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Case Studies
UAE retailer brings efficiency and centralized data to its stores with Dynamics 365
For four decades, Al Tannan has brought joy and functionality to homes in the United Arab Emirates. To better manage its supply chain, enhance efficiency and leverage data for faster business decisions, Al Tannan turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365. The cloud-based, user-friendly system centralized all of Al Tannan’s 12 stores under one platform. After the migration, Al Tannan eliminated manual work and streamlined its processes. Reducing inventory time for a store from 14 to 4 hours. The team also gained visibility with data, enabling employees to monitor and solve issues faster and improve customer experience.
We are Microsoft Dynamics 365 Solutions Partner
Since 1982, Al Tannan has been filling the homes of its customers with joy and functionality. The Dubai-based company creates and delivers quality products from kitchenware and home equipment to toys and collectibles, with an emphasis on excellence in customer experience.
Less than two years ago, Al Tannan had difficulty managing its supply chain and dependencies in daily tasks. The company was looking for a more streamlined workflow to improve business efficiency and financial planning. It needed a system that can help them analyze and manage data, keep track of records and documents and identify key areas of focus. “Initially, we were a group of six different companies operating on different software,” explains Hassan Tamimi, the Managing Director at Al Tannan. “Our team often had to double its effort. For example, we would create the product on the retail side, then create it on the back end, and then again for the accounting team. It was hard for us to track or control the manual workflow. This also resulted in a lot of human error.
Choosing a partner
Al Tannan was looking for a cloud-based, user-friendly, easy-to-use system that could be integrated with their legacy systems. After evaluating options, the team chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, Office 365 and Power BI. “We went with Microsoft because of the Microsoft partner operating in the area, Business Experts Gulf,” shares Tamimi. “They understood what we needed, answered our questions and helped us move forward. They scheduled a series of meetings and training sessions for our teams, gave us a step-by-step guide and helped us understand the types of data we would need to retrieve from Dynamics 365.”
The solution was implemented before the COVID-19 lockdown, which gave the Al Tannan team more than enough time to get familiar with the tools. “We did a lot of sessions with Business Experts to enhance knowledge and training. The COVID-19 pandemic was a good opportunity to catch up. When things opened up again, we were ready to reconnect with the world,” says Tamimi.
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Unifying all processes for efficiency
Microsoft’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution brought all internal processes into one dashboard. This removed the need for manual handling of the finances and the supply chain. It also brought reliable sales tracking, increased profits and productivity. “Previously, we had six administrative departments, now we only have one which makes our life so much easier,” says Tamimi. “It used to take us 12-14 hours to do an inventory on an entire store. Now it takes us 3-4 hours. That is a massive difference in retail. Now that everything is under one roof, the accounts are linked and we no longer need to enter things manually.”
“Previously, it took us 12-14 hours to do an inventory on an entire store. Now it takes us 3-4 hours. That is a massive difference in retail.”
Hassan Tamimi: Managing Director
Al Tannan Group
With data now being centralized, the team eliminated repetitive and redundant tasks, optimizing manpower and making the entire process more streamlined. The integration with Office 365 provided added benefits for the employees. “It is so easy to go into Dynamics and export data as an Excel file, making things simple for the accounts team. The flexibility between the different software is very important,” adds Tamimi.
Efficient problem-solving with data
The increase in efficiency and productivity was also partially due to the adoption of Power BI. Having greater control over managing and visualizing data, the team can now quickly track sales and inventory and generate new leads. “In the past, we depended on the stores without an Internet connection for sales monitoring,” says Tamimi. “We also didn’t have a dynamic view of our inventory. We had trouble with the availability and the syncing of the data. Now that we are on a cloud server, we obtain live data and a historical account of all information.”
Bringing the head office and the branches together under one platform and gaining accurate insights also made it easier and faster to detect and fix issues. “Dynamics 365 makes it easier to centrally monitor accurate numbers and find issues when they arise. We no longer have people running around trying to fix issues. They are spending time more productively on other matters. With everything plugged in together, they can look at all the information and easily identify the technical problems. These small things have made a huge difference in our operations. The bird’s-eye view improves our sales. It’s fantastic.”
Dynamics 365 makes it easier to centrally monitor accurate numbers and find issues when they arise. The bird’s-eye view improves our sales.Hassan Tamimi: Managing Director
Al Tannan Group
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Standing stronger on the cloud
Migrating the processes to the cloud also ensured more reliability and service availability. “In the past, we relied on an on-premises server for the retail side of things and sometimes the system went down, which prevented sales,” explains Tamimi. “This also created a burden on the store with manual invoice generation and other hassle. With Dynamic 365, we have an offline and an online version so even with downtime, there is no problem. Downtime itself was reduced, we are up and running 99.9% of the time, which is outstanding for us.” On the rare occasion when issues do arise, the team receives support much faster with a dedicated in-house team or business experts.
Ultimately and importantly, the changes improved customer experience. “The loyalty program offered through Dynamics 365 made it very easy to redeem and gain points. This made the customer journey throughout our stores easier,” says Tamimi. “Interestingly, the migration also impacted our enterprise customers. Our teams now have complete information about every customer.”
As for Al Tannan’s roadmap, the team is now considering using the Microsoft Dynamics Ecommerce and Customer Relationships Management (CRM) capabilities. “As we expand, it would be outstanding to have everything in one place,” says Tamimi. “We are also not using Power BI to its maximum capacity. It’s a fantastic solution and we intend to take full advantage in the future.”
Resource:
Restaurant operator Cravia centralizes and streamlines operations with Microsoft Dynamics 365
Headquartered in Dubai, Cravia is one of the fastest growing food and beverage (F&B) organizations in the region. With different brands and chains in its portfolio, Cravia needed to centralize its business processes and operations on a single platform. It streamlined its financial records and achieved more supply chain efficiencies by implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Finance and Operations. Using Microsoft Power platform, Cravia also boosted its workflow efficiency and data visibility. With reduced manual processes, human error, and dependencies, the company now has more freedom to grow.
Since 2001, Cravia has served excellent food and offered world-class hospitality services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It serves millions through franchises of chains such as Cinnabon, Seattle’s Best Coffee, and others. “Cravia is focused on only one thing: providing high-quality food to our customers,” says Fahd Nazir, CIO at Cravia.
In 2021, Cravia was managing the different chains independently. This resulted in multiple challenges to manage finances, supply chain, and inventories, which slowed down processes across brands and offices. The team didn’t have sufficient visibility of procurement and human resources, making it challenging for management to track inventory and other resources or events. Lack of automation and business inefficiencies made scaling up a challenge, particularly when the demand for Cravia’s brands rose during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We already had an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in place, but it was not centralized. Different servers were producing different reports for various teams, and we had to recompile them,” says Nazir. “This took a lot of time. It was also important to have the necessary information readily available for all employees, especially those in our head office.”
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Towards more centralization
“Because it’s all in one environment, we have better control, and the IT department can easily manage our processes.”Fahd Nazir: CIO
Cravia
“When we were deciding which ERP solution to choose, I was leaning towards Microsoft because it’s a brand I have trusted for 20 years. Microsoft also offered a comprehensive solution for what we needed and a smooth implementation process,” explains Nazir. Cravia implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management with the help of Microsoft Gold Partner, Business Experts Gulf.
Everything from payroll to recipe management and procurement to customer loyalty is now processed and automated in one system. “Because it’s all in one environment, we have better control, and the IT department can easily manage our processes. We also save time on handling our finances and supply chain and reducing human error, thanks to automation,” says Nazir. “I’ve found the system easy to use, scalable, and secure.” Cravia also updated its standard operating procedures, relying on Microsoft collaboration tools such as the vendor portal. “We are already seeing increased efficiency in processes such as payables, payments and production. This allows our accountants to spend a decent portion of their time on data analysis which in the past would have been spent on entry,” adds Syed Adeel Ahmed, Group Financial Controller at Cravia.
“Gaining access to real-time data is a game-changer. Once we have more visibility, we can optimize our operations to produce more savings.”Fahd Nazir: CIO
Cravia
Equipped for growth
Having a centralized system has also set up Cravia for seamless business growth in new locations. “We have full control of our resources and operations in new locations, making it easy to create a guided environment where new teams can access only specific systems. Since we integrated our customer relationship management (CRM) software with Outlook on Microsoft 365, creating new users or giving them access has been straightforward.”
With Microsoft 365, Cravia can more easily access files and emails. This facilitates seamless handovers between teams when taking over work. “We don’t need to learn everything about a project’s background beforehand because anyone can easily access files and information online. This smooth continuity has also been a game-changer for me,” says Nazir.
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Partnering for the future
“We see our partnership with Business Experts Gulf and Microsoft as a long-term strategic investment that makes Cravia a technology enabled restaurant operator.”Syed Adeel Ahmed: Group Financial Controller
Cravia
As Cravia continues to serve customers in new locations, the team looks to leverage more Microsoft solutions. “We’re still only using 20 percent of the features available—there’s more to explore,” shares Nazir. “In the future, we will be looking to rely on Microsoft’s point of sales services. Currently, we have 40 virtual machines hosted on Azure and are migrating most of our services to Azure to generate better business continuity, data security and reliability,” explains Nazir. “We will completely integrate our sales and our human resource solutions in the system,” adds Ahmed. “We see our partnership with Business Experts Gulf and Microsoft as a long-term strategic investment that makes Cravia a technology enabled restaurant operator.”
For further success, Cravia hopes to continue its partnership with Microsoft in the years to come. “Microsoft Dynamics 365 has become part of our DNA. There are many new brands and countries in the pipeline. And wherever we go, Dynamics 365 will go with us,” he concludes.
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Tiger Steel – Business Experts Gulf
Tiger steel achieves Business Efficiency benefits with Microsoft Dynamics.
Established in 1968, Tiger Steel Engineering arose as a leading structural steel manufacturer and supplier, our geographical impression circumscribe projects in the North African, Middle East GCC and South East Asian markets.
While acknowledging technical excellence as key driver, they stand out in the highly competitive environment of engineering services with a large area of expertise that we commit to exploiting at best service.
The steel manufacturing industry is content to high levels of conflict in all global markets compliance, Product and quality with various guidelines are essential factors in the steel industry, and it is therefore necessary to have approach to tools that are competent of tracking each and every part performance and tracing its origin back to the raw material cast, together with analytical data, for quality assurance and, in case of dissidence, recognition of the critical factors and process phases involved.
Microsoft Dynamics AX for Steel is created to give steel manufacturers unprecedented visibility into all aspects of their business in a single Enterprise Resource Planning solution and well organized the industry-specific processes involved – both for customer orders and in response to forecasts. It is a unified solution that implicit detailed, current analytical data and real-time information in order to eliminate the causes of possible inefficiency.
Tiger Steel’s world-class team of Microsoft Dynamics AX consultants permits Steel manufacturing businesses to take complete benefits of the solution’s core capabilities around organizational functions such as Planning, Finance Production, Asset Maintenance Logistics etc.
Our Microsoft Dynamics AX services can help you with:
- Tracking raw materials batches all the way through finished goods
- Maximizing throughput with efficient production scheduling.
- Cutting scrap and reducing waste throughout WIP inventory levels.
- Responding quickly to customers’ schedules and just-in-time orders.
- Covering all aspects related to steel products distribution
“The ERP solution is the backbone of all our sales, inventory, HR, marketing, and financial initiatives, and Microsoft Dynamics provides the right infrastructure to achieve this. This leading technology, coupled with Business Experts’ implementation excellence, provides a solid business platform that is instrumental in achieving our strategic goals”,
“Imran, IT Manager, Tiger Steel”