David Rosen launched his business as many dreamers do — from an apartment, with big plans, and limited resources. But he also had an ace up his sleeve: the best low-code platform.
"When I started out on my own in the '90s, my parents bought me Claris FileMaker as a gift," says David, the one of the three owners of Kinetic Lighting. "I remember installing it, and I figured out how to how to build a program that could track all my gigs."
As David expanded his business, Claris FileMaker scaled with him. He and his two partners, Daniel Bortz and James Schipper, now own Kinetic Lighting, a premier company that rents and sells theatrical stage lighting for corporate events, concerts, festivals, and film projects. The company also provides turnkey production services for live events.
"As the company grew, our needs from a software standpoint grew exponentially," recalls David. "All of a sudden, we went from a having few pieces of equipment in the apartment to thousands in a large warehouse. We had more employees who all needed to use the program, and many more clients, orders, and gigs.”
Juggling fast growth and inventory management with custom business apps.
Fast growth is a good thing, but it can also complicate inventory management. David knew his team would need to keep a close eye on every order — especially in the high-stakes entertainment industry, where one missing part or late delivery can cause major disruption.
The Kinetic Lighting team soon realized their rental app needed to integrate with other web apps, so to keep operations on track, David again turned to FileMaker and the experts at Angel City Data, a Claris Partner. Together, they created a program that would help the warehouse team easily manage every quote, contract, invoice, and item that linked to each order. Thanks to the Claris platform, all data seamlessly flows to and from the various apps.
Kinetic Lighting’s operations manager Brian La Rosa notes, "The program has drag-and-drop features that allows us to use all of the information that we have, whenever we want it. I can pull anything into any record at any time."
The company has specifically benefited from adding mobile functionality into business operations. Using tablets to manage inventory in real time has reduced paper processes and increased staff productivity.
A low-code platform to grow with — and run on.
With detailed information at their fingertips, the Kinetic Lighting team can better focus on their clients, even as they manage thousands of lights and associated parts.
According to David, "Often, people are astounded by how fast we can get reports and give answers. FileMaker makes it so quick and easy to find any asset and all the transaction history.”
As an early adopter, David also knows firsthand to never stop exploring what you can do with FileMaker and custom business apps. "It's allowed someone like me, who's got no coding experience at all, to build a program that our business can actually run on.”
Are you interested in leveraging low code to provide inventory management best practices? To learn more, download our ebook on how to streamline repetitive tasks.
Or would you prefer to have a Claris Partner shed some light on your digital project? Find a Claris Partner near you.