Muscat Media Group

From Oracle to Odoo

Company name: Muscat Media Group

Location: Oman

Industry: Media/Advertisement 

Partner name: Averti infotech

Main Apps implemented: Accounting, invoicing, Sales and CRM

Size of the company: 50+

About Muscat Media Group

The Muscat Media Group is a publishing house in the Sultanate of Oman, established in 1975 by Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali. The publishing house is behind a number of different publications from broadsheet dailies to tabloid weeklies and monthlies as well as weekly magazines both in Arabic and English. Apart from Times of Oman, the Muscat Press and Publishing House is the publisher of the Arabic-language newspaper Al Shabiba launched in 1993. In 2004 Muscat Media Group house became the first in the GCC countries to develop an online edition for its daily newspapers Times of Oman and Al Shabiba. In 2008 WAP editions of the newspapers were made available on cell phones.



Taking Initiative to Promote Success

Being a well established company comes with many benefits, but it also comes with its challenges. As a media company established 45 years ago, it is important for Muscat Media to keep up with the developments in technology and the impacts they have on how news is broadcasted. This means that the company must be flexible and must have strong management that allows it the capacity to change. 

While being forward thinking is absolutely essential for the success of the company, the management must also have the willingness to take initiative. This is why when Muscat Media Group found that the ERP software they were previously using was outdated and inefficient, they instantly knew it was time for change. 

Muscat Media’s biggest downfall with their previous software was that it was extremely difficult to generate reports through it. Because the software was not automated, they would have to spend hours doing repetitive manual data entry that led to unsatisfactory results compromised by human error. They had to repeat this laborious process every time they wanted to update their social media analytical report or their viewer reports for their new websites, tabloids, magazines and newspapers. This was an undeniably hectic task that needed to be done frequently. 

Not having automated workflows meant two things in particular for Muscat Media: wasted employee time and loss of opportunity. While this was true across the board, it was particularly true with their customer relations department. They had no way to effectively monitor their pipeline and maintain strong relationships with their customers. This led to a huge loss in sales potential. Muscat Media was aware of their circumstances and wanted to find the best solution in the market for them. 

Transforming Company Data

When Muscat Media was looking for an ERP software solution, they were particularly looking for it to be customizable, cost effective and up to date with all the latest technologies. Having a customizable and open source ERP solution allows a company to tailor the applications to their unique needs and preferences. This attractive feature along with our highly automated applications, that constantly generate insightful reports, appealed strongly to Muscat Media. Immediately, they began implementing our ERP solution. Currently, they use our Accounting, Invoicing, Sales and CRM applications.

After implementing our software their first and top priority was to get organized. This is why they focused mostly on our Accounting and Invoicing applications. Through these applications, they were able to transform their once scattered financial data into an organized and automated software that would keep track of any changes and generate updated reports instantly. Our Accounting software allows companies to easily manage multi-year contracts, track and compare budgets to actual performance, and manage subscriptions and recurring revenues easily with contracts. The feature most valuable to Muscat Media is our customer portal. Through this portal, their readers can unsubscribe, upgrade, downgrade or change their current plans. 

After they felt like they were more organized and had a better understanding of themselves and their financial situation, they decided to build their relationships and boost their success rates through our CRM and Sales applications. They found that our CRM application has had a striking impact on their business as it helps them find leads and score them automatically based on explicit and implicit criteria (on pages viewed, localisation, time, etc). Based on these lead scores, Muscat Media decides which leads they want to consider as an “opportunity” and which leads they no longer want to pursue. Another feature Muscat Media finds particularly useful in our CRM app is our pipeline management feature. This allows them to get a clear overview of the opportunity pipeline. Through this feature, Muscat Media can set up specific stages for different leads. Our software automatically archives any lost opportunities and generates a powerful analysis of the pipeline. 

An Integrated, Communicative and Organized Future

Since implementing our software, the business impact has been vigorous and evident. There is far better organization, communication and visibility within the company because all of our applications are highly integrated. This has allowed the management and the employees of Muscat Media to better understand the flow of their processes and where there lies faults and strengths in their business. The KPIs of all employees have increased dramatically and what used to take 3-4 days to complete is now being done automatically within seconds. This has led to a much quicker overall business process and a better work environment. Employees were able to adjust to our software very quickly and with minimal training. Muscat Media’s IT Manager, Fulail Cheerangan, enthusiastically commented that our software offers a “user-friendly experience.”

 
 


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