INDUSTRY WATCH
information, the property they are investing
in and generating the contract terms using
automated templates. This information,
primarily the financial details, integrates with
the group ERP system, so that there is no
duplication of entries.
“Centra CRM is primarily used for the real-
estate business of HIG and is especially
useful to track cancellations and movement
of properties. If at any time, a buyer drops
out, the availability of the property can be
moved to another buyer. By having a detailed
history of all buyers, we can manage the
movement to alternative and prospective
buyers, without suffering a default. Centra
CRM is also useful to track visibility of
projects,” Hardan Al Handal added.
The process of buying or leasing of
property in Iraq is very different from the
rest of the world. Buyers usually do not
avail themselves of bank loans and prefer
to pay on their own over a period of time.
HIG, therefore, plays the role of both self-
financer for its own real-estate projects,
taking on the risk of construction, while also
playing the role of a bank by keeping close
This has also meant
customisation of the
CRM to make it easier
for end-users, as well
as to enable suitable
integration with the ERP
used by our company.”
Prior to the
implementation of
Centra CRM, HIG
used spreadsheets to
manage information
about buyers and
projects. But it had
its limitations, said
Faris. “Maintaining
spreadsheets is
fine when it is small
scale but when the
operations grow, it has
to be centralised and
automated and that
makes life a lot easier,”
he said.
However, for HIG, the
biggest benefit remains
MAINTAINING
SPREADSHEETS IS
FINE WHEN IT IS SMALL
SCALE BUT WHEN THE
OPERATIONS GROW, IT HAS
TO BE CENTRALISED AND
AUTOMATED.
relationships with the buyer, across the
leasing period of seven years.
Faris Balbeisy, General Manager of Eber
Almodun group, said: “As a developer in Iraq,
we provide the money, as no bank gives
such a facility to a customer. So, we give a
seven-year payment schedule, and it means
for seven years we need to manage the
customer records.
“The prolonged dealing with the buyer
makes it necessary to use a CRM to ensure
we know all the details of the buyer, as well
as the current state of the sale process.
76
INTELLIGENTCIO
the ability to generate reports. Prior to the
implementation of Centra CRM, the lack of
reports and the absence of a project status
dashboard, were the pain points.
“The main concern that we had was the
reports. We needed to get quick information
from the system and that is why we looked
for the CRM program, which gives us the
details,” added Faris.
Now post the implementation of Centra
CRM and its integration with the Al Handal
Group’s ERP, project reports can be easily
generated and presented.
“It has also reduced a lot of paper work,”
said Faris. “Centra CRM has already given
us a return on our investment in terms
of reduction of time and manpower
required to generate the project and
buyer status reports.
“Since the same information is
available from Centra CRM at all times,
it can be made available to prospective
buyers to help them take timely
decisions on availability of property
leasing options, leading to higher levels
of customer satisfaction and better
return on investment.”
In future, HIG expects the projects to look
like development of mini cities, rather
than mini communities.
So successful has the implementation
of Centra CRM been that HIG is keen
to not only increase the number of
property development projects, but to
also increase the number of units per
project. In the future, the company
also plans to use Centra CRM to track
maintenance history along with
project development. n
www.intelligentcio.com