Saudi Gazette It's been seven years since I first wrote an article about how impossible it is to get a pizza delivered to my home in a suburb of Al Khobar. Today, that's still a hit or miss proposition. But that could be about to change with the launch of Enwani (www.enwani.com) in Saudi Arabia. The Enwani location service enables people to create and save a pinpoint that provides the exact location for a delivery. “If you need to get someone to your home quickly and easily, using Enwani is the way to do it. The Enwani service combines a website, personal app and driver app in one cloud,” said Abdulla Elyas, Enwani's Founder and Managing Director. Once a person signs up at Enwani, either through the website, the app or a delivery driver, he is provided with an Enwani code. This correlates to a pinpoint on a map showing the location. Click to the “Driver's View” within the service to get directions from nearby main streets to the location. In the app, there's a navigation option to guide the driver to the pinpoint. Enwani is available to everyone — even if someone might not have Internet access. Businesses using Enwani have the ability to create pinpoints for their customers. Elyas gave the example of IDdesign, which has turned to the service to streamline deliveries. “In the past, when customers needed furniture delivered from IDdesign, they would draw a map which the company would give to the driver handling the delivery. Not everyone can draw an accurate map, so this wasn't the best way to find locations,” said Elyas. “It was also difficult to imagine where all the locations were in relation to each other, so scheduling deliveries couldn't be done in the most efficient fashion. What happens now is that using Enwani and a computer at the point of sale, the IDdesign sales staff assists the customer to define the exact location for the delivery. The customer is then given the Enwani code which can be provided anytime he wants someone to reach his home.” Enwani launched in Jeddah and its first partners were Jeddah-based businesses in home furnishings, cooked meals and e-commerce. Some of those partners have begun using Enwani in their stores in Riyadh and Al-Khobar. Plus, many large enterprises in the Kingdom are in discussion with the Enwani team with a goal to bringing the location service into their operations. Using the basic service is free for both individuals and businesses. It's simply a matter of companies providing training to their staff and mobile devices to run the Enwani app in order to facilitate deliveries. According to Elyas, customer feedback on the service has been good — particularly after the company enhanced its security policies. For instance no name is associated with an account, so it's not possible to search for a home by a person's name. It is possible to search by a telephone number. If the number is registered with Enwani, the service will send a request to the account holder to reveal the location. An individual can register more than one location under a single Enwani account, specifying “home” for one place and perhaps, “office” for another — each assigned an Enwani code. There is a box in the location registration section where details related to the delivery location may be added. This is particularly good for people who live in an apartment building for instance, because they can write the exact floor and door number. Individuals can also provide their direct Enwani link to anyone and once entered into a browser, the location will appear. While this is convenient, it's a little strange too because it means that anyone who knows your Enwani code can share it with anyone else and that person can reach your home. Perhaps if we'd had physical addresses in Saudi Arabia before this wouldn't be a sensitivity, but at the moment it's disconcerting. Enwani is privately funded by Saudi and German entrepreneurs. The company's technical team is in Aachen, Germany, managing everything from the app to the website. All the data collected by Enwani is stored in Germany. Elyas emphasized that the privacy laws in Europe are much stricter than elsewhere and the company follows best practices in handling customer data. The goal is to ensure that people feel comfortable providing personal information through the service. The Enwani interface is available in English and Arabic and more languages may be available in the future. A premium service is planned which will allow businesses to optimize delivery schedules and perhaps advertise on the site. Elyas believes that businesses who are satisfied with the service in the Kingdom will implement it across their operations in the GCC and beyond, and this will be the best way for Enwani to expand its reach. So register your location, get an Enwani code and worry no more about getting a delivery to your door.
