Ansar Group

Ansar Group operates a dozen shopping centers across Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and the United States. Each outlet attracts large numbers of consumers from all budget levels, and offers an array of products tailored to the needs of each market. Ansar Group has managed to build a name in the industry thanks to a strong marketing strategy, which includes the choice of strategically planned locations for the outlets and a wide array of promotions in-store. The company boasts a skilled workforce of over 2500 employees, and a cohort of faithful customers.

Looking for a software solution that would support the company’s growth

With ambitious plans for growth, Ansar Group started looking at pushing its boundaries of success across new markets in the region. At the time, Ansar Group was operating an outdated POS (Point of Sale) system which often proved unreliable, causing service failures in the company’s stores. The technical issues made it difficult for the company to manage its large operations. It became clear that the POS system was too limited to support new functionalities, and that its limitations had started to hinder the company’s ability to innovate and grow. Ansar Group began looking for a powerful and scalable software solution. The key requirements were ability to handle the company’s large volume of sales, and flexibility to grow with the business. “The idea was not only to migrate to a solution offering the most reliable state-of-the-art technology, but to find a system that would accommodate the rapidly evolving innovations and growth of Ansar Group in the years ahead,” says Ali Bin Ali, the Dy. Managing Director at Ansar Group.

A bespoke solution for the company’s needs

With the help of LS Retail's partner AP&T Business Solutions, located in the UAE, Ansar Group ran a test of the LS Retail software solution in one of the company’s outlets. The team tested multiple functions of the system, including promotions, pricing management, and discounts features. In the back end, critical business functions such as financials, procurement, and inventory management were thoroughly tested to see if the performance would be up to the company’s standards. The project management team at Ansar Group deemed the trial run successful, and the LS Retail software solution was chosen as the company’s new management system. Ansar Group then deployed the system at all its other locations in quick succession. “The biggest challenges we faced were migrating the customer’s large number of POS systems from the old solution to LS Retail software without stopping the business,” says Archie Patrao, Managing Director at AP&T Business Solutions, “and providing flexible functionalities such as customer offerings, loyalty, store automation, replenishments and more, along with the optimization for a huge volume of transactions.”

Visible results with LS Retail software

Since the roll-out at the first store and back office, the LS Retail software solution has significantly increased Ansar Group’s performance and productivity. Today the company successfully uses LS Retail software across 3 regions, on over 240 POS. The system has increased Ansar Group’s ability to serve their customers efficiently, thanks to the many customer-oriented features of the solution. The hard work of AP&T Business Solution also meant that the migration to the new system happened rapidly and efficiently, bringing fast benefits to the company. The high scalability of the product means that Ansar Group now has a system which supports, rather than hindering, its business growth. Ansar Group has found a powerful ally in the LS Retail software solution, one that will accompany and support the company in its present and future successes.