4th International Benchmarking Conference (IBCON4)

Welcome note from the Bahrain Quality Society and Global Benchmarking Network. Today's deepening financial crisis is biting the real economy, dragging western nations into severe slumps, and choking world trade. More than ever before it is only the fittest that will survive. So how can an organisation survive and grow in today's economic climate? A key mechanism to do this is through benchmarking - learning from the experience of others. Through benchmarking you can learn how other organisations are responding to the economic downturn and adapt and implement their best practices to lead your organisation to future success, to achieve this we need to improve our understanding and share our experiences. With the Global Benchmarking Network conducting its 18th Annual General Meeting on 25th and 26th October in Bahrain, we at Bahrain Quality Society and Global Benchmarking Network take immense pride in bringing the 4th International Benchmarking Conference to Bahrain on the 27th and 28th October, 2009. This conference, which brings together various leading organisations and business professionals from around the globe, will prove an excellent platform for sharing and exchanging views, ideas, experiences and techniques involved in attaining higher performance levels in organisational operations. This is a unique opportunity to learn from some of the world's top speakers in the business field. Why Attend

Who Should Attend?
Aimed at businesses, business leaders, managers, and professionals who want practical ideas and solutions for improving the performance of their organisation, this event is also a stage for academics who want to share their business research findings. The Conference will have presentations from some of the world's best business speakers and scholars.

The Conference also provides an opportunity for all business practitioners, professionals, and researchers to submit papers and share their experiences.

Benefits of Attendance:
• How to improve the leadership and management capability of your business.
• How to improve and sustain high levels of business performance.
• Many practical ideas and best practices in all areas of management (including Strategic Planning, Customer & Market Focus, Performance Measurement, Process Management and Human Resource Focus).
• From business excellence award winners, leading businesses and top senior managers and academics.
In summary, the event will provide a tremendous and unique opportunity for learning, sharing, and networking with your peers from all around the globe.

Speakers:
The speakers and partners of the conference will be well known gurus, experts and practicing managers of benchmarking from all over the world.

Keynote speakers

• Dr Robert Camp, USA: Dr Robert Camp, the conference keynote speaker is a renowned authority on benchmarking. He has published 3 books (including the first ever Benchmarking Book in 1989) and numerous articles. His benchmarking approach and methodology are used worldwide through software courseware, videos, and via the internet. Dr Camp created the successful benchmarking programme for Xerox's Logistics & Distribution business unit, which was subsequently expanded to all of Xerox's customer operations units. He has presented on the benchmarking experience at Xerox around the world, helped to establish the International Benchmarking Clearing House, and is currently the Honorary Lifetime President of the Global Benchmarking Network.

• Dr Robin Mann, New Zealand: Dr Robin Mann is the Head of the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (New Zealand), Chairman of the Global Benchmarking Network, Advisory Board member of the e-TQM College (Dubai) and Co-Founder of BPIR.com Limited - a leading benchmarking website resource with over 6,000 members worldwide. Robin's experience includes managing the UK's Food and Drinks Industry Benchmarking and Self-assessment Initiative (1995-1998), New Zealand Benchmarking Club (2000-2004), the Sheikh SAQR Government Excellence Program, UAE (2005-2007) and leading TRADE benchmarking projects in Singapore (2007 onwards). Robin undertakes consultancy on business excellence and benchmarking all over the world.

• Dr. H. James Harrington, Chief Executive Officer, Harrington Middle East, USA: The New York Times referred to Dr. Harrington as having a "...knack for synthesis and an open-mind about packaging his knowledge and experience in new ways."

Dr. Harrington is recognized worldwide as the guru in performance improvement. He has authored 23 books, 11 CD-Roms and hundreds of articles on performance improvement. He was a Project Manager for IBM for over 30 years and a principal for Ernst and Young Consulting for over 10 years. He was responsible for the three year E&Y health care study that compared systems in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Germany. He served as the CEO of Systemcorp, a software developer. He served as president and Chairman of the Board for the American Society for Quality and the prestigious International Academy for Quality. He was the official quality advisor to the Chinese government for 15 years and was elected to the Singapore Hall of Fame. He was elected Honorary Fellow in societies in eight nations. He has helped many public, private, and non-profit making organizations streamline their processes and knowledge management systems. He has received numerous awards and a number of national and international quality awards have been named after him.

Speakers

• Prof. Hadi Eltigani, CEO, Abu Dhabi International Centre For Organisational Excellence, UAE: is an academic, researcher and practitioner in Quality Management and one of the pioneering figures in making the intellectual argument for Quality in the Arab World and in the implementation of Business Excellence Model in the region.
As well as being a fully licensed Trainer by some of the major international professional organizations (the British Quality Foundation & European Foundation for Quality Management), he also holds a PhD from the prestigious university of Glasogow-Strathclyde in the UK. He was at the forefront of research and teaching of quality and Excellence in the UK where he joined the most reputable centres at Bath university, Reading university, Strathclyde university and Glasgow Caledonian. Upon his return from the UK after playing an effective part in shaping the salient features and characteristics of the movement there as an academic, researcher and practitioner, he continued to add value to the Arab world and the region. At the outset he helped the Government of Dubai to re-launch the Dubai Quality Award back in 1997 and launch the Government Excellence program in 1998. Moved on to Abu Dhabi, he assisted the Government of Abu Dhabi establish the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award in 1999 and subsequently the Abu Dhabi Award for Government Excellence in 2006 as well as the Emirates Quality Association in 2005.
Moreover, he helped other Emirates such as Sharjah and RAK to establish similar Quality and Excellence programmes for the Private and public sectors respectively. However, Professor Eltigani's activities were not confined only to the UAE, but covered other GCC contries such as Saudi Arabia were he helped established the King Abulaziz Quality in 2007, and State of Qatar's ministry of interior, Bahrain's ministry of Oil as well as Kuwait's establishing the Industry Award. At the Arab World at large, Professor Eltigani also played an active and particularly effective role in rendering support to the Government of Sudan in setting the Presidential Programme for Quality and Excellence as well as the Sudan Quality Award for the private sector and the Presidential Award for Excellence in the Government Sector.

• Dr Holger Kohl, Germany: Dr Holger Kohl is heading the Department Business Excellence Methods as well as of Information Centre Benchmarking (IZB) at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK), Berlin/Germany. In 1998 Dr. Kohl joined the Division of Corporate Management at Fraunhofer IPK as a Senior Researcher. Since then he has initiated and conducted several national and international Benchmarking and Business Process Reengineering Projects and was responsible for their realisation. Beside projects all over Europe, Dr. Kohl managed Benchmarking projects in Indonesia, Vietnam, Serbia-Montenegro, Malaysia, etc.

• Terry Pilcher, UK: Terry Pilcher, Director of BCS Management Services has extensive experience in the challenge of improving organisations. Prior to creating the company, he headed up the UK Government's Management Best Practice Unit, within the Department of Trade and Industry's Small Business Service.Terry has extensive knowledge of Government within the UK, Europe and many other countries around the world and has an extremely wide network established over many years of working in this area. He is also a visiting lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and has presented many papers on Best Practice issues at conferences around the world.

• Bruce Searles, Australia: Bruce Searles has been an Accredited Delivery Partner for Benchmarking with the Australian Quality Council (AQC) and is Director for Benchmarking Partnerships, who now own Australian Quality Council Benchmarking. He was previously Executive for International Best Practice for NRMA Ltd., who were the first service organisation in Australia to win the Australian Quality Award. He was instrumental in developing the Australian benchmarking programs and has facilitated over 70 different benchmarking studies involving over 800 organisations in Australia and Asia. Bruce is currently a Board Member of the GBN community.

• Souad Alkabie: Batelco

• Fatema Al-Jamea: LMRA

• Login to request more information from the organiser
• Report errors in this entry
• Login to download this entry in vCard format
• Login to save this company to your personal list
• Forward this address to a colleague