There was a time when Wipro Business Process Services had a dedicated team just to track cabs used by employees. They would do this manually on excel sheets, phoning employees to check whether a cab had reached on time to pick them up. If the cab had not reached, they would call the cab vendor who would find out the reason for the delay. Cut to today, when Wipro BPS uses an app — MoveInSync — that does all this in a few swipes.

“Employees who have downloaded the app get notifications in advance when the cabs are 500 metres or 200 metres away — quite like customers get to see on Uber or Ola. This helps the employees time their exit from their homes or pick up locations better,” says Nittan Bhalla, GM and Head - Facilities Management Group, Wipro BPS.

For companies dealing with thousands of employees, particularly in night shifts, ensuring that they reach office safely and on time was enough of a complex issue for MoveInSync to sense an opportunity and move into the space. It launched in 2011, solving this problem for Google, its first customer, with 500 cabs. Today, the firm’s software is used to ferry 1.7 lakh employees from 70 companies across 19 cities in India, and one in Sri Lanka, in 30,000 cabs.

MoveInSync provides route optimisation software to companies. That is, it shows the best route option to drivers, taking into account variable factors, including traffic conditions. “Route optimisation software helps companies lower their transportation bill, save fuel and time,” says Deepesh Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO, MoveInSync, adding that its app guarantees arrival of employees five minutes before their shift starts.

“To ensure this, we work backward and define the pick-up time for each of the employees and share the best route software. The vehicle fleet and drivers are owned by the cab companies,” he says.

Nailing the delayers

For IT-BPO firms, after the wage bills, transport is the second biggest expense. “We help these firms lower their transportation cost by 15 per cent.” The other aspect addressed by the app is safety of employees during the commute.

Despite the software and planning, there are slip-ups resulting in latecomers. However, MoveInSync helps nail the reason behind the delay. “90 per cent of employees reach on time and 10 per cent get delayed. The delay is due to three main reasons: driver not reaching on time, employees making them wait and unexpected traffic,” says Agarwal. If it is an employee causing delay, it is caught thanks to a verification system — through one-time password — which captures the time when an employee gets into the company’s cab.

For companies, the advantage of the app is that it helps streamline the payment process to cab vendors. “Earlier, payments took more time due to processing requirements, claims and counter-claims about time of arrival, reasons for delay, among other factors,” explains Wipro BPS’s Bhalla. MoveInSync has also upgraded its drivers’ device to an app that is device-agnostic. So, the app is now on the driver’s phone instead of a device in the vehicle.

Driving ahead

MoveInSync is now widening its offering for companies with sub-1,000 employees, where it offers transportation as a service as well, instead of just software. So, MoveInSync provides the cabs and drivers to smaller firms. “We are tying up with smaller cab aggregators for this. We have 600 cars under this segment, with customers in Bengaluru, Chennai, NCR and Pune,” shares Agarwal.

The start-up, which has two rounds of funding, is now looking to expand to countries like South Africa, the Philippines, and widening its presence in Sri Lanka. Its own staff strength in India has grown to 250 people this year from 140 a year ago.

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