Innovation and excellence govern the direction of the UAE: Sheikh Ahmed

Sheikh Ahmed was speaking at the inauguration of the Dubai Quality Award Share Best Practice Conference, which was held today at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Dubai. More than 500 people from the business community in UAE attended the event, which saw the winners of the Dubai Quality Award 2004 engage the business community in quality management initiatives by sharing their best practices. The annual conference is organised jointly by the DQA Secretariat at the Department of Economic Development and the Dubai Quality Group (DQG).

"We are striving to be placed on the map of international excellence and innovation and excellence remain the standards which govern the direction of the UAE," said Sheikh Ahmed in his opening address. Following this path, many organisations have demonstrated continuous improvement in their systems, eventually leading them to attain a standard of excellence," he added.

"A forum like Share Best Practice promotes and advances excellence in the qualtiy of products and services in the UAE. This initiative is in line with the strategic objectives of the DED and is guided by the Crown Prince and UAE Defence Minister, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's vision to make Dubai the city of Quality and Service Excellence," said Sheikh Ahmed.

"This conference represents a commitment on the part of the Dubai Quality Award winners to share their expertise in quality management with the rest of the business community," said Mr Essa Kazim, Co-ordinator General, Dubai Quality Award. "Through this conference, the DQA winners attempt to promote business excellence in society, by each sharing a specific best practice which has proved valuable to their organizations," he added.

The dignitaries, speakers and delegates at the conference were welcomed by Mr. Abdelqader Obaid Ali, Chairman, DQG who explained the role of the Dubai Quality Award and its significance in furthering the development of quality and business excellence in Dubai.

Commenting on the event he said: "The willingness of leading organisations to share their expertise with the rest of the business community is commendable and adequately demonstrates their corporate social responsibility. We aim to further foster this co-operation among Dubai's business community to ensure its continued development," he added.

The full-day event witnessed presentations from the winning companies of the DQA 2004 including Bob Curtis from Kanoo Machinery, Razi Ansari from National Flour Mills, Khalid Al Jowder from Dnata Airport Operations, Irfan Hafeez from ABN Amro Bank, Luc Delafosse from Burj Al Arab, Sunil Malhotra from Dnata Agencies, Zaid Al Qufaidi from EPPCO, Ronald T. Martin from Dubai Express, Simon Vension from Jumeirah Beach Club Resort & Spa, Joseph Ponnou from Al Ansari Exchange and Hassan Omar from DUCAB.

The conference also included keynote presentations by two international experts on quality management - Joe Liddane, Managing Director of Setanta Performance International and Dr. Jörg Klukas of T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH. T-Systems one of the finalists at last year's European Quality Award.

Liddane who opened the conference with the first presentation focused on the 'ServQual' technique as a means to measure gaps in service excellence and improve service quality while taking into consideration the constantly rising expectations of customers. He explored a method, which allows businesses to prioritise and make improvements in areas that matter most to customers. He also drew from his experience to explain where organisations need to focus their efforts and how best to make these efforts pay off.

Dr. Klukas's presentation demonstrated the establishment of a management system that is flexible enough to seize opportunities as they arise, while at the same time providing organisations with solid cornerstones on which they can build successful project management, leading to profitable solutions. Using the process-oriented system in place at his organisation, Dr. Kukas guided organisations on the way forward with a target-oriented management system, a cascaded balanced scorecard and an extensive review mechanism so that everyone can focus on the right corporate goals.

A compiled record of the best practices submitted by each of the winners of the award was also distributed by the DQA Secretariat to the delegates at the conference. The "Good Practices" published proceedings include detailed entries on each of the award winners, thus enabling potential applicants to get an insight into the benefits of applying for the award.