From the article,THINKING of buying a car but find it too tedious to survey the classifieds in the papers or visit car dealers physically? Perhaps you can subscribe to Trylah (www.trylah.com), a virtual automobile marketplace that allows buyers and sellers to communicate through a central hub by different modes of communication, be it short message service (SMS), the Web or a hotline service. Launched last week by startup Trylah Sdn Bhd, the application is set to revolutionise the way cars are sourced, advertised and sold in Malaysia. Managing director Shafique Iqbal said it offers an intuitive, simple English and SMS-based search and its technology back-end creates an association between buyers and sellers in real time.
"It is now a buyer's market. It is imperative to offer convenience to the buyer, who puts up the money, in a totally transparent, scalable and affordable manner. Via SMS, we believe there is combined synergy in creating a virtual market for buyers and sellers." According to Shafique, the Trylah system only interacts with mobile users who have been verified based on their mobile phone and identification numbers. It also promotes confidentiality and privacy, unlike the current manual system.
For car dealers, the application provides a database that allows them to have access to detailed reports and performance parameters of their sales force and market trends, Shafique pointed out. "Unlike any other media, the Trylah system assures at least three guaranteed and authentic leads to the seller. Trylah repeats the ad at its own cost until the seller receives the assured leads." DEVELOPMENT PROCESS. From the conception of the idea, the Trylah team described the ground realities, which included the challenges faced by the Malaysian automotive segment, to its partner Bodhtree Consulting India. What was evident from the discussions, according to Shafique, was lack of transparency, efficiency and security in conducting physical commerce in the sector. A series of brainstorming sessions between the domain experts from Malaysia and the technology experts and partners from India resulted in a mechanism aimed at nipping the deficiencies. The last nine months saw a cumulative effort by 180 people to bring about enhance the automotive market.
"The fact that a buyer and/ or a seller daf no other option but to promote his request through traditional media, coupled with negativities such as potential manipulation, arbitrariness and extended time lag, led to the realisation of an opportunity to provide a system addressing Shafique said.
"Bodhtree Consulting utilised all its energies and relationships with companies in the new media and Web 2.0 spaces to provide a foolproof soultion that would duly empower all the stakeholders." HOW IT WORKS. The enquiry process is simple. Users register themselves through either their mobile phone by text to "TRYLAH" 33887, or the Trylah Web Web site. Once they are registered, they can send a text message or call in through to the Trylah Buyers Hotliners to request for the car that they are looking for. The system will match their request with what is available and then connect the buyer with the seller by sending each party an SMS with the respective contact detsils. Working in the background is an engine that authenticates the credibility of the requstor and subsequently authorises the authenticated requestor. Another engine then allows the authenticated and authorised requestor to sought.
A filtration engine posts the verification and facilitates the user interaction. A matching engine then breaks a query into its attributes and matches it with information in its repository. Once a query is matched, a streaming engine streams the matched results to the recipient's device format.
"There is a repository that contains a rich database of the attributes or description of a vehicle, which is matched through an automated query initiated from its matching engine. The results obtained here are streamed over secure network to the authorised and authenticated recipent," Shafique pointed out.
According to Trylah, buyers receive the contact details of a maximum of five dealers or individuals currently stocking the vehicle of their choice. "The text service is free for buyers (less the usual text message costs). For sellers or dealers, they are guaranteed at least three leads for a nominal payment," Shafique said. FUTURE PLANS. Trylah is currently positioned to capture the local automotive sector. But the flexibility of the backbone allows the promoters to extend the technology to geographies beyond local shores, according to Shafique.
"Since one of Trylah's strengths is in its extensive and rich domain expertise in automotive, the management of Trylah is committed to provide maximum benefits to the automotive sector in Malaysia. This is because Trylah is based on a generic and reusable backbone that facilitates the identification, matching and transmission of a request, and Bodhtree's modular development in its software provides unlimited scalability." Among future opportunities, Trylah as a brand will extend its wings to cover other relevant areas in the consumer durable segment. Shafique said the company is also open to franchising its model to the international scene.
"The investment in Trylah so far has been a conscientious decision in terms of flexibility and scalability to cover not only different geographies, but also a multitude of products. We have received substantial offers to replicate the platform for manufacturers of white goods within Malaysia and also the automotive industry in neighbouring countries," Shafique said.
A day before, The New Sunday Times had carried an article on Trylah:
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