Introduction and Background:

Elmenus is a virtual (pure-play) business. It is an online database that offers access to menus,
restaurants reviews, dishes ratings, dishes photos, and restaurants map location through there
website (Elmenus.com) and later a downloadable app available for android and iOS was
introduced. It was first launched in June 2011; with the objective of helping people decide what
to eat by providing them with the information that helps too (restaurants information and
menus). Their mission is Help people make the best dining decision possible! Over 1,500
digitized menus and 150,000 dishes of restaurants of seven different cities in Egypt are now
available on Elmenuss website. However, their office is relatively small consisting of space for
five full time employees who are also the managers of the different departments. Hence, when
hiring for positions, like data entry or acquisitions, which do not require much experience, they
mainly rely on part-time university students and freelancers, about 40 in total, who are able to
work from home and who are paid per entry. Since Elmenus is based on technology its
organization culture is leaning towards innovation and detail orientation; which is in line with
their strategic plan which is to enhance the performance of the website, generate more
revenues, and help make the website more user friendly through adopting new technologies
that would fulfill their mission and vision. Elmenus relies on intermediation between the
consumer and the business; providing and combining the information (menus) of various
restaurants on their website so the customers would be able to choose and compare between
the offered options. Elmenus has a general partnership business structure, consisting of the five
managers as co founders of the website. The main revenue stream of Elmenus is from the
advertisements on the website, thus whenever there is a recession or inflation the revenues are
affected. For instance, during the revolution when the curfew was implemented; the revenues of
the website were affected drastically due to the lack of interest of the customers in the service
the website was offering. However, appeal for advertising with Elmenus is growing
tremendously as businesses in general are starting to abandon broadcasting and are leaning
towards narrowcasting. That is spreading an advertising message or signal over a small
geographical area, or to a select group of audience. Information about those targeted customers
is obtained from cookies in their web browsers. Elmenus also make use of the web 2.0
technology, they heavily rely on user-generated content to attract other customers and increase
the websites traffic. In addition to the website and the apps they also have Twitter and
Instagram accounts (@elmenus) and a Facebook page (elmenus.com).
Elmenuss Technology Components:
Since Elmenus operates through a website and app all of its operations are all online. Since it is
a website, technology is single handedly among the most aspects of the company. Generally
Elmenus signs up as a team on the website with their emails and each can access the team
page afterwards with his email.

Their technology can be generally categorized as follows:

1. Software: any set of machine-readable instructions that directs a computer's processor to
perform specific operations. Elmenus relies on several software for different purposes such as:

a
PHP: is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as
a general-purpose programming language.
b
Node.js: an open source, cross-platform runtime environment for server-side and
networking applications. Node.js applications are written in JavaScript, and can be run within
the Node.js runtime on OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NonStop and IBM.
c
JavaScript: the programming language of HTML and the Web.
d
MySQL: the world's second most widely used relational database management system.
e
Production servers (specifically AWS): Amazon Web Services is a collection of remote
computing services, also called web services, which make up a cloud-computing platform
offered by Amazon.com. These services are based out of 11 geographical regions across the
world.
f
CRM systems: are designed to compile information on customers across different
channels -- or points of contact between the customer and the company. The company has
done recent modifications in this system that will be discussed later in the paper.
2. Hardware: the physical parts or components of a computer, such as the monitor, mouse,
keyboard, computer data storage, hard disk drive (HDD), system unit (graphic cards, sound
cards, memory, motherboard and chips), and so on, all of which are physical objects that can be
touched (that is, they are tangible). Elmenus relies mostly on its founders personal computers
as well as office computers.
a
b

External hard drive for backup.

Computer, most employees use their personal computers.

3. Networking: data network is a telecommunications network, which allows computers to

exchange data. Network is the oxygen for Elmenus, they cant risk having their website down for
one minute because not only will they lose revenues but more importantly trust.
a. Server: A server computer to host the website on to make sure that it is available all the time
for anyone trying to access it. While one can set up a computer to act as a web server, this is a
highly complicated task, and it is far easier, more reliable and cost-effective to simply purchase
a hosting package from a web hosting company. They will keep and maintain the server
computer, and one will be able to access it to change files on the website.
b. AUC Tahrir Wi-Fi: local area wireless computer networking technology.
Technological Sub-component: CRM software change
Recently, Elmenus has adopted new Customer Relationship Management Software that
increased its efficiency and its profits. Further enhancing of customer relationship management
is always a goal of Elmenus. After all, they rely on 2.0 web applications and the customers
generate a big part of their data. CRM is a solution through which companies can keep track of
their sales, like how might be a good prospect and the latest status of a sale like who called the
client and how it went so that the rest of the team can basically keep track and monitor the sales
process. It is system for managing a company's interactions with current and future customers.
It often involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing,
customer service, and technical support.

Elmenuss CRM System:

The old CRM (customer relationship management) software was basically based on Google
Drive where they stored all of their contact information and organized it to highlight needed
contacts and good sales prospects. The data entry and sorting was tedious and tiresome. It was
good, but they strived for the best. The way this CRM was created was as follows as it was
based on normal Google Sheets:
1. They signed up for a Google Account
They got a Google Account which will include Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and plenty
more.
2. They got Ecquire from the Chrome Web Store.
Ecquire integrated Elmenus CRM with Gmail to automatically update contacts in the CRM with
each email.
3. They connect a Google Docs spreadsheet to Use with Ecquire.
Once they added Ecquire to Chrome, they automatically selected the CRM they wanted to use.
They selected Google sheets to be the place for data entry.
4. They manually customized columns in the spreadsheet with information to their liking:
demographic information, source, and lead stage.
El Menus customized columns for specific information that your users may need. For example,
the sales team will need to know information on the ads proposal, who answered the phone call
with the client and how did it go, visits to the page etc
5. They worked as they would with Google Docs CRM working in the background while
frequently updating it.
Record all of their contacts and messages into Google Spreadsheets CRM.
This CRM system was good but not efficient, as it needed a lot of time for set up and data
preparation. Accordingly, Elmenus initiated change as their business model revolves around
customer and customer retention and accordingly satisfaction.

The New CRM (Modified) System:

Elmenus then resorted to Zoho CRM: an online system accessible through a website and
mobile app. (www.zoho.com)
Zoho has three main advantages:
1. It allowed Elmenus to prioritize and sell smarter
Zoho allowed Elmenus to prioritize their tasks and prospects, know whats important to sell
faster and grow the customer base and website visits. It also allowed sorting of clients needs in
order to better target their consumers, achieve higher sales and accordingly ask for more
advertising with Elmenus
2. It increased automation.

Zoho's Sales Force Automation (SFA) solution drives sales force performance and profitability
by automating the processes. It freed the employees to concentrate on creating leads, closing
deals and growing the customer relationships rather than data entry.
3. It allowed better and more comprehensive track of sales activities
The efforts put forward to complete a sale will prove useless if the customers with the highest
likelihood to close a deal are not handled appropriately. Zoho allowed Elmenus to be able to
recognize and manage these opportunities that translated to actual increase in revenue.
Since there are several players in the market such as Otlob.com, Hellofood.com (Online
Ordering) and Cairo360, Engezni, Trustious (Food Reviewing), Zoho allows El Menus to have
an edge. It helped the company better manage its process. In Google drive, El Menus only had
a column for whether or not the client is a good prospect for sales. It didnt enable them to add
comments, update it and keep track of the sales. Zoho enables Elmenus to do so easier.
Starting from client acquisition (getting a new client on board) to highlighting their needs and
what sort of advertisements they can be interested in and what kind of clients would they want
to target, to keeping the updates of all contacts made with the clients whether calls and
meetings and their outcomes, and finally whether or not the team managed to make a deal with
them and what type of deal exactly. It is also easier to monitor the history of all clients, their
needs and what type of ads Elmenus sold them before and how it went. Moreover, it is free to
use.
Zoho CRM for Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a powerful online advertising program designed to help one reach new
customers and increase sales for one business through ads on Google Search and across
Google's network of partner websites. By helping drive more traffic to the site from visitors who
are likely to be interested in what the business has to offer, AdWords helps capture more
qualified leads for a better return on your online marketing investment (ROI). AdWords' flexible
online marketing platform includes comprehensive analytics and reporting tools, giving easy
access to the data needed to make strategic marketing decisions for the business.
When AdWords was used to drive potential customers to the website and a customer
relationship management system (CRM) to track offline sales made through phone calls, emails,
or direct sales, it can be difficult for the business to determine how the online campaign
investments lead to offline conversion data stored in Zoho CRM. It is a way to quantify the effect
Zoho had on Elmenus
With Zoho CRM for Google Adwords, one can import AdWords marketing investments
into Zoho CRM so one can see which keywords and campaigns are responsible for each offline
sale. Again, allows further narrowcasting. Plus, one can also export Zoho CRM sales data into
AdWords so one can better optimize the bids and budgets to yield maximum revenue and
profits. Once Google online marketing is merged with Zoho's offline sales data, both sales and
advertising teams can learn which marketing strategies are driving the best return on
investment.
By exporting Zoho CRM conversions into Google AdWords, Elmenus better optimize their
campaigns, ad groups, and keywords by seeing precisely how the online investment in

AdWords led to offline sales revenue and profit:

1
See how clicks on the ads led to sales made in the offline world, e.g., bids for ads, more
menus to be added etc
2
Understand which clicks drive the most profitable sales.
The effect of the new technology on staff:
a
The sales team and the CEO were the ones mainly dealing with the software.
b
It was a bit challenging to get used to the software, to know all the ins and outs and
adjust the process to the software. They also had to make some customizations to the software
of Zoho to reflect their process as an online platform.
c
It required some collaboration and training from CEO and the sales team to adjust it.
They had to work as a team, which at the end of the day boosted the team spirit despite the
struggles to adjust when it was first, implemented.
d
But overall, it made the job a lot more easier; instead of emails, they can now easily
mark a contact as good prospect, add all the Sales manager or CEOs comments in the
description and the sales team handles it right away.
The Measurable Effect of Zoho:
Before explaining the quantifiable and tangible of the adoption of this new CRM system, one
must first lay the ground of the business climate at the time to put the effects in place rather
than explaining them in a vacuum.
Business Climate:
Opportunities:
1. The food & restaurants industry is currently booming.
2. There is no direct competition offering the same product. For example, otlob focuses on
online ordering and trusting Elmenus is more of a social food network. So the way it is now,
there is no one else offering what Elmenus offer.
3. There are other markets than Cairo that can be covered by Elmenus inside Egypt and
abroad.
Challenges:
1. As a startup, the financing is a bit limited compared to current market players. That generally
hinders their ability to do some stuff like purchasing more sophisticated technologies or hire
more
employees
to
expand
faster
and
so
on.
2. Technology advances rapidly and if Elmenus are not always on top of the game, there will be
a
room
for
another
competition
to
offer
a
better
product.
3. By offering a radical new product, it is somehow hard to sell ads to restaurants and
convincing them with the potential of the platform and it is also challenging to hire passionate
coworkers who can adjust to the startup culture and believe in the product.
The
way
Zoho
addressed
the
challenges
a.
The
new
technology
is
free,
so
no
costs
were
incurred.
b.
Now their operations are more efficient so they dont waste time on emails and calls. All
clients records are stored online neatly and are accessible to everyone on the team so anyone

can go through a client record and history in less than a minute. That in turn saves El Menuss
team a lot of time to focus on other work and it also improves El Menus relationship with clients.
It saves time, money, emails, miscommunications, and is more organized.
c.
It increased the profits, improved the customer relationship handling, facilitated
communications
with
clients
and
increased
efficiency.
d.
After the introduction of Zoho, the average time for a response for a customers email
decreased from almost 3 hours to almost 1 hour as the data required for response were much
more organized and easy to fetch. Plus the employees had more time on their hand that they
used
to
use
for
data
entry.
e.
The number of successful bids increased which might have lead to the 8% increase in
revenues following the implementation of Zoho because Elmenus was able to cater for each
customers need. It also enhanced narrowcasting, which enhanced the advertisements
effectiveness
and
accordingly
the
revenues.
f.
It also increased the efficiency of the team as data entry and collection take
almost
10%
of
the
time
it
used
to
take
when
they
used
Google.
Short
And
Long
Term
Plans
El menus are very organized and thats why they have designed objectives (short term plans)
and goals (long term plans) they would like to achieve. There short term plans consist of two
main things; the first is ease the usage of there website and app to help the user make better
and faster decisions and the second is expansion. They would reach there first objective
through introducing new features on the website and app. Lets take for instance the new
feature they have introduced that enabled people to make group sharing menus. As we can see,
this feature enabled customers to do something they werent able to do before and allowed
them to make such decision easily and rapidly. Furthermore, they would like to expand inside of
Egypt to gain and satisfy more customers. To expand they need to be known and thats why
they are using a powerful marketing plan, invading social networks and other medias to gain
more customers. As we can see, there short term plans are realistic and timely. There objectives
are not impossible to achieve and yet challenging and realizable in a short term duration.
Objectives are specific and detailed, which will enable them to achieve it.
Concerning their goals, they are mainly focusing on further expansion, to have menus not only
from Egypt but also from international restaurant. They are planning to reach such goal by first
expanding in Arab regions and the Middle East after expanding nationally. After exploring the
Middle East they would also like to get bigger and invade Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They
are still working on the mean to reach such goal since there plans are quarterly, but it will
depend on the ability of IT guys to expand el menus reach as well as the work and effort of all
employees. As we can see all their goals and objectives are based on the reach of the people
through IT. As we can see both objectives and goals are focused on process implementation.
Porters Five Forces:
1. Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
To begin with, it is important to highlight that, due to the modern nature of Elmenus

business model, the websites suppliers are not the typical suppliers that are usually present in
any market. First, in Elmenus case suppliers are all those who provide services and information
that allow the success of the consumers experience. Accordingly, one can identify different
categories of suppliers that contributed and continuously participate in the establishment of
Elmenus:
Menu Content Suppliers

Restaurants

Elmenus users

Data entry part-time employers and freelancers.

These could be considered the main suppliers for Elmenus: Restaurants generally want their
information to be shared with the thousands of Elmenus viewers. Therefore they offer their
menus, in many different formats so that they can be added to the websites database. Even
more, Elmenus viewers or web visitors, can contribute to the online data, by sharing pictures of
their plates and adding their opinion about the food quality.
Software suppliers:

Zoho

Google Adwords

PHP

Node.js

JavaScript

MySQL

Production servers
These are information system programs or application that enhance the intranet and extranet
communication, which eventually contributes to a more efficient communication between
managers and web developers. These suppliers are crucial as harmony and compatibility of
software programs together and with the developers and even the website visitors is crucial.
Market information providers:

Google analytics

Facebook
These two online services are provided by websites that track the users information and
provide Elmenus managers with insights about viewers. This helps Elmenus in enhancing the
CRM, and create a more individualized and customized treatment to the website viewer.
Material suppliers.

AUC

Employees
AUC provides Elmenus with the small office on campus. And also Elmenus team uses internet
connection from the universitys wifi. Employees use their personal computers to work on the
website and the application, and accordingly they can be considered suppliers of hardware.
The Threat:

No matter how big the number of suppliers is, it is known that web services are generally not so
dependent on their suppliers and that software can be developed and expanded without a
necessary need for outsourcing. Hence this is plausible with the Elmenus case, and one can
say that Elmenus suppliers do not constitute a direct significant threat to the websites
operations.
2. Bargaining Power of Buyers:
Again the nature of Elmenus as a web service imposes a nuanced identification of
buyers and suppliers: Surely, Restaurants and Cafes were considered the most important
suppliers of menu information they can also be considered buyers: these companies want to
promote certain offers to Elmenus users, in order to do so restaurants pay extra fees.
In accordance, buyers can be:

Restaurants and cafes

Companies who want to use Elmenus as a platform for advertising

The website visitors as they are the ones provided with the service.
Subscription fees imposed on restaurants are determined in accordance with the additional
advantages they request. Restaurants can target specific segments of users by geographic
location or the frequency of visits. The more complex the restaurants marketing campaign on
the website, the higher subscription fees.
Threat:
These constitute the main threat to Elmenus as advertising is the main source of Elmenus
income. The websites attractiveness as platform for Advertising is closely related to the traffic of
page viewers.
3. Threat of Rivalry:
When asked about their competitors, the web manager said that they distinguish
between two perspectives: the consumers perspective and the advertiser perspective. From the
consumer perspective, Elmenus is competing with other websites that were mentioned earlier
such as:

Otlob

Yellow pages

Engezli
However from the advertisers point of view, elmenus competes with many webpages that offer
the same level pageviews therefore, it is very important for the web managers think of
innovative solutions that would give them a competitive edge.
It is however believed by the founders of Elmenus that it has two main competitive edges:
1Its head start and brand recognition by the viewers.
2The amount of information already collected.
Threat:
Surely competitors are of great relevance and have an impact on Elmenus performance,

however it is known that Elmenus have gained a very wide customer base and confidence in the
information derived from it This further assures the threat caused by competition.
4. Threat of New Entrants
As an idea, it is easy to create a website that provides similar services. Web services are
now very easy to be launched and imitated in a very short period of time therefore the threat of
new entrants is omnipresent. However, new entrants generally face the obstacle of the
switching cost from el menus to a new website. This is due to the huge amount of data already
collected on Elmenus website, and also due to the customer base that it has already created.

Website developers

Online ordering websites

Tripadvisor and touristic guides.

These are all examples of actors and market players that can create a website that substitutes
Elmenus services.
5. Threat of Substitution:

Direct contact with the restaurant whether online or through phone calls.
Hotlines
Competitors
Food blogs.
Word of Mouth

These are some service providers that can substitute Elmenus services however, these do
not offer the same detailed and refined info about the food offered in the menus. And also it is a
fact that when customers are used to use a certain website, the effort and cost of switching to a
new one is high unless theres an addition to the experience of sharing information.
Conclusion

To sum up, elmenus is a successful online database that has invaded the market and reached for
the people when they needed them the most. They offer access to menus, restaurant reviews,
dishes ratings, dishes photos, and restaurants map location through there website (elmenus.com)
and later a downloadable app available for android and iOS. El Menus have changed their it
system to Zoho that was more efficient and effective and allowed them to perform even better
allowing them to analyze better their clients. The introduction of this new technology allowed
employees to perform better and made the job easier. Nonetheless, el menus are facing many
challenges affecting their performance. Nonetheless, new technologies contribute dramatically in
all problem solving. The use of new technology has made operations more efficient (no waste of
time), data became manageable since all clients records are accessible to all the workers. It also
saves a lot of money and reduces costs. This efficiency has increased the profits, improved
customer relationship and most importantly data entry and collection is much more faster.

Furthermore, the companys marketing system has become very strong when combining between
Zoho crm with Google Adwords, which allowed both sales and advertising teams to learn which
marketing strategies are driving the best return on investment.
El menus have set objectives and goals to be reached to increase their profitability, facilitate the
use of there website and expand world wide. It is clearly visible and they know that IT reach is
the way to reach their objectives and goals. IT has allowed Elmenus to determine their business
model, to identify the five forces in the market (Bargaining power of buyers, Threat of rivalry,
Threat of new entrants, Threat of substitution). When such important data has been concluded it
allowed them to generate plans to overcome all obstacles and find opportunities to increase their
profitability. hence, as we can see, IT is dominating and is every aspect of the business whether
explicitly or implicitly. It was present when they were planning, setting their objectives and
goals. It was also present when studying the market forces to identify threats and find
opportunities. furthermore, it allowed El Menus to get a competitive advantage over their
competitors when using new systems that works efficiently and effectively. Lastly it allows the
organization to communicate their customers, which is the backbone of their work allowing them
to increase their profits and compete in this very competitive market. Hence, IT is the key the
opens the door of success and leads to prosperity.
Recommendations
They need to insert objectives and goals focused on product implementation techniques because
all their previously set objectives and goals are focused on process implementation.
They need to be more specific in their goals because it isnt clear how they are going to reach
such goals.
They need to insert more ambitious goals to keep their employees motivated and striving for
more.