PCFC launches Business Process Management forum to achieve operational excellence

This unique cross-Business Group, cross-functional initiative will cover all the businesses of the group including Nakheel Projects, Dubai Maritime City, Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre (DMCC), Dubai Ports International (DPI), Dubai Aid City, Tamweel, TechnoPark, Tejari and Nakheel Travel.

The BPM forum's mission is to enable the business architecture capabilities within the group and enhance the BPM competencies of its members through education. The launch meeting of the forum was held on March 20, 2005, and a number of technical sessions, panel discussions and general meetings will follow.

Commenting on the forum, Mahmoud Saleh, Executive Director of Shared Services Department & Secretary General of The Corporate Office said, "Business Process Management is assuming an important role in most organisations today as the concept focuses on alignment of an organisation's processes with its strategic goals. The major benefits of BPM are the deployment of cost effective, highly customer oriented, efficient and effective business processes. The BPM forum will help in educating its members, who belong to various business units of PCFC about the benefits of adopting this concept."

"Dubai is a brand today and we are extensively promoting this like a product. We will focus on creating a knowledge based economy and the BPM forum will stress on transferring of knowledge and knowledge sharing," added Saleh.

The BPM forum is a unique Special Interest Group made up entirely of voluntary members drawn from all Units and Departments. Its members elect the Executive Committee. Therefore, the Forum is driven by staff deeply committed to this discipline, and wanting to achieve operational excellence from well-designed and well-managed processes. There are sub-teams that will work on a wide range of technical and non-technical deliverables, which includes cultural change and organisational readiness. In time, it is likely that this forum will be a "good practice" emulated by other public sector enterprises within UAE.

The main benefits of the BPM forum include, improving business architecture capabilities of PCFC, increased integration across different business units, increased cross business unit knowledge sharing, enhanced BPM competencies of members, possibility to use forum's platform for communication, discussion and problem solving and increased visibility for members, in their own business unit.

"Over the coming years we will introduce similar forums in strategic areas for the Group such as Performance Management, Program Management and Business Strategy. We intend to introduce certifications in future, which will attest the proficiency of the forum members. In addition, we are making major investments in information technology, which will include BPM Technology across all our business units, which will further boost our Operational excellence," concluded Saleh.

The key speakers at the Launch comprised of Karl Freiheit, Vice President of the globallyrenowned company called ULTIMUS, that design and sell software for BPM and Mohamed Roushdy of Sharjah Islamic Bank. Karl Freiheit presented the benefits being derived by large companies in Europe from successful BPM and Mohamed Roushdy showcased the success of the local bank in making a journey of Process improvement and implementation using advanced BPM software. The Charter and Plans of the Forum were presented earlier by Thomas Zeltner, President of the BPM forum.