BungkusIT: Delivering packages quickly and accurately across the country

Have you ever left your keys at home by accident? Or left an important document at home, but only realized after reaching your destination? It's in moments like these that almost one million customers across Malaysia rely on BungkusIT to help them with everyday tasks.

With a mission to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere within the hour, BungkusIT aims to make life easier for people by helping them complete the small, but often time consuming tasks so that they can focus on other, more important things in life.

BungkusIT was founded to achieve two things. The first, was to provide an on-demand delivery service, and the second, to empower and provide job opportunities for the lower-income groups in Malaysia as well as support local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by making them more accessible.

Apart from acting as a runner for customers, BungkusIT roadies (a term used to refer to its delivery people) can make trips to shopping malls and independently-run shops to purchase specific items, post parcels, even buy snacks from roadside stalls and deliver them to the customer's doorstep. "Many of our customers treat us as their personal assistant," says Aliasgar Abbasbhai, Head of Technology at BungkusIT. "Unlike other companies that may focus only on food or parcel delivery, we offer a wide range of services and can complete specific tasks required by our customers."

Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, the company is now the fourth largest delivery company in Malaysia. In March 2020, it expanded its services to work with small merchants by becoming the default delivery company for all their delivery needs. "The sign-up process is really simple. Basically, merchants login to our website and sign up for this service for a small monthly fee. Then whenever they need something delivered to their customers, they simply key in the details and our riders will be notified."

Launching with an accurate and detailed maps platform

As a startup, BungkusIT runs a very lean team. This is why it is so important to select the best technologies from the get go. The company launched its services with Google Maps Platform as its maps solution and hasn't looked back. "We compared a few map platforms but honestly, no other platform is comparable to Google Maps Platform when it comes to the accuracy and fine details, such as locating small food or grocery outlets," says Aliasgar.

With intuitive documentation, setting up Google Maps Platform was also a breeze and the team didn't face any roadblocks. "We didn't need any training from Google because the documentation provided was clear and straightforward," he explains. The team currently works with Searce, who keeps BungkusIT updated with any new updates and ensures that the products are optimized on its platform. "They helped us look at data on our backend and from there, we managed to optimize our API calls, saving us around 15% in costs."

Accurate, reliable service pricing with the Places API

All of BungkusIT's services are charged according to distance. This is why the accuracy of every location is crucial in order for the company to calculate the exact distance between the source and destination, for accurate pricing.

BungkusIT relies heavily on the Places API for its day-to-day operations, ensuring that riders can get from one place to another quickly and efficiently. When a customer logs in to the app, they conduct a search to put in an order by typing in the location of the place the rider needs to be. Using Place Autocomplete, customers can easily find the vendor or location they are looking for as the names of places are automatically filled in as they type so they don't have to worry about spelling out the names of places accurately in full.

"We've been able to offer a better user experience on our app because of Place Autocomplete, because it makes the search process much quicker for customers as they don't have to type the full address," says Aliasgar.

Merchants that sign up with BungkusIT can also display their products and store location on the app with the Places API so that customers can discover them when looking for specific products such as food, or a flower bouquet for a special event.

As an example, if customers need to purchase medicine from a pharmacy, all they need to do is key in the pharmacy name, and Place Autocomplete suggests the pharmacies that match what customers are looking for. The customer then confirms the pharmacy they want to purchase their item from, and agrees on the price generated on the app.

Once that happens, a nearby roadie would be alerted of the job, accept it, and go to the pharmacy to make the purchase and deliver it to the customer. Customers are able to track the journey of drivers on the app so they have an idea of where drivers are and how long they have to wait before their item can be delivered.

Well-informed riders enable a faster service

There are two sides to the BungkusIT app. The customer facing side, and the rider side. Jobs are assigned on the customer app then the rider app alerts riders to the pending jobs relevant to them. BungkusIT uses a combination of Google Maps and its proprietary technology to get the distance and position of each rider, so that only the most relevant riders nearby are alerted to a job.

Using the Distance Matrix API to calculate the travel distance between the original location and destination helps drivers make better decisions when making a delivery. It helps them choose the best route so that a delivery can be completed in the most time and cost efficient way.

Growing the business and improving the delivery experience

As it continues to expand, BungkusIT is focused on building partnerships with larger, global brands. The company has invested in more transport options, including cars and lorries to cater to these larger clients. It also plans to explore the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand customer needs better, such as the times of day where most requests are made, and the types of requests. "No matter how large we grow, our priority will always be to ensure that our customers get what they want on time with the best customer service experience,” says Aliasgar. “And I believe that with Google Maps Platform, we are well positioned to grow the business."