Dubai World & PCFC launch Group BPM Forum

BPM is a Management practice that promises to enhance productivity, accelerate process improvement, and reduce cost and impact dramatically the overall agility of the organization. Agility is seen as particularly important for Dubai World on account of their phenomenal growth through acquisitions, mergers and consolidation, whereas PCFC has unique challenges on account of the projected dramatic growth in Dubai.

The Launch meeting of the Forum, held at the Dubai Metropolitan Hotel last week was attended by a number of Top Management executives from the group including the Secretary General of Dubai World, Farid M Ahmed, who delivered the keynote address.

Mr. Ahmed went down memory lane, and spoke of Dubai's Quality Journey. He spoke about the potential impact of BPM on overall productivity and efficiency. Underscoring the need for such initiatives, Mr. Ahmed said:

"Dubai World has always been at the forefront of business innovation and in our quest to achieve greater professional efficiency we have launched this extremely important forum. BPM delivers to businesses a unique set of tools with which planning, designing, building, operating, monitoring and improving the Business Processes of the enterprise can be achieved. I wish the Forum all success and am confident that these efforts will lead to increased efficiency within both Dubai World and PCFC."

Since BPM is a new Management Practice, the Technical Advisor to the Business Forum Shahid Osmani recommended a definition and scope of BPM. Further Anand Nicodemus- also a Technical Advisor recommended a Charter. The Charter emphasized Learning, sharing practices, and creating awareness of BPM within the Group. Both Definition and Charter were accepted by the Members. Since the Forum is self-governed, the Executive Committee of the Forum was elected, and the President was announced.

The President of the Forum Stan Wright, Executive Director for Reform and Modernization, Dubai Customs said in his Acceptance Speech, he expected BPM to provide effective processes that empowered their staff to deliver outstanding services. He emphasized the importance of IT being an enabler to Process Improvement rather than a Driver.

"Dynamic management and strategic innovation have become new market tools to gain competitive advantage. The world is becoming increasingly competitive and organizations are becoming more resilient. The need for effective BPM has thus become critical for every organization to keep up with this fast pace of change and it is expected that the group will benefit greatly learn from the experiences of this forum," said Mr. Wright.

Going forward the Forum will announce Plans for Education, creating awareness and recommending standards.

Also present on the occasion was Abdul Qader Obaid Ali, Director, Group Internal Audit and Business Excellence, Dubai World. He said:

"The Business Excellence Centre prides itself in initiating new ideas through which the different business units in the group can benefit. One such idea is the BPM Forum. It is expected that the Launch of Special Interest Groups such as this will lead to improved Group performance and promote standardization. This would also lead to an increase in knowledge sharing between the different business units within Dubai World & PCFC, thus increasing our productivity."