DAFZA and TECOM sign agreement to collaborate on promoting excellence

A 'Benchmarking Partnership Team,' set up by the two organisations aims to create the Dubai Learning Nucleus, a forum that will drive excellence among companies in DAFZA and TECOM by sharing best practices and learning opportunities.'

The establishment of this partnership is the culmination of discussions between Ahmad Bin Byat, Director General of the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone and Dr. Mohammad Al Zarouni, Director General of DAFZA.

'This initiative is strategically aligned with both our organisations' commitment to leadership,' said Yousuf Behzad, Director of HR and Strategy at DAFZA.

'The idea is to get people together to share knowledge and ideas on 'best practices'. As two of the leading free zones in Dubai initiated by the government, we care about each other's success,' said Asim Ghabra, Strategy and Excellence Consultant with DAFZA.

'We will work together to identify 'practices of excellence' to benchmark our processes, following which, we can select and implement practices that will work in each of our organisations. Our working operations and structure will be in alignment with the DGEP excellence model,' said Ahmed Baghoum, Director of Customer Operations at TECOM.

Christopher Wentzel, Strategy and Business Development Consultant with TECOM, emphasised the importance of setting objectives and milestones, as well as adhering to schedules and response times.

Abdelatif Hegazy, Director of Quality at TECOM pointed out that, 'This is not a one-time activity. As the initiative evolves, specific areas of the Business Excellence Model will receive more emphasis.'

Hussain Ali, Quality Management Specialist will act as the facilitator of this initiative on behalf of TECOM. From DAFZA, Raja Al Suwaidi, Strategy and Excellence Manager, will play this role, 'All the groundwork has been finalised and we will start translating all our knowledge into quality practices,' Al Suwaidi said.

A joint meeting in June will put in place a mechanism to assess both organisations' methods, and outline all criteria for measuring excellence. This will be implemented through ongoing meetings between heads of individual departments of both companies. They will compare results on a quarterly basis, report processes that work well, and unify and improve their methods of achieving excellence.

Other officials of DAFZA present at the signing ceremony included Sarah Al Shamsi, Officer of Quality and Development and Ali Karam Dehqani, Procurement Assistant. TECOM was represented by Jamal Abdulsalam, Executive Director of DIC; Nasser Alawadhi, Director of Human Capital; Yousuf Alkhaja, Regional Sales Manager at DIC; Samira Abdulla, Quality Management Specialist; Kholoud Abdullah, Quality Coordinator and Asma Dalmook, Coordinator of External Accounts.