The cutting edge in hospitality: Saudi Airlines Catering Company automates 11 processes with Power Apps, with more to come

Operating across key sectors, including in-flight, retail, catering, and facilities management, Saudi Airlines Catering Company stands as a significant player in the hospitality industry in Saudi Arabia. In more than three decades, it has undergone rapid local and international expansion. The company remains committed to continuous improvement and innovation, optimizing operations to meet growth in demand and achieve operational efficiencies.

“When I joined in 2022, I noticed we had a great opportunity to automate inefficient manual processes,” says Ashraf Mahmoud Nadeem, Vice-President of Information Technology at Saudi Airlines Catering. “This motivated me to think about how we could automate our work.”

From five days to seconds with Power Apps 

Acknowledging the need for modernization, the VP and his team used Microsoft Power Apps. The first app was created to collect customer feedback for a blind tasting of dates. “We used to gather data on paper forms, then transcribe it in an Excel file and perform manual calculations,” says Nadeem. “To resolve that, we built a Power Apps application that now runs on tablets. Customers use the devices to input their evaluations on the spot. The reading goes to SharePoint, and the results are presented as a Power BI report.” 

“The entire process used to take five days. Now, we can generate the outcomes report as soon as team members enter the data,” Nadeem shares.

Furthermore, an innovative visitor registration app was set up, allowing visitors to register online and generate a barcode for secure entry upon arrival. 

Additionally, a recruitment tracker app unburdened the human resources team by centralizing all workflows and workloads, which can now be monitored with ease. “Recruitment was a real nightmare, involving massive turnover and pressure to fill vacancies quickly,” Nadeem reveals. “Before, each recruiter was working on their own, rarely keeping the timeline of their processes due to work overload. Now, a central system captures all recruiting tasks and times end-to-end.”

Thousands of dollars saved by going paperless

Besides streamlining operations, the digital transformation has benefited Saudi Airlines Catering with significant cost savings. “We stopped printing physical business cards and moved to digital cards that employees can request on their mobile phones. That has already saved us thousands since we launched the system about six months ago,” says Nadeem. 

To get a better overview of business spending, Nadeem pushed to create a dashboard for procurement, which shows cost variances, trends, and items’ stock levels. “Examining this data, we've gained new insights that help us make strategic decisions. For example, we can observe when our low and high seasons are, and adjust stock levels accordingly,” he shares. The company has also reduced the amount of paper it uses for daily operations. For instance, its Travel Order app created with Power Apps has replaced a manual system that used to involve printing forms and getting people to sign for approvals. “Now, we enter information into the app, which then generates a document that is circulated for digital signatures,” says Nadeem. “This digitization alone has already cut down our paper usage. Apart from cost savings, the effort also contributes to our sustainability goals, minimizing carbon emissions associated with paper production and disposal and promoting a more environmentally friendly approach to information management in our business.”

More paper savings are also achieved with Saudi Airlines Catering’s SACC Receipt app, which has eliminated the need for cashiers to print receipts upon receiving payments from vendors or employees. “The cashier used to print three receipt copies—one each for HR, finance, and the vendor or employee. With the app, this data is captured and stored on SharePoint instead, and we can generate a report whenever we want.” 

Laying foundations for future success

Working with his team, Nadeem has seen through digitalization across the board for Saudi Airlines Catering Company. He shares proudly, "Thus far, we've developed 11 apps with Power Apps and 16 dashboards with Power BI.”

Supporting the company from the beginning was the Microsoft team. “I got amazing support from Microsoft—they were skilled, fast, and committed in helping us deploy apps as soon as possible,” says Nadeem. “When I wanted to upskill the team to use Power Apps, Microsoft came in again, offering several training sessions. Because building the apps doesn’t require much coding, anyone interested can learn to use it.”

Seeing that the digitalization culture should be fostered at Saudi Airlines Catering Company, Nadeem established a digital transformation unit within the IT department. "This is a strategic journey. We want to transform the company into a leading digital entity because technology will enable us to focus on core operations while relying on automation to save time,” he says. “To me, it's all about process optimization and business transformation." 

The company has recently launched a cognitive search artificial intelligence (AI) tool and an interactive chatbot developed with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Its goal is to provide a technological platform that enables new and differentiated services for each of its business segments. “With this, we can engage employees outside of the IT department and create more use cases for automation in the future,” shares Nadeem. Microsoft Power Automate was also crucial in the recent development and deployment of Saudi Airlines Catering’s first robotic process automation (RPA) solution. “It has helped us reduce one of the most complex manual processes in finance from six hours to only 30 minutes a month, saving us more than 80 percent of the time,” Nadeem adds.

Having customers at the heart of digital transformation, Nadeem sums up, "We aim to improve quality, offer new services, and focus on activities that add value. We're building a strong foundation that enables the business to deliver great value quickly. Ultimately, everything we do is for our customers.”