A hardware shop that answers every builder at once
Baraka runs a hardware wholesale shop in Kariakoo, Dar es Salaam. Builders buy cement, iron bars and roofing sheets from him. From six in the morning, his WhatsApp fills with orders. Baraka answers each one by hand: is it in stock, what does it cost today, when can it come. By nine, forty messages are waiting. Builders who wait an hour buy next door. With xMap Flows, Baraka built Counter. When a builder writes on WhatsApp, Counter reads the order, checks the stock and today’s prices, books the delivery, and answers in the same chat. This morning, sixty builders order before eight. Each gets the price and a delivery time within a minute, in Swahili or English. Baraka spends the morning loading trucks, and nobody walks next door. Baraka’s phone still buzzes at six. Now it buzzes with sales.
Scenarios and figures in the films are modelled to show what a flow produces. None describes a named customer.