Founded in 2004 by the Qatar Government, Mowasalat is the country’s end-to-end transport service provider. Its mission is to connect the entire country safely and sustainably, being one of the central driving forces of Qatar’s National Vision 2030. To better maintain and operate its growing fleet, the organization needed to digitize for efficiency. It used Azure and Microsoft 365 to create scalable solutions that connect drivers and supervisors. As a result, Mowasalat now has live data visibility that enables fast decision making and a better understanding of the challenges its employees face in the field.
Mowasalat, the premier transportation service in Qatar, has up to 15,000 employees with the aim to expand even further. “We’re in charge of a big part of public transport, including the Metro link, as well as on-demand services. We also service the Ministry of Education by transporting 63,000 students to school with a fleet of 2,400 buses,” says Ahmed Abdulrahman al Muftah, Chief Administrative Officer at Mowasalat. The company also manages private hire transportation, and runs the country’s entire taxi business.
In order to provide the best services to the general public and tourists alike, Mowasalat seeks opportunities to optimize daily operations and processes. “Qatar often hosts major events, which causes a large influx of tourists who need reliable transportation. Because of this, we realized that our workforce management solutions needed to not only be efficient, but also scalable so we could promptly respond to a sudden increase in passengers,” says Fahad Saad Al Qahtani, the CEO at Mowasalat.
Microsoft Teams as a Single Organizing Layer
Mowasalat needed an easy-to-use and extensible solution that could be implemented quickly. “We found Microsoft Teams to be the best platform as it met all of our requirements and could be integrated with other apps as well,” explains Mostafa Issa Khodeer, Senior Application Analyst at Mowasalat. “As the solution is based on the Azure cloud, we’re able to increase our resources easily when it’s time to scale up.”
“Microsoft Teams offers real-time engagement with users, which enables our supervisors to better organize transportation in a way that optimizes time and cost,”
Ahmed Abdulrahman al Muftah, CAO, Mowasalat
The company also needed a way to connect drivers to supervisors at all times while making reporting, check-ins and check-outs as seamless as possible. “With Microsoft Partner Tech Unicorn, we integrated extra functionalities within Teams such as the Hala App, an enhanced version of Company Communicator which is a tool supervisors can use to broadcast messages to our drivers,” says al Muftah. Besides that, Tech Unicorn, with Microsoft’s support, also helped develop the Myshifts app that is used for event management, assigning shifts, calendar rostering, check-in/out module, geo-location mapping, and real-time reporting. Tech Unicorn made sure that the app is user friendly for frontline workers and remains at all times relatable. Based on the data from Myshifts, the company is able to mobilize transportation resources exactly where they are needed.
Connecting people, transforming work culture
These digital applications within Microsoft Teams have streamlined workflow for frontline workers and line managers. “Microsoft Teams offers real-time engagement with users, which enables our supervisors to better organize transportation in a way that optimizes time and cost,” says al Muftah. “We’re also more organized as the reporting function based on Power BI provides managers a real-time dashboard showing staff availability, status, and allocated shifts.”
Mowasalat further leverages Teams extensibility by enabling their in-house Connect app within Teams to reduce application switching and increase employees’ productivity. Connect app is an app built in-house by Mowasalat team using SharePoint Online and Teams that offers training, handbooks, and other useful information. Connect app acts as a bridge to the Human Resources department, as explained by Khalid Kafoud Corporate Communications Manager at Mowasalat, “We use the Connect app to share useful information with our team, but each of our staff members can reach us as well through the app. This way, we always know what is happening in the field, see people’s suggestions, and implement them quickly. We intend to enhance the capabilities of Connect App by leveraging Viva Connections”
Facilitating the tech transition
To create a successful digital transformation, Mowasalat was committed to building an inclusive digital environment.”We made sure every employee have a Microsoft account instead of using their private emails. We wanted them to know that they are an important part of Mowasalat,” says Al Qahtani. Microsoft offered training sessions to facilitate the adoption of the new tools. “Our goal was to ensure that everybody could fully utilize the new system. In the last quarter alone, we already reached 6,200 active users of Teams. Utilization has exceeded 50% and is continuously increasing as we are driving awareness through a well-orchestrated Adoption and Change Management plan in coordination with Microsoft—it’s really become part of our daily operations,” says Mostafa Issa Khodeer.
“We use the Connect app to share useful (HR) information with our team, but each of our staff members can reach us as well through the app… so we can see people’s suggestions and implement them quickly.”
Khalid Kafoud, Corporate Communications Manager, Mowasalat
Moving forward, Mowasalat is working with its partners to expand the use of Microsoft Teams to address additional business scenarios. The company plans to enhance modules for resource mapping and shift demand as well as improve the user experience for the calendar module, assignment screen, and check-ins and check-outs. “We’re happy that Microsoft empowers us through its extensions and tools so we can easily make all the changes we need instead of consuming valuable resources. It’s given us the right foundation to grow for the future,” concludes al Muftah.
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