointed out who are their actual target market. They found we all have some daily activities
in our lives and there are many people who don’t have enough time to find the right service
provider or don’t have the knowledge about where they can find it.

Sometimes people outsource them to someone else, give the responsibility to their household
workers or they make time from their busy schedule to get the service. According to Mr. Abu
Naser Md. Shoaib, Co-Founder & CTO of Sheba XYZ, they selected a specific niche of people
depending on some points:

Firstly, those people who are busy for maximum of their time and don’t have enough time to hire
someone for any kind of service. This kind of people doesn’t have enough time to go out and
find their desired service provider and make a negotiation with them.

Secondly, those people who actually don’t have the idea where they can find the right service
providers and how to communicate with them. This kind of people usually doesn’t have enough
idea and knowledge about the local market.

Thirdly, those people who can’t just trust anyone to come to their home and get the total access
of the house for a sudden time. This kind of people is more concerned about their safety and
security.
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And there are also a group of people who want to get everything in a short frame and get the
work done in a short time. They might have time to get their services manually, but it comes in
the lower stages of their priority.

Selecting the target audience was a hard task for them because the market is huge, and a massive
number of people still depend on the traditional system. To select their right targeted audience
they had to use latent demand technique, where the customer wasn’t aware of the need and
satisfied by their situation but they were having an inside feeling to have some kind of easy
solutions.

Defining the target customers helps the marketing of the Sheba XYZ and helps to reach the
goals. The target customers usually defined for example by gender, age or location, which wasn’t
the matter for them. For them, the target markets age was in between 20 to 40. Because below 20
peoples don’t need this kind of services and after 40 maximum of them have time for this kind of
scenario.

Possible Segments
Potential
Geographic Behavioral Psychographic
Audiences Age Socio Economic Status
Differences Differences Differences
Mostly belongs to upper Don’t have interest
Currently using
Women 22-30 class, some are in the Urban about the developed
regular services
middle class platform
Less idea about
Need a service which
Single Mixture of upper and where to find
26-40 Urban can be used and get
Parents middle class and time
service easily
problem
Don’t have time
Working Upper class part of the Need regular services
28-40 Urban to find service
Parents society form a reliable source
providers
Hesitates to use
Mixture of upper and
Insecure normal services Needs a safe and
25-60 middle class but lives in Urban
Peoples and don’t feel secured service
an elite area.
safe
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Competitive Analysis (Porter’s Five Forces):

To Understand the True potential including merits and demerits of an organization in the market,
Porter’s Five Forces model is one of the effective means to compare the respective organization
with the rest of the market. The model analyzes the Company’s whole architecture with the
following areas

 Threat of New Entry

 Buyer’s Power
 Supplier’s Power
 Threat of Substitution
 Competitive Rivalry

By analyzing the following the company can predict their profitability. It can also find their
strengths and weakness so that the company can works on the flaws in order to make the
company operate well than before with higher revenue margin.

Threat of
New Entry

Suppliers Competitive Buyer's

Power Rivalry Power

Threat of
Substitution

Porter’s Five Forces Model

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Each of the five forces of Porter is discussed down below in reflection of Sheba.

Threat of New Entry: The Threat of a New Entry depends on the capital and barrier to enter
the market. As Sheba is an app based business, it can be replicated by another app of similar
service with a low capital. Besides, nothing about Sheba is a secret due to its internet based
business model. There is no need of resources because it creates a bridge with the service
providers and provide service rather than hiring people and there is no binding rule about one
service provider not being able to work under more than one platform.

Not only that the barrier to enter this market is really low even though this is the only platform
providing multiple service under one roof. So in a nutshell it’s a possibility to have company
with similar business plan creating a high risk in entrants. If it does then there will be decrease in
switching cost as well.

Buyer’s Power: Buyer’s usually have the upper hand if there are a lot of options to choose from.
In that case the switching cost is really low favoring for the buyers to choose desirable options.
But since Sheba.xyz is one of a kind providing some unique services that no other internet-app
based company are offering, the Buyers have no choice but to accept the price they are offering
and request for their service. But if we think individually , then there are scattered freelance
services available but there is always an added cost to go to the shop and get that service even
though the service might be cheaper than Sheba.xyz. If we are discussing and comparing with
the same business platform, then the buyers have not so much power as there are no similar
options available but in general, the customer has the power to switch and get service from other
vendors.

Supplier’s Power: Sheba doesn’t own any of the service providing shops, they take the request
and outsource it to a third party which has gotten authorization from Sheba. Although Sheba
gives some training and loan to get started, they usually get back what they invested and they
don’t have their own manpower and resources to perform the services. As a result they rely
largely on the Suppliers. So if the Suppliers want to raise the price of the service, Sheba has no
alternative but to accept what the suppliers are demanding. So, the Suppliers have the power to
control the organization as there are few alternatives and switching cost is high.
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Threat of Substitution: Although there are no exact competitors of Sheba, there are service
providers who provides individual service which like some real estates provide electronics and
appliance repair service to their building which is free of charge, transportation service like Uber
and Pathao rather than hiring a car hourly basis, food delivery service like Food Panda and
Hungry naki rather than have food from the only specified catering service that Sheba Offers ,
nearby be beauty salons, gadget shops, repair shop, which can be cheaper than Sheba even
including the added cost to go there and have the service. So there are a lot of substitute that
offer the service that Sheba is offering. But there are a lot of service which are not like on
demand cleaner, Business support etc. So as a result the threat stands in a neutral point as there
are both substitutable and non-substitutable services provided by Sheba. Not only that, the
training performed to the service providers teaches them the etiquettes and norms about how to
behave with a customer with ensured safety due to the background check which gives them an
added plus point in terms of preference.

Competitive Rivalry: Sheba operates on Dhaka city only. Still it has no competitors who has a
same business model providing the same service. As a result there is no existing rivalry available
in this particular market which works as a huge advantage for the company. However, there is
always the competition in the some of the individual services that the other app based
organizations and vendors offer.
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Business Model of Sheba.xyz

Sheba.xyz is a service platform which was a startup business initially. Now it has become a
marketplace for different types of appliance services. Sheba was founded in 2015 from the need
of household repair works like air-conditioner repair, fridge repair etc. Initially they repaired 30
to 40 A/C’s, which encouraged them to move forward. At the beginning they used to provide
service from their own developed websites, now they moved to application based service which
is more user friendly. Sheba.xyz is not only limited in this repair service only, they are also
providing car rental and recharge balance of all cell phone service provider under one
application.

Analysis:

Opportunity:

Sheba.xyz started their service based on particular area. They provided service personnel to
repair home appliances. For which people did not have to wait for holidays to get this type of job
done rather to take service at any day of the week. As Sheba has registered service personnel,
people can easily take their service without any security concerns. Basically they are fulfilling
the customer needs by saving their valuable times.

Market Analysis:

Sheba is not only providing home appliance repair service, rather they are providing vehicle
rental, mobile phone balance recharge as well as an income source for the service providers.
Because of the markets are large. Sheba is making it easy by putting these under one app.

Their primary target market is the people who don’t want to waste their holidays in servicing
their home appliances. Secondly their target is the elderly who are not familiar with apps. For
them the company has booking points, from which people can place booking to Sheba’s various
types of services using Sheba Bondhu App

Competitive Analysis:
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Sheba’s main competitors are the local service providers. Who can be expert or semi expert.

But as Sheba has affiliation with expert service vendors and as they are registered under them,
people will take Sheba’s service because of the security ensured by the company itself.

Profitability:

Sheba.xyz follows cost cutting policy by ensuring more efficiency. Most of their income comes
from commissions from the service providers, downloaded apps and from web advertisements.

Service:

Sheba has home appliance repair service, car rental service, service for small shop owners which
helps them earn minimum 8000/- to 10,000/- BDT monthly. Also they provide service through
booking points and agents. Now they are expanding their business by taking all the online pay
system under their app.

A detailed list of components of Sheba.xyz’s business model:

 Problem: At this point Sheba found out the customer needs. In our country people
basically search for solution for household electric appliance problems during their
holiday. Sheba took this opportunity that through their service people can repair ac’s,
washing machines, fridges etc. throughout the week without any question of security
breach as the service providers are registered with Sheba.

 Solution: As Sheba provides different types of service. To make it easy to the customers
they have cell phone applications for both the customer and the service provider which is
monitored and controlled by the Sheba’s principal website.

 Key Resources: Sheba started to provide their service manually. There previous serving
system was; if a customer’s placed an order for help, Sheba’s operations personnel had to
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find which service provider was free within that area, thus the connection between
provider and customer took place. Now through app, customer can direct contact with the
provider.

 Unique Value Proposition: Customers are willing to take Sheba’s service because at one
side it is saving their time as well as ensuring security of households during service.

 Competitive Landscape: Customers can choose from various service providers from
whom they will take the service.

 Revenue Streams: Sheba streams their revenue through their free app download, customer
data, web advertisements, commission from service providers etc.

 Key Metrics: The Company measures their success by cost cutting as well as by ensuring
adequate service and by expanding the serving area.
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Revenue Model Analysis

A revenue model is a framework for generating revenues. It identifies which revenue source to
pursue, what value to offer, how to price the value, and who pays for the value. [R1]

Sheba XYZ’s revenue model has the story of the company explaining how they actually work.
Also, this model assists with company structure in reaching goals. Furthermore, as their revenue
model is variable, they can adapt their revenue model to the market conditions. In the same vein,
as play and app stores revenues come from sharing application provider revenues, and the
website has traffic data which they can distribute to other companies as well.

They also have a huge customer database of their customers and most importantly, they know
those customers personal contact details with their demography and their needs as well. It is
really some precious data for them.

From the beginning, Sheba XYZ adapted different revenue models and added new models and
features in it. They earn a specific percentage from the Sheba managers and the manager takes
their commissions from the service providers. As it is their confidential information, they
weren’t interested to share the amount with anyone. But this is their main source of the revenue.

They have also created some gateway for the customer to pay online through other apps and
partnered with different types of companies by showing them a win-win business revenue
models.

Recently they have partnered with Robi and they are setting up their Sheba points in the Robi’s
top-up points. They are also connecting with other operators as well to make one app for the top
up businesses to send mobile top-ups through their app. It will help the top-up businesses to
provide money to every operator from one phone and in the meantime, Sheba XYZ will get a
huge number of customer database and they will be able to get many leads from it. And once
people will be used to with the Sheba apps, they will automatically get more engaged to their app
services. For that reason, Sheba XYZ is gathering and liaising with many companies and giving
them a gateway or platform. This combined policy will affect their business revenue model
hugely with a massive positive impact.
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Sheba XYZ business revenue model table:

Key Partners Key Activities Value Propositions Relationships Customer Segments

 Platform
development
 Merging with
 Service service providers
providers  Communicating
with the customers
 Automated
 Sheba  Creating the bridge
service
managers between customer  Service providing  Fast customer
and service solutions support
 Telco providers  Easy to accessible  Easy solution
companies  Working persons
 Liaising with Telco, platform  Verified  Trust seeking
E-payment etc.  Trustworthy services technicians
 Online companies to persons
 24/7 support
payment provide a one stop  Homemakers
 Fast solutions
systems solution  Mobile app users
 One place for all
 Internet users
Key Resources solution Channels
 Sheba point  Less idea about
 Sheba apps  Online payment
agents  Play store market peoples
(Sheba  Sheba website
 App store
Bondhu)  Sheba Bondhu
 Website
system
 Sheba points
 Sheba managers
 Recharge
 Sheba service
points
providers
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Cost Structure Revenue Strems

 App & Website maintenance and update  Free app & customer log in
 Offices  Percentage from service providers
 IT team  Customers data
 Marketing & Sales  Web ad revenues
 Call center  App download revenues
 Research & Development  Business revenues from partnership with other companies
 HR  Payment gateway percentages
 Data center costs  Cost cutting revenue policy
 Sourcing new Sheba partners  Data centers
 Training service providers  Payment revenues

Sheba XYZ follows the cost-cutting policy very strictly. At 2016 they had 40 call center agents
when their customer was around 40,000. Now, they have more than 300,000 customers and they
are maintaining them with just 9 call center agents. They have adapted the automated technology
very well and reduced their costs. The advanced IT adaption also helped them to provide faster-
paced services to their customers and cutting the cost. Updating their customer support system
helped them to save at least 20,000 Tk per day which they used to spend for sending SMS to
their service providers and Sheba partners.

Instead of following the me-too marketing approach they provided the platform as a gateway for
other online payment systems. This helped them to cut the cost of developing a new payment
system. They also used the partnership with Robi to get a humongous number of agents working
as their Sheba point providers, which helped them to save a big amount which they could have
spent for hiring and making Sheba points all over the city.
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SWOT Analysis
Strength
 Sheba xyz has huge database of customers.
They will get use them to create more
business.
 They are planning to add payment
gateway. If they make their own gateway,
which will include mobile top, utility bills
and also every payment of their services.
They can expand to all over the country.
Opportunities
 There is no competitor in the industry.
 Strong customer base and established
brand. So far, they have served 300000
customers.
 They have huge number of verified
enlisted vendors.
 They have automated order receiving
process
Threats
 Any new competitor can easily enter by
creating any static application
 They are fully based on Physical Database.
Any malfunction or disaster can affect the
whole system.
 They have been using open source and
shared their admin panel with to the
managers, which is very risky.
Weaknesses
 Their business is fully depending on the 3rd
party service provider. If they fail to
provide quality service, it will directly
impact the brand
 Bangladeshi culture is still not ready for
this.
The service manager is mostly not educated
enough to run this system.
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Future directions:

Sheba xyz is a very potential business. Every potential or successful business can make mistakes
which lead them to ground. Proper planning and directions are very important for every business.
Sheba has very strong customer base. But to keep the customer and enhance the customer base,
they need to educate the customer. If the customers don’t know how to use the application, this
business is not going to be sustained. The target market, specially the woman of every family,
who are generally making the household decisions, is the primary target market. Sheba has
“bondhu” app, but how much that is accepted by the target market, is very much important. If
they accept that properly, then sufficient marketing is needed. Proper communications can
generate more customers as well will educate them to use it proper way. From our findings, we
did not see proper communication has been made to right target market. In fact culture is a very
big concern here. Enough communication can make the changes and establish the brand among
others. They should be a training centre to educate their service provider so that they can ensure
quality service.
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Conclusion

Sheba XYZ exploits its proprietary technology to develop, design, maintain, partnering and
creating gateways that deploys a platform for easy solution and service providing facilities with
online payments and more features. Right now they have 180 services and they planned to serve
their customers with 500+ services over the next years which include movie tickets, utility bills,
mobile recharge etc.

Their goal is to reach every customer mind whenever they need a service. They want to provide a
one-stop solution for all kind of services in a single platform and they are arranging every kind
of online payment system in their platform, so anyone can pay with anything. They are also
giving businesses their customer database to use them for their business, so everyone gets
involved with them. They are partnering with big telco and other companies to expand their
Sheba customer points all over the country.

At the beginning of their journey, Sheba XYZ faced a lot of difficulties. At first they used a short
area to implement and see the outcomes but still, they couldn’t find all the problems. But slowly
they grew and identified their problems and adapted the perfect IT solution for it. Before
adopting the IT, they designed a model where how it will work, who will be responsible for what
operation and the workflow of the total system. It helped them to manage everything in a simpler
and short form.

As a startup company, unlike others, they have to work hard and fast to reach a certain level.
They worked overtime and as a team to overcome all problems and difficulties. And when they
have a situation the whole team works as one. For example, during an Eid, they needed more
than 9 call center agents to handle all customer quarries and their IT and other team joined their
customer support team and handled the whole situation smoothly.

From this study, we can say Sheba XYZ have a massive plan, advanced IT, strong revenue
model policy and a vision with lots of possibilities to stay at the market. And if they can continue
to expand their business like this, in the app based service providing industry, they have the
potential to be the market leader.
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References

1) T1 - https://www.feedough.com/target-market-definition-examples-strategies-analysis/
2) R1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_model\
3) https://www.sheba.xyz/about
4) https://futurestartup.com/2016/08/01/shebas-bold-plan-to-simply-service-in-bangladesh/
5) https://www.thedailystar.net/business/shebaxyz-expand-southeast-asia-1539727
6) https://www.thedailystar.net/next-step/taking-the-service-industry-storm-shebaxyz-
1272154