Al Tayer

TL;DR

Created a comprehensive internal communication platform for luxury retailer Al Tayer, implementing a custom CMS solution, AWS infrastructure, and interactive features to connect thousands of employees across their Middle Eastern operations.

About

Al Tayer is a luxury retailer representing iconic brands like Jaguar, Ferrari, Prada, and Bloomingdale's in the Middle East. With thousands of employees across their operations, they needed a centralized communication hub to share everything from brand guidelines to company news. I worked on this project while at Antler Digital.

Challenge

The company needed a platform that could handle authentication for thousands of users, support interactive features like comments and likes, and display diverse media types including video, audio, and images. They wanted a self-hosted CMS solution on AWS that their team could manage independently.

Initially, they proposed using Strapi as the CMS solution, but this presented limitations for the specific features they required and would have created unnecessary development friction.

Solution

I recommended and implemented Payload CMS instead of Strapi, as it offered greater flexibility for their specific requirements while providing a more efficient developer experience. This decision streamlined development and gave them precisely the content management capabilities they needed.

For deployment, I set up the backend infrastructure on AWS, configuring an EC2 instance with load balancing to enable horizontal scaling as user numbers grew. This architecture ensured the platform would remain responsive even during peak usage.

I also contributed to the frontend development, building a Next.js application with Tailwind CSS that provided a clean, responsive interface for employees to consume content, engage with posts, and access important company information.

Result

The completed communication hub successfully connected Al Tayer's workforce, giving employees across their luxury retail operations access to consistent, up-to-date information. The custom CMS solution allowed their team to independently manage content, while the scalable AWS infrastructure ensured reliable performance. The social features created a more engaged workforce, with employees actively interacting with company content and each other.