Building UAE’s largest services portal

Ritika SHARMA / EMIRATES BUSINESS

Today, people rely more and more on the Internet than they would have ever imagined. One is constantly reaching out to search engines and apps for day-to-day activities. In such a ubiquitous environment, one always wondered whether mundane services like plumbing, facilities management, landscaping can also be available online in a secure and convenient manner. This is where BusinessBid steps in.
BusinessBid is an online services provisioning company that specialises in connecting customers with vendors. It matches customers with job needs and expectations to providers with services. It covers almost 700 defined services in all sectors ranging from residential, commercial, corporate, automotive, lifestyle, education and training.
The UAE-based technology professionals, Sam Mohamed and Salman Quraishi, decided to pursue this challenge and BusinessBid.ae was born. It came off a genuine need during Salman’s wedding; where he was trying tirelessly to look for quality vendors at fair prices.
Salman states, “My wife and I were looking for competitive priced vendors and finding them was a real challenge. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a particular one-stop solution then. So Sam and I got together and decided to make something work that does the job.”
With a strong technology management background, they co-founded BusinessBid after experiencing a gap in UAE’s service marketplace. BusinessBid gets the vendors that customers are looking for. “It boasts of a unique customer and vendor experience that nobody else offers. So, technically, it can do everything other than fly a carpet,” explains Sam.
With BusinessBid, the search for a reliable online partner for all your daily service requirements ends. The company entered this space in November 2014, as an online services marketplace and in a short time, has been clocking impressive job numbers in excess of 100 per day, this year. All a user has to do is fill out a simple form with some details about their requirement and contact details and they receive 3 quotes from pre-screened service professionals.
They then compare quotes and hire the best vendor. This prevents an unwanted barrage of calls, prevalent with a number of existing solutions. This has been made possible with its unique services-matching technology to its customers. The customer is free to choose from the list of service providers, vendors based on skills, availability and point rating system. All of this is performed free of charge for the customer logging in the job.
UAE has some of the highest Smartphone penetration in the world, and users are beginning to use the internet more and more, it is clear that it is only a matter of time before a large majority of transactions will begin to be driven online. Therefore, there is a strong reason to believe that everyone will be jumping on the online bandwagon.
Another reason for the recent emergence of the E-Commerce industry is the government and private entrepreneurial support that Dubai has received recently. New ideas and innovative concepts are being supported and endorsed which is helping to build a strong and robust online industry in the region.
The founders are drawing up an expansion blueprint for BusinessBid with plans of pinning in Saudi Arabia and Qatar this year, to consolidate their hold within the Middle East. They also have plans to conquer overseas markets like UK, Australia and Canada by 2018.