Dubai Trade Portal seeks customer feedback on its online business services

Under the scheme, representatives of Dubai Trade's Customer Care unit are holding extensive discussions with individual client companies in order to assess the quality of services delivered by the portal, in a proactive move to fine tune the online business solutions on its B2B platform.

Dubai Trade Director, Mahmood Al Bastaki, and his senior aides met representatives of Panasonic, a major user of the portal. The session also brought together representatives of three of the four Dubai World business units that are hosted on the website: DP World, Jafza, and Dubai Customs.

Panasonic Gulf FZE and Panasonic Marketing Middle East were represented by Johnson Soans, Senior Manager Supply Chain Solutions, Prasanth Edassari, General Manager HRD, Andy Roney, Chief Information Officer, Larry Christopher, Supply Chain Executive, and M Yoonus, Logistics Executive.

They discussed issues related to using DubaiTrade.ae for a range of services ranging from visa applications to issuance of gate passes and export bills.

Mahmood Al Bastaki , Director, Dubai Trade portal, said: "This exercise to gauge user opinion is a direct result of our customer-centric approach to providing service. It's our way of telling the clients, 'We come to you rather than you come to us' in quest of enhanced performance. Since Dubai Trade is a new concept aimed at simplifying transactions across the vast supply chain, it is incumbent on us to not only spread awareness about it, but also to assess our performance at an early stage and adopt corrective measures where required."

Johnson Soans, Senior Manager Supply Chain Solutions, Panasonic, Gulf FZE, said: "Panasonic has transacted on the portal and found it a tremendous help in all our business transactions. As a 24-hour business, we seek total compliance on every transaction that we make on the DubaiTrade.ae portal and keep real-time track of all our transactions. We are confident our feedback will help the portal to further enhance its services."

Dubai Trade brings together a host of companies under a single umbrella, making them trade partners who now benefit from transparent and easy to use integrated trade activities.

With a single sign-in concept, customers are able to access different on-line services round the clock, 7 days a week. A registered customer requires just a single password to access all these services and navigate seamlessly across the entire supply chain, from ports and customs to free zones and commodity exchanges.

Instead of going from counter to counter in different departments, they can conduct business efficiently from their offices at www.dubaitrade.ae.

DubaiTrade.ae will bring together over 50,000 companies that trade and interact with the Ports Customs and FreeZone Corporation into a single community.

Mr Al Bastaki said: "The scope of DubaiTrade.ae is truly vast. Everything from inquiry services to cargo clearance and commodity receipts can be transacted on it with total security. And thanks to the new Digital Law enforced in Dubai, all online business transactions are legally binding."

Miriam S A Alafridi, e-Services Development Manager, Dubai Trade Portal Department, Dubai World, said: "DubaiTrade.ae is an interface between Dubai World business units and clients such as Panasonic. Our goal is to provide real-time solutions to the issues concerning trade flow processes. We listen to their genuine needs and re-engineer the process systems for the benefit of all."

Developed locally, www.dubaitrade.ae is designed to serve as an indispensable tool for the trade, transport and logistics industry.

The meeting with Panasonic was the first in a series planned. On July 9 a Japanese delegation from the company's head office, Matsushita Electric Industries, is scheduled to visit Dubai World to further discuss the possibilities of enhancing the online services of www.dubaitrade.ae.