Advanced Tastes Holding Company boosts productivity by 60% with Zoho Creator

The company

Incorporated in 2015, Advanced Tastes Holding Co. is a Riyadh-based restaurant and hospitality management company. Recently, they partnered with some of the most luxurious fine dining global brands including Cipriani, Bagatelle, and Mnky Hse, in prime locations across all of the Kingdom's major cities.

In line with Vision 2030, Advanced Tastes Holding Co. aims to create a cosmopolitan culinary landscape in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They wish to offer world-class experiences at their restaurants that represent the very best in luxury and opulence, combined with their chef's artistic vision.

The challenge

As with any business in the hospitality industry, Advanced Tastes Holding Co. strives to maintain efficient operations while keeping costs under control. This requires a thorough understanding of the business's financials and the ability to identify cost-saving opportunities without compromising quality or service. However, due to prevailing competition, they faced a challenge to offer unique experiences and attract new customers. This was compounded as the hospitality industry was disrupted by a plethora of online booking platforms.

Until 2021, the company managed all their operations like maintenance, HR, payroll, IT ticketing, and finance on spreadsheets. They required people to be manually present to get approvals. The paperwork was lengthy and time consuming, and record keeping was strenuous on Excel sheets.

The leadership team wanted a holistic view of what was happening at the organization without juggling between papers for approvals and spreadsheets for data. Procuring a new IT solution was a no-brainer. They needed a platform that was convenient to use, adaptable, and faster to deploy unlike traditional methods. That's when Fazal Mahfooz, the IT manager at Advanced Tastes Holding Co., introduced the concept of low-code to digitalize routine tasks.

The solution

Mahfooz joined the company as the IT manager in 2021. With prior experience using the platform, he proposed Zoho Creator to the senior management, starting their digital transformation journey.

Human resources

Human resources was the first department to use the app. All HR processes were digitized using Zoho Creator, from posting a job opening to creating a job offer, onboarding the candidate, and contracting. The four-level approval system, built using workflows, helped reduce dependencies on both paperwork and the need for staff to be manually present at the office.

Operations

The general managers and head chefs can easily keep track of their tasks in the operations module. The app also facilitates order management and efficient supply chain management to ensure all locations have access to the same high-quality ingredients and supplies.

Maintenance

Managing accommodations for 5,000+ guests is a challenging task. A regular maintenance system is required to check on the utilities. Zoho Creator helped smoothen the maintenance process and made it easy for residents to raise issues with a few clicks.

Apart from the above departments, the IT department automated its ticketing system, and the finance department uses the app for financial approvals. The company also built its payroll system using Zoho Creator instead of using an off-the-shelf payroll application. With the help of integrations, Zoho Creator acts as a mediator between Revel POS and NetSuites from where the data flows into the system.

Benefits and ROI

Since the implementation of Zoho Creator in 2022, Advanced Tastes Holding Co. has seen a 60% boost in productivity across departments. Creator has maintained its status as the ideal fit for the company on their digital transformation journey.

The payment process, which was the slowest, has seen the biggest impact in terms of productivity. All the records are now stored digitally and easily accessible, with clarity on the processes.

Looking forward

In the future, to keep track of employee attendance, the company plans to use Zoho People. It will then be integrated with the payroll module to process the payments for its employees. They are sure that Zoho Creator will be their go-to-solution for any other requirements. The company has six operational restaurants in Riyadh and looks forward to expanding its business in other cities like Jeddah, Al Khubar, and Dammam.