The issue of survival in a raging pandemic has been and continues to be relevant for many companies around the world, including the UAE. Studies show that many organizations under restrictive quarantine conditions have been forced to minimize their operations, especially those associated with manual labor (Seetharaman, 2020). However, the ubiquitous shift to telecommuting has also prompted organizations to digitize their work and establish delivery vehicles (Nabi and Mishra, 2021). Thus, those companies that were already focused on web-shopping found themselves in a favorable situation and could actively develop. Talabat is also one such company that could seize the opportunity amid the pandemic.
First of all, it is worth noting that this company has been on the market for a long time. While Uber Eats was only formed in 2014, Talabat appeared ten years earlier, in 2004 (Sharma and Waheed, 2018). Consequently, by the time the pandemic began, this organization was already firmly established and had many opportunities to defend its position and adapt to changing conditions. In addition, a feature of Talabat is its focus on users of the Middle East countries, such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. While other large delivery companies are spreading their influence worldwide, like Uber Eats, this company positions itself as a predominantly Arab service (Sharma and Waheed, 2018). This is further supported by the fact that the company’s name is derived from the Arabic word for “orders”.
Consequently, Talabat not only has a long presence in this business sector but also has a broad customer base among the Arab countries, including the UAE. This factor helps the company to remain relevant even in an aggressive environment and emergencies. An additional argument explaining the prosperity of this organization in a pandemic is the sphere it occupies. Talabat is a delivery service for various items, including food, essentials, and medicines (Talabat, no date). Given the situation with self-isolation and quarantine measures, in which many residents cannot get to the places they need, such services are extremely useful. Their value can be proven by high commission rates, which can be as high as 30 percent per order (Dano and Chopra, 2021). At the same time, these prices do not force users to abandon this application.
In addition, studies show that the great demand for such services is formed by the inability of the restaurant business to support itself during the pandemic independently. Due to the restrictions imposed, they are forced to sell their products through third-party aggregators that can deliver food to the consumer (Dano and Chopra, 2021). This way of interaction between restaurants and customers is not new. However, it has found its active distribution precisely during the pandemic due to the aforementioned restrictive measures. As Talabat is one of the most significant players in the food delivery companies market in the UAE, the organization could capitalize on the current situation by obtaining additional orders.
Finally, the last factor that provides additional success for Talabat is the visual component of this service. According to research, long-term use of the application is associated, among other things, with the aesthetics of its design (Kumar and Shah, 2021). The better the user interface is made, the higher the application’s chance to form a permanent customer base. Talabat redesigned its system in 2016, almost four years before the pandemic, which made it possible to debug possible errors in advance and make the interface as convenient as possible (Patel, 2016). Additionally, the app has been made as widely available as possible in all major digital stores: AppStore, Google Play, and Huawei AppGallery (Talabat, no date). Thus, even before the pandemic, Talabat had a well-functioning, efficient application with an attractive interface, which, together with other factors, served as a serious advantage for the company.
Reference List
Dano, D.R. and Chopra, A. (2021) ‘Impact of Delivery Apps Commission Rates on UAE Restaurants’, International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Economy (ICCIKE) conference proceedings. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, pp. 273-278.
Kumar, S. and Shah, A. (2021) ‘Revisiting food delivery apps during COVID-19 pandemic? Investigating the role of emotions’, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 62, p.102595.
Nabi, S. and Mishra, V.P. (2021) ‘Analysis and impact of COVID-19 on economy and organization’, International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Economy (ICCIKE) conference proceedings. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, pp. 219-224.
Patel, R. (2016) Talabat.com website & APP redesign. Web.
Seetharaman, P. (2020) ‘Business models shifts: Impact of Covid-19’, International Journal of Information Management, 54, p.102173.
Sharma, K. and Waheed, K.A. (2018) ‘Consumption of online food app services: An exploratory study among college students in Dubai’, Middle East Journal of Business, 13(4), pp.4-11.