How Karimjee Group Improved Project Turnaround Times and Gained Full Visibility Over Studio Work

About Karimjee Group

Karimjee Group is a legacy-driven conglomerate headquartered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with a diverse footprint across Mobility, Energy, Finance, Hospitality, Real Estate, and Capital investments. With more than 200 years of history, the Group is known not only for its business depth but also for its investment in people, innovation, and operational excellence.

Within the Group, the Marketing & Communications department functions as an internal agency, supporting multiple business units with creative strategy, design, campaign development, and content. Managing this volume of work demands structure, visibility, and efficiency, especially within the studio.

The Problem: Creative Traffic with No Clear Visibility

The Marketing & Communications department at Karimjee Group was navigating increasingly complex project volumes, often with overlapping deadlines, urgent creative requests, and no clear visibility into how team time was actually being spent.

Before Magnetic, the team relied on a legacy project management tool that couldn’t support the kind of timesheet tracking needed for operational decision-making.

“We had multiple jobs running, often from different internal clients. But we couldn’t easily see how long it was taking, or where the bottlenecks were,” explains Christopher Shayo, Manager: Brand Communications.

The lack of structure made resourcing reactive rather than proactive and resulted in the creative team spending too much time on admin and not enough time producing impactful work.

The Solution: A platform designed for structure, clarity, and smarter decisions

Having heard of Magnetic through an industry peer who’d seen tangible results, the team was intrigued by how it could streamline their own creative operations and decided to explore the platform for themselves. The team was particularly drawn to Magnetic’s timesheet functionality, job and task-level visibility, and its flexibility to fit into a cross-functional marketing environment.

Implementation was lean and focused, with the Marketing & Communications department rolling out Magnetic over a few weeks.  

“The Magnetic onboarding process was structured, supportive, and surprisingly fast. Magnetic guided us through the learning curve with patience and clarity—especially in helping us set up workflows that made sense for our team.”

Key steps in implementation included:

• Aligning traffic and studio processes to Magnetic’s job and task structure
• Introducing a disciplined approach to timesheet capture
• Training the team to use data for smarter, real-time decision-making

The Results: More control, less chaos, and better data

With Magnetic fully embedded, the Marketing & Communications department is now operating with far greater clarity and control.

Quantifiable improvements:

• Noticeable reduction in admin time across weekly operations
• Significant increase in timesheet compliance, enabling better internal reporting and accountability
• Faster project turnaround times driven by improved resource allocation and traffic visibility

“Before Magnetic, we lacked visibility into how the studio operated day-to-day. Now, we can clearly see where our time goes—and that changes how we plan, prioritise, and collaborate.”

Christopher Shayo

Manager: Brand Communications

Short-term wins:

• Improved traffic management and job prioritisation in the creative studio
• Faster brief-to-completion cycles with clearer task ownership
• Less back-and-forth between stakeholders thanks to transparent timelines and updates

Long-term value:

• Establishing a data-driven foundation for resource planning across the wider department
• Building operational discipline that scales with the team
• Laying the groundwork to extend Magnetic to other internal teams over time

“The real value is in the habits we’ve built - timesheet capture, project visibility and reporting. We’re not just more efficient; we’re now equipped to make smarter, data-backed decisions that truly support the business units we serve.”

The Magnetic Experience

Despite an initial learning curve, Christopher describes Magnetic as a pivotal change for his team. Magnetics' powerful features and the support behind them, made the transition feel not just manageable, but worthwhile.

“I’d absolutely recommend Magnetic. It gives creative and marketing teams the structure they need without slowing them down. And the support we’ve had has been exceptional.”

Karimjee Group’s experience shows how a smart implementation of Magnetic, paired with the right internal champion, can drive meaningful operational improvements in even the most fast-paced creative environments.

Looking Ahead

With Magnetic embedded in the Marketing & Communications department, Karimjee Group is now positioned to scale smarter. The next frontier? Using the insights from Magnetic to inform strategy, hiring, and budget planning—not just within marketing, but across the broader organisation.

“We’re starting to see how this kind of data can help the whole organisation work smarter. That’s the future.”

Karimjee Group’s story is proof that the right platform and the right habits can turn creative chaos into operational clarity.

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