BRANDS continues digital transformation

BRANDS’ digital transformation started in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. With the supervision of the company’s head of digital innovation, Ahmad Shaaban, new technologies were integrated into all aspects of their business to meet the changing market and business requirements.

BRANDS describes how they shifted their traditional business processes into automated dynamic processes which helped in promoting efficiency, augmenting customer experience, and helping the firm becoming more profitable.

With the growing operations of BRANDS, one of the imperative projects which kickstarted the journey of digital transformation was the business architecture transformation project.

The focus of the digital transformation journey in BRANDS was to develop roadmaps and implementation plans based on current versus future state business architecture. The project was far beyond introducing improvements on a departmental level but rather scaling up the entire business from a process optimisation and technology transformation perspective.

Ahmad ensured that he covers all departments by going beyond the theoretical concept of operations. The digital transformation journey was governed by robust change management which managed the transformation from the people’s side.

“My commitment at BRANDS is to place technology at the centre of our operations. Our digital transformation roadmap is not only about adopting technology in particular parts of the business but rather leveraging our people, processes, systems and customer experiences," Ahmad said.

Technology in BRANDS aligns with their business goals and strategy whilst reducing the operating cost. Mr. Ahmad aligned with technology partners to enhance employee productivity, streamline workflows and improve communications across departments.

“Technology transformation is not a one-time job, it is an ever-evolving practice. Our focus is for BRANDS to achieve measurable company objectives and remain at a leading competitive edge in the retail industry. At BRANDS we value our partnerships with companies which keep up with the latest technology developments. We are ready to generate ideas and fast-track the execution and methodologies strategically and tactically.” Ahmad added.

In the second half of 2020, the IT department kicked off multiple integration projects. The focus was on creating a comprehensive omni-channel operations through integrating all systems and channels together. The IT department firmly believes that all the systems must work collectively when possible, to improve productivity and streamline operations. The integration project helped BRANDS in boosting the speed of information flow and improving the quality of operations. This also signifies closer IT-business alignment and faster outcomes for the business.

BRANDS actively creates a culture that embraces a collective technology mindset and put forth the effort to empower team members to consciously assess the potential of new technologies and anticipate new transformational solutions.

Ahmad served as the catalyst for the collaborative discussions and decision-making that encourages positive changes within the organization. He constantly emphasizes the importance of change management practices and engaging between leadership from across the company. The company also ensures that every team member must recognize the importance and the value of the digital systems.

Whilst advocating to bolster the hard skills of the employees, BRANDS always provides support and ensures that all front and end-users are provided with sufficient training to deal and utilize the systems.

BRANDS places their customer experience at the core of its operations. Their roadmap ensures to deliver end-to-end capability that drives toward customer-centricity.

BRANDS set up online and offline systems that garner rich customer data and integrate it for insights about their customer behaviour. BRANDS’s CRM system can process and understand users' behaviour as well as deliver targeted ads across social media platforms to have a higher click-through rate.

Similarly, BRANDS continues to enhance its online store’s visibility on purchase funnel performance, check-outs, and transactions where data is updated in real-time. This facilitates strategic decision-making and reduces production time. They also aim on augmenting their online customer experience through creating user friendly interfaces, providing online support and introducing tools to help with the shopping experience such as their Artificial Intelligence (AI) sizing tool.

“We are delighted to fulfil this journey along with our customers. We continue to embrace the right mindset to leverage the full benefits of digital transformation, not only for BRANDS but most importantly for the customers we are serving. This has been our CEO Dorgham’s focus and we remain to place it at high importance” Ahmad added.

With the digital and social disruptions in the business landscape, BRANDS’ customer-centric approach is a key driver behind their success and competitive edge.

Ahmad Shaaban will be representing BRANDS and sharing this journey at the upcoming Image RetailME Tech and Marcom Summit - the Big Retail (R)evolution along with other CIOs, Tech, Digitization and E-commerce Heads. The event will be held on the 28th of June in Conrad Hotel, Dubai.