ZAJEL, one of the fastest courier companies in the UAE, has firmed up a five-year strategy to become a major player in the logistics business and expand to e-commerce with own platform and payment gateway, international cargo and global partnerships.

“Dubai has already set a milestone in logistics internally and externally and is leading to a new era of e-commerce and online trade in line with fast changing market dynamics to fit in the 10X Initiative of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, that will take Dubai ten years ahead of all nations in the world,” said Mr Thani Abdullah Alzaffin, Director General, emaratech and Board Member of ZAJEL.

“The five-year strategy is targeted to discover new markets as well as to sustain ZAJEL’s growth, which recorded 20-25 per cent, by expanding to new businesses such as e-commerce, online trade, international cargo and partnering with global leaders,” he added.

“The evolution from a paperless environment to a borderless online ecosystem will invariably shrink the physical delivery business eventually. The new strategy is in consideration of this emerging scenario and to be a reliable partner as we see great opportunities as the market is getting ready to the launch of more online marketplace,” said Mr Alzaffin said.

ZAJEL has embarked on a strategy, targeting to expand to new markets, diversification to new line of businesses, focus on e-commerce and smart initiatives to be a dominant player in the market. The five-year strategy includes plan to have own platform for e-commerce and payment gateway.

The expected high growth in the logistics industry with uptake in trade, both domestic and international, the launch of more e-commerce businesses and the shift in document delivery business have prompted the company to redraw a strategy to be aggressive in the domestic market as well as to go global.

Talking about the new strategy, Khawla Kabanji, Chief Executive Officer of ZAJEL Courier Service, said: “The focus now will be on e-commerce business. This is the market trend and we aim to have good market share by becoming the first choice courier service provider to the clients, reliable strategic partner of e-commerce players, driven by future technology.”

About ZAJEL’s performance and achievements, she said: “In 2017 Zajel achieved 3 million transactions (document and parcels deliveries). Now we are targeting 20 to 25 per cent growth this year. This is a moderate projection considering the fast changing market scenario.”

“Our fleet size is 130, including bikes and vans, which is sufficient enough to cover all the emirates. We have an optimum staff count of 180, including HR, IT, courier, operations, call centre, etc, which we are utilising for maximum efficiency. ZAJEL is in the market with extreme efficiency in delivering on time with trust,” she added.

We are expanding and developing our fleet to have more share from the market, for sea and air cargos. We have partnership with international forwarder company.

ZAJEL, which has partnership with most of Dubai government entities, is now expanding operations to other emirates.

“We recently opened our office in Abu Dhabi and operations will start from this month. We are also targeting to open in northern emirates. The strategy will depend on the business.”

“We would target the e-commerce platform and SME businesses for certain partnerships or agreement for delivery service,” Kabanji said.

ZAJEL has also expanded its services to provide medicine delivery from hospitals to patients.

In order to propagate the new services and the expansion plan, ZAJEL has put in place a strategy and plans to have a good marketing campaign through the digital media as well as through ZAJEL website and social media.

“We are also working on to add a payment gateway, and introduce new features in our mobile apps as we are rebranding it and re-enhancing the features. There will be features provided to the customer to have booking, live tracking of shipments. There will also be payment channel,” she added.

ZAJEL will be targeting to have agreements with big e-commerce companies. “In fact, we want to tie up with only trusted platforms and e-commerce firms. We want to partner with only trusted and reliable ecommerce service providers with good volume,” she added.