Dubai - United Arab Emirates
Flat G-01 Wasl Building R-434, Muhaisnah-4 Dubai - UAE
An Emerging Event Brand Under Operational Strain
AL-Tuaam has achieved the status of a leading catering and event planning firm based on its ability to offer quality services in all corporate events, marriages and other large social events. The complexity behind the scenes increased with the growth of the business. It was a combination of dealing with invoices, clients, staff and the coordination of different events at the same time and maintaining the level of service. Nevertheless, the majority of these processes were based on manual processes, spreadsheets and isolated tools. The invoicing process was too often time consuming, the follow-ups were postponed and a significant part of the coordination of the staff was based on phone calls and instructions. In the course of time, the inefficiencies were to start affecting cash flow, inner communication and general transparency of operations. The leadership of AL-Tuaam knew that the further expansion without a centralized structure would add more mistakes and stress to the staff. They required a tailor-made CRM to realize the dynamics of event catering and not a generic tool used by sales teams. The idea that they had in collaboration with InLinkers was to have only one platform that would be able to handle invoicing, clients, events, kitchen planning and staff coordination in a single dashboard. A software addition was not the aim of this project, but recovery of control and clarity in the whole operation.
Knowing the Real Problems Before Writing Code
InLinkers took time to be in the field of AL-Tuaam to know how it actually worked in the day-to-day process before coming up with the CRM design. We interviewed event managers, finance operators, kitchen supervisors and field teams so that we could trace out the additional delays, confusion and errors that regularly happened. A significant area of pain was invoicing, which resulted in inconsistencies and delays to approvals due to manual calculations. The customer information was spread out among the messages and documents which were not easy to look through the past events, or payment history. The implementation of the events, as well, was bad since the assignments of tasks, deployment of staff, were not recorded in one location. Kitchen staff had a problem of planning the menu and ingredient coordination particularly in cases where two or more events were overlapping. This discovery phase helped in one thing becoming very clear, AL-Tuaam was not required to have several tools, but one system that would interlink all these. InLight of these observations, InLinkers developed a web-based invoicing CRM to serve catering and event processes. It was concentrated on simplicity, precision and visibility making sure that each department could use the same source of truth. This planning phase developed a system that was based on actual operational requirements as opposed to the abstract characteristics.
Creating an Event-based CRM Not a Data-based CRM
The CRM platform was designed as a web-based system that was centralized so that all the events, clients and invoices could be organised easily. In its fundamentals, the invoicing module automated tax, discount calculations and services charge, which saved time and eliminated errors. Invoices would be prepared fast, exported in form of secure PDF and could be tracked between creation to payment. This was coupled with a special customer CRM that stored full client records (past history, preferences, payment status and history of communication). This provided the team with immediate background in the case of repeat clients or big business accounts. Dashboards provided event coordination a lot of ease as they displayed event schedules, staff assignments and outstanding work in real-time. There was not much left to remember and conjecture. Its events flowed through a transparent workflow to provide hope and control even in the busiest periods to the managers. The CRM brought all these elements together into a single system thus making daily operations a systematized and predictable process rather than a reactive one.
Linking Operations in the Staff and Kitchen
The connection of people on the ground was one of the greatest values of the CRM. The staff dashboard enabled the managers to allocate chefs, waiters and the logistics teams to particular events and monitor the duties and schedule under a single-screen. This minimized the miscommunication to a large extent since everybody knew where they would be required and when. Simultaneously, the kitchen module changed the manner in which menus and ingredients were planned. Kitchen staff would be able to look at what is coming up next, tailor menus and keep track of what will be needed without having to make a last-minute call or handwritten note. This enhanced the accuracy of preparation and minimized wastage particularly during peak weeks. Email alerts were automated to make sure that no future events, outstanding invoices and invoices were missed. Such alerts enhanced internal coordination as well as improving communication with the clients. The CRM established an easier rhythm of operation in the entire company by uniting the office, field staff and the kitchen crews into one platform.
Technology that is Fit to Be Stable and Controllable
The CRM was developed on a performance and security-oriented lightweight technology stack. The frontend was created on HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap and JavaScript and came out to have a clean interface that was compatible with devices. Core PHP together with an MVC structure was employed on the backend to ensure that the system was modular, a secure and simple system to extend in the future. MySQL had a good management of structured data like invoices, events, staff records and client histories. Safety was considered a priority and the authenticated access of the admins, session controls and CSRF security measures were implemented to ensure the confidentiality of business and financial information. The system was to be quick, user-friendly and simple to use by non-technical employees hence high adoption rates immediately. This technical base enabled AL-Tuaam to conduct their business with confidence that their data were correct, safe and always available in any case.
Quantifiable Operational and revenue change
The effects of the CRM were experienced within no time after introduction. The process of generation of invoices was also accelerated by sixty percent, which assisted the finance department to make payments on time and enhance cash flow. The communication failure between the departments was reduced dramatically as every event and staff information was stored in a single system. The level of event tracking became visible and managers could view the progress, assignments and schedules without tracking updates. Client satisfaction was also enhanced because the response was quicker and less ambiguous in billing. Above all, the team became in control of their operations and the stress and uncertainty were substituted by the structure and clarity. What began as a requirement to have improved invoicing turned out to be a full upgrade of operations. The CRM did not merely facilitate the business of AL-Tuaam, it made it stronger, providing the company with a strong digital base to develop in the future.