Mariane Ibrahim

Choosing to invest in Artlogic during a time of growth, Mariane Ibrahim staged a full-team roll out: onboarding multiple staff members to the platform during their gallery orientation. Now an Artlogic client of five years, everyone at Mariane Ibrahim has a clean, easy way to keep track of orders, the inventory, artists, and clients.

The Challenge

Having previously suffered software burnout: using a multitude of different systems that didn’t talk to one another, such as Quickbooks and Dropbox, the team at Mariane Ibrahim needed an all-in-one solution that would keep track of everything from artwork inventory, client contacts, and invoices to the website and online store. 

Prior to using Artlogic, inventory management involved: “exporting from QuickBooks and saving separately in Dropbox”, causing the efficiency of the gallery to lag and increasing labor intensity and workload at the gallery: “there wasn't always a way of tracking down invoices for old inventories”.

Reducing workload and streamlining operations via bulk uploads and personalized workarounds for the gallery was a key concern: “we needed something tailored to our gallery”. Prior to investing in Artlogic, importing artworks to the inventory, and searching stock was a highly manual and laborious process. Now, however: “the importing and exporting features make it really easy”.

Images: Carmen Neely, Count it up, don't count me out / Clotilde Jimenez, Ciclista (rojo), courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim

The Solution

With personalization at the top of the agenda, for the past year, Mariane Ibrahim has used Artlogic’s Account Management service: “Our account manager [Emily] has been instrumental in understanding the particularities of our artists, finding quick workarounds, and helping us tailor Artlogic to our needs”.

Artlogic’s value is also felt on the fair floor, helping the gallery to curate seamless conversations with collectors, using instant visual aids to make the most of those precious moments: “we do a lot from iPads and our phones… prepping all previews in advance [of fairs], taking iPads with a selection of available works, current gallery shows and other inventory.”

The Mariane Ibrahim team needs to be as mobile as possible. The speed at which information is available is crucial on the fast-paced fair floor, and the team really warmed to a solution that maximizes business opportunities: “When you're having conversations with prospective clients at a fair and you want to show them new artists, it's important to have images, details about the work, and pricing to hand, without having to bring out your laptop or try to remember to follow-up in an email.” Essentially, since becoming a client, Mariane Ibrahim “relies on Artlogic to help make sales.”

“[without it] we would be very slow at getting back to clients. And, because of the delay. We'd forget what we even had a conversation about. So it's [Artlogic is] really nice, not only for the timeliness of it, but the accuracy of recording what we were talking about and not losing the content of that”.

Using their Artlogic website as a digital shopfront for the gallery is a core marketing tool for Mariane Ibrahim: “Our website is instrumental. Our dedicated Account Manager [Emily] helped us to revamp our entire website, making it more attention grabbing, as well as easier to navigate, so users can see highlights more easily.”

Images: Gallery facade / Patrick Eugene, Woman in White, courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim

The Results

As a global enterprise, visibility is key. The Mariane Ibrahim team benefit from knowing where any given artwork in their inventory is at any given time. Making the most of comprehensive features such as artwork lists “to keep track of exhibition, inventory and shipping and art fair and inventory”.

Since implementing Artlogic, vast improvements have been seen to internal processes and timelines: “the importing and exporting features, and bulk updates, have saved us a lot of time. It makes it really easy for us”.

Further, in the art market of today, every contact counts. Mariane Ibrahim used Emily’s expertise to “brainstorm ways to connect with people outside the immediate circle of long-term supporters”. Innovating their database to better-categorize leads “has been instrumental” to their new outreach strategy.

With Artlogic at the heart of operations, Mariane Ibrahim can get on with what matters most: the art.
From “using search terms In the artwork section to keep track of how artists refer to their own work” to tracking orders, and logging new clients, the Artlogic platform has a part to play in every step of the sales journey at Mariane Ibrahim, so much so that the team “use Artlogic every day”.

Further, the gallery’s contact and inventory management is also seeing unprecedented growth: “we have way more content in our database than ever before – obviously because it grows every day – it's now growing at a rate that it didn't used to, and there's been an acceleration in contacts, increasing the amount of potential clients we can contact with tailored outreach”.

“My dream is to one day look at an artwork record and every bit of information that's relevant be complete throughout all of the different [Artlogic] fields because they're all so useful.”