How Zoho Creator helps power London's premier Asian catering empire

The company

For more than four decades, family firm Madhu's has been delighting diners with award-winning Punjabi dishes and impeccable service. With six Central London locations in its portfolio, including at The Savoy, The Peninsula, and The Landmark, as well as a new restaurant in Istanbul, the Madhu's name has become synonymous with exceptional eating experiences.

Madhu's also offers event management services and outside catering, even counting royalty amongst its wealth of satisfied clients. It was the first Asian caterer to provide food at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, and is the primary Asian caterer supplying 10 Downing Street.

The challenge

When Arjun Anand took the reins of his family's business, he recognized an urgent need to digitize its operations. The team was using Excel spreadsheets and paperwork to manage everything from event bookings to quotes, contracts, and payment schedules. Productivity, efficiency, and reporting capabilities were suffering, data was being duplicated, and the potential for errors was high.

Arjun scoured the software market for a decade, looking for a solution that could handle the complex nature of the business and its activities. "All the hotels that we work with used MICROS, so I thought it would fit us well. Unfortunately, it wasn't dynamic enough," Arjun explained.

Then, a promising bespoke build stalled when the developer parted ways with the vendor, and a third project with a well-known CRM provider never got off the ground. "It took the company forever to understand our requirements. Our business has so many different elements, and our quotes are so bespoke, so nothing off the shelf could work for us," he added.

The solution

Luckily, Arjun discovered Zoho in 2024 and was immediately impressed by the possibilities offered by Zoho One. "What I found with Zoho was unique; I could access so many different software suites that all talked to each other... I don't think anyone else offers anything like it!", he enthused.

Acknowledging the complexity of Madhu's operations, particularly its events, Zoho's representative recommended that Arjun work with ThoughtLogik, an established Zoho Partner. ThoughtLogik's principle consultant, Yuvaraj Ramamoorthy, worked closely with Arjun throughout Madhu's digital transformation project, recommending Zoho Creator to achieve the aspects below:

• A comprehensive quote-builder incorporating thousands of event choices
• A digital catalogue of venues, collating bookings, contracts, pricing, amenities, images, and logos
• E-signature capabilities for quotes and contracts
• Automated workflows to send payment schedules and reminder emails
• A single calendar for confirmed and provisional events, site visits, food-tasting days, and more
• A mobile app for real-time availability of dates and venues during external site visits

Event quotations

During the quote generation process, Madhu's sales team interacts with their CRM on the front end but are actually using Zoho Creator's powerful workflows to seamlessly compile detailed numbers behind the scenes.

Creator's endless possibilities were critical for Madhu's, which can offer its clients thousands of bespoke event options. As well as food, its team can arrange hotel suites, entertainment, furniture, photography, security, flowers, cars, cakes, and more. "We don't operate like any other outside caterer in the world; we act more like wedding planners. There are so many available add-ons, some with prices per person or piece," explains Arjun.

To accommodate this, ThoughtLogik reflected each event choice in Creator's forms and subforms, including some specific stipulations unique to certain venues. Seasonal pricing variations and dynamic rate adjustments based on capacity and peak and off-peak days were also factored into the quote calculations.

Finally, Zoho Writer's APIs output each Creator quote to a document and a PDF file at the click of a button. In true Madhu's style, each quote is a masterpiece, incorporating branding, images, and rich details about the event. "Our quotations are almost like a brochure with images and venue logos. They are dynamic with certain bullet-pointed notes that change according to the selections," adds Arjun.

Booking calendar

A single Madhu's event may require multiple bookings, from an initial site visit to a food-tasting appointment, second- and third-date options, and finally a confirmed date. Madhu's team also has to be aware of each venue's newly released dates and any cancellations.As such, Zoho's software needed to provide complete visibility of bookings in a single calendar.

ThoughtLogik built a shared calendar in Zoho Creator that could be consulted from its instance of Zoho CRM. Each type of booking is represented with a separate color, offering a real-time, at-a-glance view of venue activity.

Before implementing Zoho Creator, Madhu's team used multiple Excel calendars to track event dates. "Now we have one live calendar, which really helps our sales team speed up the process of knowing if a date or venue is available," beams Arjun.

Venue pages

Creator is also used to house an extensive venue catalogue. Built as a custom HTML page, it allows Madhu's team to upload swathes of information about each venue, including key contacts, web links, amenities, photographs, rates, contracts, and booking history. This venue directory has become a one-stop shop for its sales team, who need to liaise with scores of contacts each day.

A simple tick box on the venue homepage allows the agent to create and auto-populate a dedicated Zoho Workdrive folder for each venue, which holds high resolution images of the venue and any related files for reference.

Looking forward

In the next phase of Madhu's digital transformation, Arjun wants to add modules inside Creator to manage audits and mystery diners. "The plan eventually is to use Zoho as a comprehensive solution for every process," Arjun explains.