Asha Bhosle is one of India’s greatest Indian artists who has now turned her talents to being a Restaurateur within the internationally known Paris Group. Her line of Contemporary Indian Cuisine has nine locations worldwide with the most recent one being in Dubai and which JAS was honored to play a part in the successful opening. Her next opening is scheduled to be in Cairo, Egypt.
Given Asha’s background, understandably, music is a big part of the Asha’s experience, with lounge and Hindi fusion always playing softly in the background. The restaurants have become well known favorites of locals with an addictive flavor. So a visit to Asha’s is not just about cuisine, but about music as well.
In Dubai, the business firm of Paris Group has a unique status among large companies and JAS Dubai has always been proud of moving Paris Group’s consignments. So the involvement with the time definite delivery for the new restaurant opening was not unexpected.
But problems never are expected, even if July is typically known for congestion in that part of the world. Weather, notwithstanding, and no matter how severe, timely delivery of a consignment remains the ultimate target.
On that sunny day in July, it so happened we had some unexpected / unforeseen circumstances. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in a situation because we were, by then, up against a deadline becoming impossible to meet. And the reality that a prominent member from the ruling family of Dubai was to inaugurate the most extravagant restaurant in Dubai, the date could not be changed.
We were bound to move the last, but the most important parts, its furniture, the seating as an LCL consignment from Genoa, Italy. Everything about the shipment was smoothly handled by our counter-parts and the shipper who is located in Genoa. The stuffing, port entry, customs clearance, etc. everything went well and on time. Unfortunately, the container with the LCL goods did not go on-board as planned and got short-shipped.
The situation came to a boiling point when the next vessel was in 10 days with congestion at its peak in the month of July. Given the transit time of 15 days from Genoa to Jebel Ali, it was all but clear that the restaurant would have to be inaugurated as scheduled without its seating –but of course seating is mandatory for any opening. For that matter, these were custom made seating to match the exquisite furniture. Therefore, the Consignee ruled out the idea of using substitute seating as a temporary arrangement.
Amidst all this, the shipper had better ideas to keep their deal intact with Paris Group. Hence, the shipper opted to air-freight the whole shipment, no matter what loss may occur. But there again, the obstacles didn’t spare us as the customs formalities wouldn’t allow any export-laden containers to be pulled out of the terminal once the customs papers were processed and the containers gated in. The task became further tedious for the shipper and for our Genoa agents as well.
As the inaugural date was nearing, and in spite of all negativities, we worked as a team to convince the customs officials about the situation. Finally, at last, they relented to our plea allowing us to rework and retrieve our cargo which was part of the consolidation box.
Having completed the Customs formalities, our operations personnel found themselves among the hundreds of export-laden containers spread all over the export terminal. Once our team managed to track down the specific container after a prolonged search, our guys did finally off-load our consignment from it!
Simultaneously, our second unit was busy charting the air-freight for the same. With two teams working parallel on one shipment, we simply hoped for the rest of the operation to proceed smoothly. A special truck was assigned to move the goods from Genoa seaport to Milano airport. Seeing the flight take off with our consignment, a sigh of relief and a cheerful smile was all we could muster on that tiring evening. Our stupendous efforts had eventually become fruitful.
The PARIS GROUP has 27 years of continuous success and made a trademark of Professionalism and Excellent Service. Founded by Dr. Abdulkader Sankari, Paris Group on its Silver Anniversary is recognized as one of the principal forces in the Fashion and Hospitality business in the Middle East, Far East and Eastern Europe Region; it demonstrated an appreciation for the retail industry by taking a leadership role as an agent, distributor and franchisee.
The rest is history. The customer in Dubai was delighted, the shipper was happy; and we were relieved and excited for the Shipper and the Consignee and proud of what our JAS team had accomplished. Paris Group had a grand opening of their restaurant in Dubai with exquisite seating, for which we had to literally struggle to the extremes.