bedadmin.dubaided.gov.ae...union national bank growth powered by innovation vision [2010 – 2018]...

Union National BankGrowth powered by Innovation

Vision [2010 – 2018]To be the best in class for the bank-ing industry in the UAE.

Mission [2010 – 2012]To deliver superior customer service, grow market share and shareholder value and estab-lish the bank as the employer of choice in the UAE.

Shared Core Values Customer FocusIntegrity & TransparencyTeam SpiritNurturing StaffContinuous ImprovementsResponsible Community Mem-bershipBest Practices Union National Bank (UNB) is a public joint stock company incorporated under the laws of the United Arab Emirates in 1982. UNB is the only bank in the UAE with significant shareholdings by the Governments of both Abu Dhabi (50%) and Dubai (10%). The remaining 40% of the shares are publicly held. The shares of UNB are listed on Abu Dhabi Se-curities Exchange. UNB has two other subsidiar-ies. Union Brokerage Company

(UBC) provides brokerage ser-vices for clients at the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Dubai Fi-nancial Market as well as NAS-DAQ Dubai. Al Wifaq Finance Company (AWFC) offers Shari’a compliant products and services to the growing Islamic banking market. To its varied customer base, as well as potential clients, UNB of-fers a wide range of Retail, Corpo-rate, SME, Investment and Private Banking products and services. Over the years, UNB has evolved into a Group entity and spread its footprint in other coun-tries. UNB operates through a wide network of branches and ATMs throughout the UAE. UNB has extended its reach to Egypt

Business Excellence is not just another initiative, but a way of pulling several initiatives together in a focused and practical way. The feedback report gener-ated by the participation in the Business Excellence Awards is a valuable im-provement tool which has guided the Bank to take stock and introduce vari-ous improvement initia-tives through sharing of best practices and bench-marking.

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Profile

through a successful acquisition of the erstwhile ACMB and cur-rently operates in the country as UNB Egypt through a number of banking centres. It has ventured into Doha with a branch at the Qatar Financial Centre and has also opened a representative of-fice in Shanghai China, being the first bank from the region to do so. There has been a greater aware-ness and focus on CSR initiatives as well those impacting the envi-ronment and community. In its quest for excellence, UNB has adopted the Total Qual-ity Management concepts and systems and business excellence framework. In the process it has received several accolades from prestigious institutions. The Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) received in 2002 was fol-lowed by SKEA Gold in 2005 and in 2009, thereby becoming the only organisation to have won the SKEA Gold twice. UNB is also a winner of the prestigious Dubai Quality Award in 2006 and 2009 as well as the MRM Business Award in 2009. UNB is the first bank of its size in the Middle East to be certi-fied to ISO 9001 standards for a complete range of banking ser-vices across the Head Office and Branches in 2002. The ISO 9001 certification has been success-fully renewed in 2005 and again in 2008 with enhanced scope. In 2009, UNB’s ISO 9001 certification has been upgraded to the 2008 version becoming the first bank in the region to receive this certi-fication from M/s Lloyds Register Quality Assurance. Business Excellence is not just another initiative, but a way of pulling several initiatives togeth-er in a focused and practical way. The feedback report generated by the participation in the Busi-ness Excellence Awards is a valu-able improvement tool which has guided the Bank to take stock and introduce various improvement initiatives through sharing of best practices and benchmarking.

Benefits of Applying for the DQA• Opportunity to share good practices.• Contributes to Organisational learning and teamwork.• Self assessment leads to identi-fication of areas of strengths and opportunities for improvement.• Objective assessment of the or-ganisations’s systems processes by independent third party asses-sors who are senior industry pro-fessionals/experts.

Advice to Future Appli-cants• Build commitment from all stakeholders especially the senior management as they drive such initiatives. • Keeping the larger picture in mind, keep a long term perspec-tive, rather than looking for short term gains.• Make a plan and start working on the submission document well in advance (about a year and a half prior to submission), identify relevant members of cross func-tional teams for various criteria. • Undertake periodic reviews for taking stock under the direction of a steering committee compris-ing of senior management and project sponsor. • Follow the Business Excellence model in both letter and spirit and there should be involvement and commitment across all functions. • Celebrate success and quick wins by involving all concerned.

Best Practice 1: Achiev-ing Continuous Improve-ment through Customer Insights It is extremely important for any organization to measure the customers’ perception of its prod-ucts and services at various stages of the customer relationship cycle

and take action on the gaps be-tween customer expectation and organization’s performance. It is also important for the organiza-tion to continually benchmark its performance in meeting the cus-tomer’s expectation with the com-petitors to identify best practices and further areas of strengths and improvements. Customer Insights leads to better decision making and helps the organization in maximizing returns on investments by focus-ing on areas of improvements. In short the benefits of customer feedback are as follows: • Understand customer needs and requirements • Identify and define marketing opportunities and problems• Generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions• Monitor marketing perfor-mance UNB ensures close proxim-ity to customers by understand-ing their needs and requirements mainly through customer feed-back obtained from surveys, com-plaints and compliments. Customer Satisfaction is an in-tegral part of UNB’s Vision ‘to be the best in class for the banking industry in the UAE’. The Customer Research func-tion set up in 2000 and now en-hanced to Customer Feedback and Research & Development, is part of the Strategic Planning, Re-search & Development since 2009 within the Strategic Planning & Financial Control Division. Customer Feedback and Re-search & Development is respon-sible for this critical function of identifying customer require-ments through adhoc product research, measuring customer’s perception through external cus-tomer satisfaction & mystery shopping surveys, benchmarking these results with that of competi-tors through benchmarking sur-veys, identifying gaps in internal customer expectations through

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internal customer satisfaction sur-veys, analyzing the measurement results, identifying actionable ar-eas of improvement and facilitat-ing the implementation of the ac-tion plans for the various business units of UNB.

Approach UNB’s Research Department utilizes a variety of surveys to measures customer perception. The table below shows the various surveys conducted across the Bank and its subsidiaries with a focus on continuous improve-ment and client centricity. UNB has a unique approach of administering the two pronged survey strategy comprising of ex-ternal customer satisfaction sur-veys as well as internal customer satisfaction surveys as depicted in the chart below. The exercise aims at addressing internal barri-ers in providing superior custom-er service to external customers. The approach for both surveys starts with obtaining customer feedback through a robust mecha-nism that includes the following: • Representative large sample.• Aligning questionnaires to customer needs and expectations. • Ensuring comprehensiveness

in information areas on the ques-tionnaire.• Selecting appropriate tools to garner customer feedback . Customer Feedback is ob-tained at various points during the customer life-cycle at UNB i.e. new customers (those who have commenced their relationship with UNB), existing customers (those who currently use UNB’s products/services), exit custom-ers (those who have discontinued their relationship with UNB). Customer Satisfaction from existing customer is not looked at in isola-tion. A benchmarking sur-vey exercise is regularly conducted to determine UNB’s current standing vis-à-vis identified com-petition. The surveys focus on

the key service attributes which are standard across all surveys carried out for Business Units (BUs) or the Business Partner Units (BPUs). The service attri-butes are described in the figure below Areas of strength and improve-ment are determined through a Quadrant Analysis based on im-portance of the attribute to cus-tomers and UNB’s performance on the respective attribute as shown below.

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Nominated Good Practice

Quadrant Analysis A cut-off target to determine the areas of strength and im-provement for each of the cus-tomer satisfaction surveys has evolved from both the actual results achieved in the previous survey and the bank’s desire to continually improve. As can be seen in the table be-low an internal customer satisfac-tion survey was conducted for Product Development as scores on information given by staff on

new products/promotions was low. In order determine the root cause; a linkage was drawn be-tween the service delivery of the product development team to the branch staff. Feedback from the internal customers of product development was obtained and a suitable action plan was formu-lated to overcome the issue and thereby enhance service delivery and customer satisfaction.

ICSS Linked to ECSS The results of the customer feedback obtained are then pre-sented to all relevant staff across different Business Units and Busi-ness Partner Units within UNB. Action Plans are sought on the areas of betterment highlighted in the survey from the relevant BUs/ BPUs. The implementation of action plans is monitored regu-larly and impact of the action is measured through a subsequent survey. For the customer satisfaction program to be successful, it is in-corporated as a corporate strategy

and is supported from the CEO, Executive Management down-wards.

Brand Health Survey UNB’s brand health survey is carried out annually for its retail and corporate customers. The brand ladder below shows the awareness and usage elements of brand health. It benefits to under-stand the strength

of a brand’s relationship with cus-tomers and thereby helps to de-termine the strategic focus for the brand. UNB’s brand health is mea-sured taking into account the fol-lowing attributes: • Brand Awareness – Spontane-ous and Aided.• Brand Usage – Trialists, Regu-lars and Loyalists.

• Brand Image – Perception of UNB amongst those who are aware of the bank. Areas of strength and im-provement are determined based on the importance of the attribute to the customer and UNB’s rela-tive performance on the same at-tribute.

Mystery Shopping Sur-vey Mystery shopping survey is being carried out each year in order to assess the quality of ser-vice provided by our staff at the branch and the call centre. The scope of the survey is as follows: • UNB’s Service Standards i.e.

Interaction with cus-tomers in person & over telephone, staff grooming and work place ambience. • Information pro-vided by staff on key products and Services • Cross-selling skills

Customer Loss Analysis/Exit Surveys Exit surveys are car-ried out to understand reasons for discontinu-ing relationship with

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UNB. The results of the survey are used as inputs in developing customer retention strategies.

Deployment The results of the external and internal customer satisfaction sur-veys are presented to UNB’s Se-nior Management and all staff of the concerned BU or BPU. The areas for improvement that emerge from the surveyed are addressed by developing suit-able action plans which are pre-pared based on the ‘down up’ ap-proach. Each staff of the respec-tive BU/BPU actively participates in providing their valuable inputs in drafting Actions Plans. These Actions Plans are then vetted by the Senior Management and then finalized for implementation. The actual implementation of the Actions Plans is facilitated through personal visits and regu-lar follow-ups in order to ensure effective implementation of plans and addressing barriers to imple-mentation if any by highlighting the same for action to Senior Man-agement. Impact of the Action Plans in improving satisfaction scores is measured through the results in the next Customer Satisfaction Survey.

Rewards & Recognition UNB has instituted recogni-tion schemes such as the Best Ser-vice Branch Award (for the Retail Banking sector) and Best Corpo-rate Service Division Award (for the Corporate Banking business-es) in order to:

• motivate staff to exceed cus-tomer expectations.• create a strong customer ser-vice mind set.• attain excellence in customer service delivery and customer sat-isfaction. The scores for the recognition schemes are computed from cus-tomer satisfac-tion, mystery shopping (as applicable), im-plementation of action plans and service improvement scores. The photo-graphs below show moments from the Best Service Branch Award and the Best Corporate Service Divi-sion Award ceremonies.

Assessment & Review The Cus-tomer Insights process has u n d e r g o n e periodic as-sessment & re-view to meet the challenges posed by the dynamic changes in business and customer require-ments. Over the years the customer sur-vey methodology has improved

both qualitatively and quantita-tively. • The number of surveys carried out for the BUs and BPUs has in-creased since 2006 as seen in the following table:• Introduction of 10 point sat-isfaction scale has enhanced the satisfaction level target.

• The survey questionnaire is enhanced taking inputs from ar-eas of improvement highlighted in the previous surveys, discus-sions with front line staff and senior management as well feed-back from customers. • Benchmarking and Brand Health Surveys have been added to compare UNB’s services with the best in class. • The bar has been raised to de-termine cut off target for areas for improvement.• There has been a steady im-provement in the survey response rate.

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In 2008 the loyalty criteria as part of the customer satisfaction survey has been enhanced to in-clude competitive evaluation as well.

Results Achieved The customer satisfaction surveys and the implementa-tion of findings have helped in improving satisfaction scores by 6% points among retail and cor-porate customers, 26% points among brokerage customers and 1% point among private banking customers for the period 2006 to 2009 as seen in the chart below.

Improvement in Customer Satisfaction Score

As seen in the table below the benchmarking re-sults for the retail and corporate cus-tomer satisfaction surveys show an

improvement or have maintained UNB’s ranking. The customer satisfaction scores are also benchmarked against international standards such as the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and the UK Customer Satisfaction Index. In-terestingly UNB scores have con-sistently exceeded international benchmarking scores by over 10%

points. UNBs score on spontaneous brand awareness improved by 7% points for the period 2007-2009. UNB’s Corporate Campaign helped in improving its spontane-ous awareness scores. The cam-paign focused on the ‘care’ theme emphasing the Bank’s positioning line ‘The Bank That Cares’. UNB’s corporate campaign ‘We Care’ was evaluated in order to determine its effectiveness in terms of likeability, relevance and interest. UNB achieved very high scores (95%) on all parameters indicating a very successful cam-paign. Both TV commercial and print advertisement were evalu-ated. Since 2009 UNB’s key adver-tising initiatives are being evalu-ated. Besides the Corporate Cam-paign the following campaigns were evaluated: • Co-branded Credit Card with Abu Dhabi Cooperative Society (Extra). • Accelerated Deposit Scheme (ARD).• Al Awwal advertisement eval-

uation. The evaluations for the cam-paigns showed positive results (90%+) across all parameters. The mystery shopping scores have improved by 7% points since 2006 and have proved to be effec-tive in improving service delivery at the customer touch points. The are used as inputs in the compu-tation of overall scores for the an-

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UNION NATIONAL BANK

nual Best Service Branch Award.The exit surveys carried out for key retail products have been ef-fective in helping understand the reasons for exit and thereby reduce attrition rates to less than 3.5% in 2009. The table shows key reasons for withdrawing from the Al Aw-wal (savings certificate) scheme from exit surveys from 2007 to 2009.

The results were used by Prod-uct Development team to revamp and thereby relaunch the Al Aw-wal scheme successfully for its target customers.

Conclusion Customer Insights are actively used to enhance our product and service offerings and help in for-mulating effective marketing and business strategies. Going forward we are confi-dent that our approach towards customer insights will continue to yield positive results and thereby enhance customer centricity and service delivery for our stake-holders.

Best Practice 2: Service Excellence through Effective Management of Customer Feedback UNB considers the voice of customer to be critical in its deci-sion making process. Similar to the Voice of Employees and Voice of Process, the customer feedback is considered pivotal in making strategic and tactical decisions as

well as provide inputs for contin-ual improvement. UNB considers the entire gam-ut of customer feedback unlike the one dimensional ‘complaints’ only. By encompassing the cus-tomer enquiries, suggestions, compliments as well as concerns to the overall feedback process, a holistic approach is adopted for the effective resolution of custom-er feedback.

Background/HistoryStarting as a Complaints Man-agement Unit in the year 2000, the unit was restructured and re-named as Customer Care Unit in 2004. The ownership and report-ing line shifted from Strategic Planning & Risk Management to Retail Banking. However, in 2004 UNB management positioned the unit under the TQM Department for the sake of objectivity and to ensure independence. During 2010, in order to provide syner-gies and alignment with overall Customer Research function, the management decided to relocate Customer Care Unit to the Strate-gic Planning & Research and De-velopment Dept. From the outset, UNB has adopted a customer centric Cus-tomer Care Policy that was devel-oped by the active involvement of senior management and cross section of people across the orga-nization. The Policy is as follows:We, at UNB, are committed to: 1. Use customer feedback as opportunities to review and improve our policies, products,

processes, services and delivery. 2. Proactively seek and encour-age our customers to express their feedback and respond promptly. 3. Be fair to both our custom-ers and our employees/organi-zation in resolution of customer feedback. 4. Use the customer feedback system as a means to enhance our relationship with our customers.

Purpose In the absence of formal com-plaints management system and guidelines, the organizational responses tend to be adhoc and inconsistent. This does not leave a good impression of the organi-zation to the customers who have plenty of options to go elsewhere.

Why customers do not complain?• Do not know where to com-plain.• Do not know how to complain.• Some customers are skeptic – they believe complaining would not do any good.• Previous unsatisfactory expe-rience.

Why do we need to lis-ten to complaining cus-tomers?• Cost and efforts involved in retaining an existing customer is 4 times less than acquiring a new customer • Only 1 in 5 customers will take the time to contact us about a problem. The figure is much lesser for escalated complaints. Only 5% have the patience and motivation to escalate the problem to higher authorities. • More than half of the com-plaining customers will simply switch products/ services/bank.• Of those who contact us, only 40% will tell others about a good experience.

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• 9 out of 10 people will talk about their bad experience to oth-ers.• Negative word-of-mouth trav-els twice as fast as positive word-of-mouth. Taking a cue from the above, the Customer Care function insti-tuted by the senior management has been mandated with the ob-jective of listening to the inputs of customers for improving the Bank’s products, processes and services by:• Providing a variety of chan-nels to listen to the customer feed-back.• Recording and reporting cus-tomer feedback to the process owner/concerned department for investigation and resolution.• Analysing customer feedback data, identifying areas for im-provement, conduct root-cause analysis for corrective and pre-ventive actions.• Highlighting valid sugges-tions provided by customers and ensuring its implementation as applicable.

Approach• UNB follows a well estab-lished and robust customer feed-back management process sup-ported by new technology and experienced staff members. • UNB’s customer feedback pro-cess meets the guidelines and re-quirements of ISO 10002.• Each customer feedback is al-lotted a reference number and the customers are kept informed on the status of resolution of their feedback.• In case of complaints, investi-gation is carried out by the con-cerned Business or Support unit. Sales enquiries, requests are im-mediately referred to the appro-priate business unit. • In order to have a focused ap-proach to managing customer feedback as well as help to pri-oritise key issues, the customer

feedback is categorized into the following four categories:Category A: Where UNB is re-sponsible (due to error, delay etc.)Category B: Due to UNB / Central Bank Policy /Regulation (Max Personal loan entitlement AED250, 000) Category C: Issues arising out of action by others (Such as Card disputes, delay by third parties like Correspondent Banks, Ac-quirer Banks, Merchants)Category D: These are (a) Re-quests/ Enquiries, (b) Compli-ments and (c) Suggestions• SLAs are defined for the reso-lution of various categories of complaints.• Based on the analysis of cus-tomer feedback data, key inputs related to strategy development, operational efficiency, product/ process improvement and system enhancements are identified and highlighted to Business and Sup-port Units for implementation. • Periodic reports on customer feedback analysis are issued to Business and Support Units for formulation of action plans to fix and eliminate recurring issues.• Service Quality Improvement teams validate and verify the var-ious actions plans at branches.• Thank you letters are issued to all complaining customers where UNB is responsible (errors, delay etc.) as well as customers who have suggested or complemented UNB staff for their service. • Complaints appearing in the press, media and those impacting the Bank’s reputation are taken up with Corporate Communications and relevant Divisions/Depart-ments for fast-track resolution.• High Net worth customers and their feedback is dealt direct-ly by Senior Managers/ Branch Managers.• A salient feature of the cus-tomer feedback process is third party and independent validation

of customer satisfaction on com-plaint resolution process.• In rare instances when custom-ers are not happy with the resolu-tion, such incidents are re-opened for further investigation.• Based on the nature of cus-tomer feedback, a sample of the Retail customers are met and their experiences are ascertained while recoemmendations are sought on improvement of the processes.• Performance of Customer Feedback management process is continuously evaluated through internal and external quality au-dits.

Deployment UNB offers a variety of chan-nels to its customers to voice their feedback. For example, all UNB Branches across UAE are equipped to receive record and address customer feedback. This is complemented by several oth-ers such as: • Call Centre (24x7) Toll Free Numbers 800 2 600 and 800 UNB (862) • Direct Telephones (026726616, 026984832, 026984638, 026984370)• Fax (026747120)• Website www.unb.ae • E-mail [email protected]• Viewpoint Feedback Forms• Walk-in at Customer Care Unit

Assessment & Review The Customer Care Unit has undergone periodic assessments based on the business require-ments as well as operational effi-ciency. In addition to positioning the Customer Care Unit with rel-evant stakeholders which were deemed suitable at the time and as per the Bank’s strategy, there has been a major restructuring in terms of centralisation of the function in the year 2006. This entailed consolidating of the Cus-tomer Care activities at Head Of-

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fice Abu Dhabi. The advantage of this centralization was better capacity utilization, specializa-tion and reduced resolution time. In 2007, the Customer Feedback process was further enhanced with the introduction of indus-try leading specialized software to improve the overall efficiency and management of the process. To take an example, technology enhancement helped to generate auto reminders and escalation of feedback to relevant stakehold-ers which eventually resulted in faster turnaround time. The auto-mated feedback system was made available to all front-line staff and all reported incidents are record-ed in the central database. The analysis of data has resulted in identification of opportunities for improvement and learning which are shared with all concerned. Moreover the centralized Cus-tomer Care function also resulted in an additional medium for the customers to channel their busi-ness enquiries. The bank has consistently re-viewed the effectiveness of vari-ous feedback channels and as result the Viewpoint feedback form has been introduced in 2009 across outlets. Through this mode, customers have the option to give their feedback to the branch staff

or mail these directly to the Cus-tomer Care Unit through mail, postage free.

Results Achieved The approaches discussed above along with suitable deploy-ment with regular assessment re-views has helped to achieve the planned results across different

facets. Due to the ef-forts of Customer Care Unit and front-line staff backed with the active support of senior manage-ment, there has been a steady in-crease in the num-ber of customer feedback record-ed. Increasing feedback does not necessarily im-ply that more customers are un-happy; rather it is the confidence level of the customers which mo-tivates them to express their feed-back without hindrance. As can be gauged from the table below, the % of Category ‘A’ complaints to the total feedback received has consistently reduced since 2006 i.e. there are fewer complaints, due to error/delay at UNB, in proportion to the total feed-back received. This further implies that learning and effec-tive action plan-ning have ensured prevention of recur-rence of the same type of complaints.

Table above depicts the cate-gory-wise break-up of customer feedback during the period 2006-2009.

Category-wise trend of Customer Feedback in (%) The total feedback received has grown stedily since 2006 as shown in the graph above.

% Increase in the Re-ceipt of Customer Feed-back Based on the automation and review of process, the turnaround time of customer feedback resolu-tion within the prescribed SLAs has steadily improved as evi-denced in the graphs below:

Trend of Customer Feedback Resolution within SLA (%) Faster turnaround time, keep-ing customer informed about the status and proper addressal of the feedback by meeting the needs of the customers has resulted in im-proved satisfaction with he feed-back resolution process. Please see graph below:

Customer Satisfaction with Feedback resolu-tion (%) Beginning primarily with Re-tail Banking in the year 2000, the scope of the Customer Feedback

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management process has steadily increased to cover the following additional areas of business:• Corporate Business• Union Brokerage Company (UNB subsidiary)

• Al Wifaq Finance Company (UNB subsidiary)• UNB Egypt (UNB subsidiary)

Conclusion The Customer Feedback

mechanism provides substantial benefits to UNB and its clients. As explained earlier, it has provided an opportunity to review and im-prove our products, processes, services, policies and also deepen our relationships with customers. Customer Feedback helps us to keep in touch with emerging trends & changing customers’ expectations besides providing competitive intelligence and in-forming us about the industry. We are grateful and thankful to the multitude of customers/patrons who complain as it gives us another opportunity to turn things around and convert their bad experience into a mutual win-win situation for both of us.

“Winning the DQA honour is yet another affirmation of UNB’s consistent commitment to quality and business excellence initiatives. Excellence in performance and success is a handiwork of carefully orchestrated strategy over a period of time in which the entire organisation is committed. Leadership plays a key role but the area of real action is always the interaction between the clients and the people of the organisation.“

Mohammad Nasr Abdeen

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UNION NATIONAL BANK

UAE EXCHANGE CENTRE LLCGLOBAL REMITTANCE LEADER

UAE Exchange Centre LLC, an ISO 9001:2008 Company, is a member of the nmc group, one of the leading business conglom-erates of the region with multi-farious activities. Established in 1980, UAE Exchange is one of the leading Exchange Houses in the Middle East, primarily focusing on Remittance (money transfers) and Foreign exchange (money ex-change). The company has seen unprecedented growth since then and has set new standards in the Global Remittance Industry. Its network spans across 5 conti-nents, spreading over 22 coun-tries through a strong network of over 483 direct offices worldwide. The Company’s work philoso-phy is built on its vision, set by its founders, His Excellency Abdulla Humaid Ali Al Mazroei, Chair-man and Dr. B. R. Shetty, MD & CEO which reflects in every ac-tion, and its operating strategy translates this philosophy into clearly defined precincts for cor-porate functioning. The company’s portfolio of services include remittance ser-vices, foreign currency services, cash collection services, wealth management services, payroll services, gifting services, travel & tours services, and other allied services. UAE Exchange’s work ethics is guided by its adherence to and faith in the 3 core values - Knowl-

edge, Integrity and Commitment and has evolved as “World’s Trusted Money Transferrer”. The company has successfully com-pleted 30 years with a strong hold in the remittance market with greater plans for the future. Some significant recognitions achieved over past few years include the prestigious Dubai Quality Award in 2009, Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award in 2009, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Makhtoum Business Award in 2008, Dubai Human Develop-ment Appreciation Programme in 2008, Dubai Quality Appreciation Programme in 2006, the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme’s Best Performing Outlet Award in 2006 and 2007, the Emirates Nation-als Development Program, the Human Resource Development Award of Sharjah Government and the STP Excellence Awards from Deutsche Bank in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Benefits of Applying for the DQALearning and improvement areas identified during the Award prep-aration process.• External Evaluation by the as-sessors which serves as a holistic assessment of the organization.• Areas for Improvement identi-fied in the feedback report pro-vided after the assessment served as a good tool for initiating im-provement in various areas. • Enhancing the UAE Exchange Brand in the regional business community.

Advice to Future Applicants• A self assessment and gap anal-ysis against the model will help to identify Areas for improvement. This assessment must be done on a regular basis to continuously improve the processe.• The core team for the docu-mentation must ideally be a cross functional team.

UAE Exchange’s work ethics is guided by its adherence to and faith in the 3 core values - Knowledge, Integrity and Commitment and has evolved as “World’s Trusted Money Trans-ferrer”. The company has successfully com-pleted 30 years with a strong hold in the re-mittance market with greater plans for the future.

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Profile

• Thorough understanding of the model.• Ensure organization wide Awareness about the excellence model.

Best Practice:“One UAE Exchange”UAE Exchange started expanding its reach into the global market in 2000 and a rapid expansion pro-cess was ventured in 2005. New markets were identified and de-veloped in different parts of the world resulting in its presence in 22 countries across five conti-nents. Each new market presented its own set of challenges in prod-uct customization, service deliv-ery, and customer expectations. The expansion also enlarged the UAE Exchange family to nearly 6,500 employees globally from 34 different nationalities. Today, at any given point in a day, at least one UAE Exchange branches is open World Wide. This far and wide presence poses challenges as well as provides opportunities. Despite being part of the same family, we are different in many ways across all geographies. This includes:• Organisational Diversity: In-cludes diversity on account of the unique composition in the form in which it operates in different ge-ographies.• Product Diversity: UAE Ex-change being a distributed retailer of transaction oriented financial services, offer Core Remittance Products, Currency trading, and Allied Products. The mix of these offerings differs in different coun-tries.• Customer Diversity: Global expansion not only brought in di-versified customer base, but also a customer base which was always on the move using UAE Exchange services at more than one location in different countries. The large number of customer we serve can broadly be categorized as Retail and Corporate. Retail further is segmented based on nationality

and their profile. Corporate also includes customers for remittance products, payroll solutions, Forex services, etc.

• People Diversity: Being a glob-al organization, UAE Exchange has multiplicity in characteristics of staff strength at various loca-tions. The challenges include staff composition, branch strength, staff movement, labor environ-ment, etc.

• Operational Diversity: Work-ing in different geographies poses operational challenges in competition, compliance environ-ment, difference in modalities etc.

With a history of service excel-lence, UAE Exchange is an estab-lished brand with a set of loyal customers. The strength of UAE Exchange lies in clear under-standing of customer needs and fulfilling their expectations. The customers expect same quality of service at any UAE Exchange branch they walk into including the look and feel.

It was identified that standard-ization of processes and effec-tive management of people was needed to ensure continued cus-tomer delight. The theme “One UAE Exchange” was formulated at this juncture to overcome this challenge. In line with the vision of ‘Connecting people across the globe’, One UAE Exchange refers to a Philosophy/idea where each employee considers them to be part of one large corporate fam-ily, and each customer expects the same world class treatment at every branch of UAE Exchange, all across the globe. One UAE Exchange provides us with a uni-fied identity defining how we are known, valued, and supported by the world. With One UAE Ex-change we identified the person-ality, behaviour, communication and symbolism to be used by us that will enable unique, identical, and consistent recognition by all stakeholders all over the world.

Results ExpectedThe results expected out of this initiative include:• For customers: Uniform qual-ity of service across all branches of UAE Exchange globally ensur-ing that customers get the same warmth, appearance and con-sistency irrespective of the time, place or the person rendering the service.• For employees: Introduction of standard processes, clear struc-ture and related career growth programs facilitating career growth for all staff, and ensuring equal opportunity.• For Organization: To provide standard customer service across all the location globally thus win-ning the customers confidence as a truly global player offering con-sistent service. To create a great sense of belonging and oneness among the employees.

Approach and Deployment: ONE UAE Exchange was un-veiled in September 2008 as a con-cept with the goal of achieving consistency in all our operations across the globe. Consistency in administrative structure, infra-structure, branding and market-ing, systems and processes thus ensuring consistent customer service standards wherever we operate. The One UAE Ex-change theme is implemented in a phased manner across all levels of the organisation. It started with the conception of the idea by the top management and is gradually getting percolated to all the levels in the Organization.

One UAE Exchange MeetThe One UAE Exchange theme was brought into action through a kick off meeting. It was a con-vention wherein all the Country heads, Function Heads and other key executives gathered in the presence of the Board of Direc-tors. The main objectives for this were:1. Launch of the theme One UAE

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UAE EXCHANGE

Exchange and a theme song with the addressing of the Chairman, MD & CEO and COO. This theme song is currently played in all our branches.2. Buy in of the theme by all the stakeholders.3. The Top Management came to-gether and discussed on the vari-ous possibilities of changes to be brought in the Organization.4. Adopt a global structure for effective utilization of global re-sources. To cope with the large scale ex-pansions, various initiatives were started under the umbrella of this theme. The leaders discussed about the market trend and fu-ture plans. It was decided that the standardization will be done from two angles viz. External and In-ternal.External Standardisation aims to homogenize the external look and feel of the company. All ele-ments external to the firm should meet with the same look and have similar expectations, whenever they come in contact with UAE Exchange, anywhere in the world. This involves, regulating look of the branches and offices, the ex-perience with the employees and any communication with out-ward agencies. Following were the initiatives to bring changes externally:1. Look and Feel:a) Branch Layout: The layout of the branches was redesigned and all the existing branches were re-furbished and the new branches were opened as per the new de-sign. This new design in layout helped in giving the branches a facelift and added much to its am-bience making the customers feel they are inside a mall. During the year 2008 and 2009, all the exist-ing branches were converted into the new design. .b) Signage and Boards. The sig-nage of the branches which was previously in red and light back-ground was changed across all

outlets globally with a new one. The current signage has the same logo in a background which is 40 % black with a backlight facility which makes it unique. c) Policy for Collaterals: This aimed at streamlining the usage of collaterals in the branches and thus making it uniform across all branches and facilitating op-timum utilization of space avail-able.d) Employee Appearance. The introduction of the staff uniform during 2009 uplifted the ambi-ence of branches. Staffs were provided with branded uniforms which bear the ‘X’, a unique fea-ture of UAE Exchange Logo. This also helped in achieving the fol-lowing among staff:• Creates a belongingness to the company• Representation of company and its standards

• Feeling of Equalitye) Customer Experience in the branches: One important initia-tive focusing on standardizing the customer experience in the branches was the introduction of Lobby Management. Each Branch was assigned with a Lobby Manager who is uniquely identified with an attire of a black blazer and “May I help you” name badges. This is essential since Lobby Service Staff should be easily distinguished for imme-diate assistance. 2. Communications: This fo-cused on standardizing any mode of communication which UAE Exchange made with the external world thus ensuring the consis-tency in the message conveyed. Advertisements, press releases, public hoardings and all other forms of external media where, UAE Exchange contacted the customer, standardisation was brought in terms of the content used and other practices. Internal Standardisation in-cludes systematic standardisation of a) branches, and b) regional of-

fices’ working. This focused on standardisation of the structure and the operations in both.1. Structure: Standardisation at the branch focused on bringing in a uniform structure across all branches. An operations structure was introduced which listed the hierarchy from the first staff at the branch to the Country Head man-aging the overall country opera-tions. This structure was custom-ized as required in each country of operations thus resulting in a standard branch operations struc-ture. This exercise was supported through standard documentation of operations manual and staff handbooks.2. Operations: At the branch, it is mainly the standardisation of transactions processing which is in place to a very large extent due to worldwide implementation of XCQ, transaction processing system. Further, to standardize the service delivery at each loca-tion, service quality standards are documented and implemented at all levels. At the Regional office, standardisation of processes and practices is be achieved by devel-oping systematic procedures that encapsualte all different scenari-os, which are flexible and modu-lar. The standardisation exercise is carried out by the focusing on three aspects of process manage-ment viz. operation –describing the way a process flows including all the activities involved detail-ing all processing and reporting activities; administration – de-scribing the way a process is man-aged handling responsibility and accountability, measuring prog-ress and ensuring quality and other requirements; and upda-tion – identifying the need for a change, managing the change and ensuring that the process is con-tinuously improved.

Few initiatives include:1. Structure: The major change was the formation of a Global Head Quarters (GHQ) based in Abu Dhabi, giving all country operations a separate status. This

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would enable the company to scale the services of GHQ to all other associates of UAE Exchange and country operations to be in-dependently focused on their op-erations. A layered structure was introduced into each country op-erations wherein, depending on

the size of operations, branches were grouped under an area with independent head to coordinate the operations. These area man-agers would further be driven by an Operations Head who would oversee the operations in total. For e.g., in 2009, the UAE Coun-try Operations was divided into 6 areas with an Area Manager for each, reporting to the Operations Head.2. Process Oriented Approach: It was decided that Processes needs to be managed and an analysis must be done to standardize them

while satisfying all local require-ments and managing intricacies. This will enable smooth manage-ment of processes and support systems, resulting in reducing re-dundancy and allowing detailed processes documentation with accessibility to all concerned. This

exercise was carried out wherein all the processes (Core, Support and Management) is documented in a format (Figure 1) and made available in a portal accessible by all.3. Employee Involvement: Em-ployee involvement got enhanced by way of ensuring that each of them takes part in value addition initiatives within the operations. As an example, the “Each One, Coach One” initiative – an initia-tive at the branch level wherein on a fortnightly basis, each staff at the branch is mentored by a su-

perior officer. This helps in devel-oping skills and knowledge and thereby empowering the staff to work in team within the branch. Certain topics are taken up and knowledge is tested and updated by the mentor.

Apart from this it is important for all the employees to under-stand their career development in the organization. Only then they will feel motivated to work towards that. Hence, a formalized Branch Operations Career Chart (Figure 10) has been introduced detailing the career growth pat-tern.4. Risk Management: Operat-ing in a financial services indus-try, risk is identified as an inte-gral part of the operations and a proper analysis of such risks is so as to not only counter them but also prevent the same from taking place. Risk Management System helps to inform better about the risks and control the same. Risk Areas have been identified based on the following classifications:• Compliance Risk • Credit Risk• Security RiskRisk Management System: The diagram depicts the system, which is performed in different phases. Evaluation is done based on this and we have developed a Risk Exposure table for the en-tire organization. The risks have been identified at all levels of Global Head Quarters, Country,

Figure 1. Process Capturing Format

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UAE EXCHANGE

Branch as well as our products & services. Apart from this it was identified that all employees need to be informed through proper communication and information sharing. For this purpose, Vigi-lante, a monthly issue from the Fraud Prevention & Investigation Dept. is uploaded on the intranet, which keeps the employees well informed on any issues related to Fraud, Risk Management, News, and Controls etc.Assessment and ReviewSubsequent to initial kick off meet :ONE UAE Exchange – UAE Man-agers Meet, November 2008A meeting of all the Managers of UAE Operations, in the presence of Board of Directors and GHQ Members, where panels of man-agers from different branches and departments discussed strat-egies, presented initiatives, and exchanged ideas ranging from business excellence, customer ser-vice, employee involvement, op-erational improvements to future opportunities. MD &CEO pre-sented the outstanding achieve-ment awards to best performing employees. The focused busi-ness discussions were followed by a cultural extravaganza pre-sented by our own home grown talent. The gifted artists of UAE Exchange team performed music recitals, skits, mime acts, etc and made the night memorable for ev-eryone present. The upbeat spirit of ONE UAE Exchange reverber-ated during the whole evening.

ONE UAE Exchange – Bank Notes Global Meet, December 2008Bank Notes Division of UAE Exchange today has grown to be a larger function contributing sizably to the revenue of the company. Indepen-dent Bank Notes Divi-sions are operational in most of our entities and their activities range from imports & exports of currencies, cash man-agement, monitoring

and managing retail foreign cur-rency sales, system controls, giv-ing guidance and valuable inputs to various operating units on for-eign currency trading, hedging and business development ac-tivities pertaining to Bank Notes trading. A Bank Notes Global Meet was conducted, in line with ONE UAE Exchange to share and discuss the opportunities to fuel the growth of the Bank Notes trading further and bring in op-erational synergy among various Bank Notes units across the globe.Resonance 2009 A three day work-shop in May 2009 which, as the name suggests brought together all the Op-erations Heads of the Global Head Quarters (GHQ) and the Coun-tries together. As its theme Resonance and motto ‘Matching frequencies and mul-tiplying results through global platforms and local flavours’ sug-gested, this workshop was a plat-form to create a unified UAE Ex-change Operations team by shar-ing knowledge and understand-ing varied work environments, and having serious discussions to develop ideas, implementation of which shall lead us closer to the concept and theme ONE UAE Ex-change and our goal of being the prime Exchange and Remittance

house of the globe. Major changes in the infrastructure and technol-ogy requirements were discussed. A complete Revamp of the XCQ System was initiated to make it more user-friendly.Reflex 2009On the occasion of completing 30 years of operation, an event – REFLEX was held in November 2009, to mark “30 years of Trust”. Reflex - A gathering of all the em-ployees in UAE, under a single roof, wherein the theme of One UAE Exchange was highlighted. It was a 2 day event, where all the employees came together and participated in numerous activi-ties. The launch of Branch Uni-form (an agenda finalized in kick off meeting) also took place in RE-FLEX ’09.Mini and Micro ResonanceFurther to the above listed events, at each country level, customized forms of the event Resonance was conducted involving top manage-

ment from GHQ. Mini and Micro Resonance conducted in Qatar and Bahrain operations is an ex-ample of the same.Result AchievedSome results attributable to the One UAE Exchange Initiative in-cludes:Process Improvements:1. Increased Staff Productivity: Initiatives like Lobby manage-ment and Staff Rostering helped in managing the customer queue

25


at the counters in a better manner. As such, every staff could com-plete more number of transactions with the help of Lobby Managers, resulting in increases productivity as given in Figure 4. With opti-mum staff throughout the work-ing hours, customers’ perception also improved on the waiting time to complete the transactions as given in Figure 5.

2. Reduced Queue Length: As a result of the efforts in managing the queue better through lobby management and staff roster-ing initiatives, the average queue length in all branches during the peak hours of a day has come down by approximately 50 %.3. Customer Base: The customer base of the UAE Exchange as at

the end of each year has grown up. This can be attributed to the ef-fectiveness of the initia-tives that has resulted in more presence in the market and the contin-ued quality of service as maintained by all UAE Exchange members con-tacting the cus-tomer. This is

further attributed by the survey and satisfaction results given in Figure 6. 4. DSES. UAE Ex-change branches in the UAE participate in the Dubai Service Excel-lence Scheme. The aver-age score of the branch-es during the period 2008 till 2010 is given

in the Fig-ure7. The in-crease in the scores dur-ing the 2009 and 2010 is attributed to the initiatives like Lobby M a n a g e -ment, Staff Uniform and other internal and external

standardisation initiatives5. Employee Satisfaction Results: The employee satisfaction survey conducted annually shows a posi-tive trend (Figure 8) during the year 2009 which is attributed to the various initiatives in standardiz-ing employ-ee appear-

ance and behavior. The effective-ness is further substantiated by the employee response in career growth opportunities (Figure 9) which shows a noticeable increase in their confidence during 2009 which is directly related to the ca-reer development programs initi-ated as a result of standardisation initiatives.

6. Rewards and Recognitions: Other achievements includes the recognition from various excel-lence bodies which include the Superbrands title in 2009 and 2010, the Customer Service Week Star Awards in 2010 and coveted Dubai Quality Award 2009.

Figure 10: Branch Operations Career Chart

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UAE EXCHANGE

Overview Madinat Jumeirah Resort provides the ultimate in luxury accommodation, facilities and experiences for our guests. Since the first stage of our opening in September 2003, we have grown to become one of the world’s most highly acclaimed destinations. During this time, we have managed many changes brought about by new facilities, services and technology, changing business and economic climate, as well as the local and international expansion of our Company, Jumeirah Group. Over the years, we have always maintained our commitment to exceeding our customers’ expectations through visionary leadership, guided strategy, caring for our people and continuously improving our guest experience. Our Resort comprises 874 guest rooms, suites and villas evenly divided among three grand boutique hotels: Mina A’Salam (MAS) our ‘Harbour of Peace’, Al Qasr (AQ) ‘The Palace’ and Dar Al Masyaf (DAM) our ‘Summer Houses’. We offer our guests a choice of 29 restaurant and bars, a traditional souk (with an additional 15 restaurants and bars under lease agreements and a 450 seat theatre), a state of the art conference and banqueting centre, a children’s club (Sinbads), a gymnasium with sporting and leisure facilities (The Quay

Healthclub), a spa and wellness centre (Talise) and buggy and water transport (abras) service across the 3.7km of our Resort.

Our Resort’s location in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, positions

us in one of the world’s most progressive tourism and hotel markets.Our Colleagues Our Resort is brought to life by our 3,000 people (our colleagues). We represent 78 different nationalities and pride ourselves on our diversity. Our Resort is made up of more than 100 different functional teams, broadly classified into operating and support departments with the former representing approximately 85% of our total colleague population. We invest significantly in the development and retention of our colleagues, whose commitment and dedication to service underpins the success of our guests’ experiences. We remain diligent in working on innovative ways in which to ensure colleague loyalty within our Company. As more competitors enter Dubai,

Madinat JumeirahUltimate in Luxury

Winning the Dubai Quality Award has also allowed us to benefit from increased brand recognition with the opportunity to lead our industry. Internally, our participation has fostered great pride within the Madinat Jumeirah team.

Profile

27

MADINAT JUMEIRAH

retaining our colleagues is one of our greatest challenges.Our Guests Our customers (our guests) come from local and international markets and chose our Resort for both leisure and business purpos-es. Our guests stay in our hotel rooms, suites or villas, dine in our restaurants or bars, attend confer-ences, theatre performances and events, visit our spa or become a member of our sports and leisure facilities. We also have clients who provide volume business to us in the form of bulk room nights or large conferences/events. We classify our customers by geo-graphical market segment and product alignment.

Our Partners A strong rapport exists be-tween our Resort and key sales partners who we work with to generate package details and drive one another’s businesses (e.g. tour operators, airlines and destination management com-

panies). We use a key account structure to ensure a central point of contact for these partners, al-lowing us to optimise the rela-tionship. Additional partners include key suppliers, retailers, contractors and Government de-partments with whom we work closely to deliver our products and services.

Benefits of Applying for the Dubai Quality Award• We applied for the Dubai Qual-ity Award with the goal of receiv-ing the evaluation of the Award assessors. The feedback docu-ment is perhaps the most cost-effective, value-added business consultation available in the mar-ket. The assessors were profes-sional, experienced and insight-ful. Their feedback raised the pri-ority of areas we had identified as both strengths and opportunities for our improvement.• The EFQM criteria for Excel-lence provide the very best over-all business system framework we have ever found or worked with. The model ensures we con-tinue to create and balance both short and long-term value for our stakeholders.• While it is an honour to win, the true value of our effort was founded in the opportunity to unite our team in systematically assessing our business.

• Winning the Dubai Qual-ity Award has also allowed us to benefit from increased brand rec-ognition with the opportunity to lead our industry. Internally, our participation has fostered great pride within the Madinat Jumei-rah team.Advice to Future Applicants• Ensure your team has a thor-

ough understanding of the Fun-damental Concepts of Excellence, RADAR and the EFQM Excel-lence Model.• Encourage a wide variety of team members to be involved in the self assessment procedures and the document compilation.• Ensure you select the appropri-ate award category to participate in, giving relativity to the extent of historic data your organization has available and the outcome of a thorough self assessment.• Be prepared to embrace change, be disciplined, objective-ly assess your organization, main-tain momentum among all team members and continually reiter-ate the essence of the purpose of your participation: for Madinat Jumeirah, it wasn’t about the “award”; it was the opportunity to identify, prioritise and drive sustainable business improve-ment.

Best Practice: Setting, Cascading & Deploying Strategy

Our Culture of Excellence We manage our business using a scorecard that focuses on targets and milestones under the head-ing of our three Wildly Important Goals (our “WIGs”). We identify lead and lag measures, set targets, monitor success, learn from short-falls and use our WIG terminol-ogy to translate our wider strat-egy into operational terms. Our WIGs and associated approaches to strategy deployment ensure all colleagues’ understanding and awareness of their role in deliver-ing our Resort’s purpose. Continuous improvement sits at the core of our Resort’s opera-tion. We have established a range of tools to support our commit-ment to excellence, including sur-veys, mystery guest assessments, a balanced scorecard approach, departmental and personal ob-jectives, performance appraisals, departmental trainers, planned

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preventative maintenance, project management, colleague innova-tion scheme, cross-functional wel-fare committees, inter-Company meetings and working parties. Our Company formally adopted the EFQM Excellence model in 2003 upon which we base our overall approach and related tools. Since our opening six years ago, Madinat Jumeirah Resort has been widely decorated with awards and accolades in recogni-tion of our efforts in continually delivering upon our strategic ob-jectives.

Our WIGs In 2008, as part of our strate-gic planning for the coming year, leaders across our Resort united to review our Resort Mission and clarify a common purpose in consideration of our guests, our colleagues, our partners and our owner. In doing so, we collected feedback from all stakeholder groups and evaluated the long term ambition of our Resort. We incorporated lessons learned from self assessments of our leadership style and 360 degree feedback. The two day review was external-ly facilitated and complimented by extracts from our Great Lead-ers training programme. On com-pletion of the review, our Resort’s senior leaders defined the pur-pose for Madinat Jumeirah and established a methodology for in-tegrating this into our culture and daily working life. Our purpose is internally re-ferred to as our “Resort WIGs” and has since developed under the umbrella of a long-term auda-cious goal. Having historically operated as a collection of individual busi-ness units, identifying ourselves as three grand boutique hotels, our short and long term strategic goals unite our Resort’s leader-ship team through a common un-derstanding of what we are col-lectively aiming to achieve.

Gathering information for our strategy

To initiate our annual review of strategy, we consult with owners on their needs and expectations. Our owner’s requirements are incorporated into our Company Top 5, One Page Plan and Bal-anced Scorecard, which in turn are cascaded to our Resort as the basis for our own projections and strategic planning.

In order to understand current and future needs of our stake-holders we use various means to collect information including customer feedback sources, fu-ture market positioning reports, projected market share and stake-holder loyalty information. Re-search material is gathered across our Company and within our Re-sort on markets, segments, current and future trends, international and local projections, competitor activity and opportunities. We have reviewed and im-proved our approach to informa-tion gathering for our strategic and business reviews. Improve-ments have been aligned to struc-tural changes in our organisation chart including for example, the centralised function of our Hu-man Resources team allowing a more co-ordinated approach to collecting top issues affecting col-league satisfaction and morale. Similarly, in 2007 we centralised the collection of guest feedback to better identify Resort-wide

trends.

Information collection is an ongoing process throughout all functions of our business. In some cases, data is compiled centrally and distributed. For example, our guest feedback and satisfac-tion ratings are maintained by our Business Excellence department, new technology concepts are reg-ularly brought forward from our IT function, consolidated profit

and loss results are compiled by our Finance team, competitor oc-cupancy and rate performance is centralised within our Revenue Management Department while colleague feedback and training records are collated and reported by our Human Resources and Learning and Development func-tions. While this information is compiled independently, it is re-viewed collaboratively during our Strategy and Leadership team meetings.

Developing our strategy

In the final quarter of the year, our Company’s Executive Team, led by an external strategy con-sultant, reviews and finalises the Company top priorities for the year ahead and develops an as-sociated global communications plan. Our Resort Leaders provide input to these plans in the form of a SWOT analysis and a summary of the key projects of importance to the coming year. The Compa-

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ny’s top-level strategy plan and objectives are communicated to our Resort leaders in an annual meeting. To ensure alignment, this strategy is cascaded into our overall Resort WIG plan and in turn to our supporting functional and operating plans.

Communicating our policy & strategy

At Resort level, our strategy reflects priorities specific to our stakeholders, guided by the ex-pectations of our Company and owner. This same methodology is used to align our Resort WIG plans and objectives with depart-mental requirements and priori-ties. Leaders act autonomously to identify the strategic priorities rel-evant to their areas of responsibil-ity, while also being guided by the requirements they contributed to our Resort WIG plan. Our WIGs are used as a means of translating and cascading strat-egy from a Company level to our Resort, throughout departments to all colleagues. At Resort level, we communi-cate our WIGs and revised targets through a series of workshops to middle management and in turn a dedicated forum to reach all col-leagues. Furthermore, informa-tion relating to strategy is stored centrally within our Company in-tranet available to all colleagues, as well as on notice boards, dur-ing briefings, on our internal plas-ma televisions, within training

material and resort-wide commu-nication meetings. In review of the success of previous years’ communication plans, we discovered the need to simplify the content of our stra-tegic plans to appeal to a wider audience; it was with this insight that we launched WIGs across our Resort. In addition to communicat-ing our policies and strategy in-ternally, we also share relevant elements with our key external stakeholders, namely our guests and our partners. Four key disciplines are ad-opted at Resort level and across all departments underpinning the success of our WIGs. Weekly WIG sessions ensure these disciplines are in place and are systematic in that each session commits to the below:

Our WIG sessions help us to ensure accountability, retain focus on the ‘wildly important’, learn from the success or failures of our activities, support the participa-tion of all colleagues, identify best practices, test and reinforce the re-lationships between our lead and lag measures and track progress against the targets we set.

Aligning performance with incentives

Our network of lead measures across all individual teams within our Resort is used to monitor the expected performance of our lag measures (our WIGs). Our Lead Measures are aligned to our Com-pany incentive plan wherein both Resort-wide and individual de-partment targets are established and tracked weekly. Four KPIs are set each quarter - two Resort KPIs are shared by all colleagues while the remaining two KPIs pertain directly to individual team per-formance. This system ensures all colleagues are aware of how their

MADINAT JUMEIRAH

During the first step of the WIG session, lead-ers and colleagues alike, join in “celebrating suc-cess” followed by a re-view of the scorecard of lead measures and then a third step whereby team members are encouraged to “clear the path” for one another of any obstacles to achieving the WIG. Each colleague’s commit-ment is recorded and pub-lished.

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actions not only contribute to the overall Resort strategy, but also to how their performance is aligned to their own personal financial gain.

Demonstrating the suc-cess of our strategy

The success of our Strategy is measured in terms of the targets achieved and the incentive pay-

ment awarded. Each quarter we review our measures and elect whether to amend targets in ac-cordance with changes in business or market conditions. Measures can also be changed to reflect a new initiative across the Resort or within an individual team.

Performance Results

The following charts provide an example of the success of our

strategy deployment. Our Resort has successfully over penetrated the market in every year of opera-tion, exceeding benchmarks and our own internal targets. This has delivered a year on year increase in Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) since our opening, with the exception of 2009 where re-sults exceeded targets despite the global financial challenges of this period.


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About Idama Idama Facility Services (Idama) is a provider of integrated facility management services. Our main objective is to make a difference by raising the standards of fa-cility management services to a level that preserves the quality of our clients assets, enhance their return on investment, add value to their brand and improve their overall business performance. Idama has been formed in 2004, with the aim of managing facilities of large scale develop-ment projects of Dubai Proper-ties and Dubai Holding. We assist our clients to focus on their core competencies and leave facility management activities to us. Our job starts from identifying clients facilities management needs at design stage and ends with deliv-ery of services. Our end-to-end fa-cility management model is built on the foundations of delivering world class facility service to our clients. Our integrated facilities man-agement services starts from facil-ity design & system requirement reviews at pre-construction stage to delivery of facilities manage-ment services. With early involve-ment at the start of a building design or at construction stage, knowledge-based reviews from the facilities management per-spective enable us to help design and deliver technical solutions that are specific to the needs and goals of a particular facility.

Our Customer Base Currently, Idama has the re-sponsibility of managing the in-ternationally admired facilities

of Dubai Media and Technology Free Zone Authority (TECOM), which include the Dubai Internet City, the Dubai Media City and Knowledge Village; as well as the

Dubai Healthcare City, Jumeirah Beach Residence etc.

• RTA• MAF Group (Mall of Emirates) • Du • Mohammed Bin Rashid• Establishment for Young• Business Leaders

• Dubai Mercantile Exchange • Dubai Marina Mall • Aswaaq

• Emcredit • Goldman Sacs • Credit Suisse • Bloomberg • CBRE • Nokia • Dubai Investment Group • Dubai TV • Middle East Broad-casting • Microsoft • Oracle • 1000+ business partnersOur End-to-End Business Model I d a m a is one of the leading providers of inte-grated facility man-

agement services in the country. Our most important objective is to continually exceed our clients increasing expectations. Our end-to-end facility management mod-el is a new way of thinking about

Idama Facilities ServicesThink Harder – Work Smarter

Profile

32


managing facilities in a corporate environment. As such, it repre-sents a major change in how cor-porations view their facilities and the delivery of facility support services. Instead of maintaining these assets at an increasing cost, corporations can use end -to-end facility management approach to make these assets more efficient, free their own personnel to focus on core business, and leverage the resources of a facilities expert to continuously improve service performance.

Our Service Offerings Our integrated facilities man-agement services start from mo-bilization service reviews at con-struction stage to delivery of fa-cility management services. Our integrated service offering helps developers/owners in meeting their goals, reduce risks and opti-mize long term value of the facil-ity.

1. Mobilization

2. Facility Planning

3. Facility Management Services

4. Maintenance of Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing systems

5. Specialized Systems Maintenance

6. Space Management & Fit-Out Services

7. Customer Care Centre

8. Housekeeping & Pest Control

9. Waste Management

10.Landscaping The above services are sup-

ported by The Link – our 24/7 customer service center.

Beneifits of Applying for the DQA• Enhances understanding and applicability of the Excellence model across the business. • Self Assessments provide the opportunity to objectively review the organization’s enablers and activities to drive continuous im-

provement. • Renews spirit of team work across all layers of the organiza-tion. • Provides an independent and unbiased assessment of the orga-nization.

Advice to Future Applicants• The DQA/DHDA preparation and assessment process should be taken as a journey towards im-proving functions, rather than as an end in itself.• Adopt a strong commitment towards excellence that can only be accomplished through cascad-ing the culture across all tiers of the organization. • Ensure added clarity of the business and its operating model within the submission so that as-sessors can provide more accurate reports.

Best Practice:

Enhancing Client Cost Efficiencies

Introduction Idama’s main business strategy is to differentiate itself by provid-ing its customers with a ‘one stop’

2009 Key Focus Areas

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solution for their facility man-agement (FM) needs. This is il-lustrated throughout its business approach, philosophy and brand proposition; ‘we focus on build-ing relationships and understand-ing customer requirements, while delivering valuable services’. Idama’s strategy is highlighted at each point of customer interaction by providing unmatched FM ser-vices. Idama’s fundamental policy is to understand and address clients needs. This is why each of its key clients have a dedicated Account Director and operational team who ensure seamless communi-cation and interaction, gauging needs, identifying FM challenges and deploying appropriate solu-tions to meet requirements. This critical relationship facilitates Idama’s strategy by providing clients with tailored FM solutions to improve the quality of assets, adding value to their brand and maximizing their return on in-vestment. Assessing the impact of new market environment was part of Idama’s 2009 annual strategic planning process, where manage-ment studied the possible effect on priorities of existing clients, client partnerships and the long term health of its operations. Fol-lowing an annual strategic retreat with senior and middle manage-ment, five Key Focus Areas (KFA) were identified. Cross-functional task forces were established to develop de-tailed implementation plans for each KFA. “Cost Efficiencies” had an elected task force comprising of a cross-section of roles including operational and facility manag-ers, technicians, and key out-sourced suppliers; each group bringing in valuable insight and unique expertise. The team stud-ied each FM service that Idama of-fered, and brainstormed on how processes, delivery schedules and equipment maintenance could be optimized to achieve tangible cost savings. This exercise led to shar-

ing of useful best practices across Accounts.

The Solutions

Energy Management Energy management is a core service that Idama offers to its

clients. This service helps clients achieve significant energy sav-ings and ensure optimum use of renewable energy.

Efficient Lighting Sys-tems The Idama engineering team conducted a detailed analysis of lighting systems used across clients’ buildings/premises and subsequently implemented in-

novative engineering techniques to modify equipment and/or op-erating patterns to ensure reduc-tion in overall energy consump-tion. The analysis concluded with the recommendation to use lamps that consume less electric-ity such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and environmen-

tally friendly light emitting di-ode (LED) corms. These lights have a longer life span; 2 years as opposed to 6 months for halo-gen lamps, thereby reducing the amount spent on replacements.As a result of this exercise, halo-gen lamps have been replaced with more efficient CFL and LED lights across majority of the Ac-counts. Within our commercial projects, this has resulted in en-ergy cost savings of upto 89%. At

IDAMA

34

Jumeirah Beach Residences, 78% energy reduction and 82% energy cost saving were achieved. Similar exercises were carried out across our residential projects,

specifically the car park and com-mon areas. The Idama team iden-tified areas with excessive light-ing (eg. near windows and doors) and implemented solutions to op-timize energy utilization. This led to reduction in lamps used - 60% in car parks and 20% in common areas with cumulative energy re-duction of 78% and energy cost savings of 60%.In addition to this, the costs asso-ciate with light replacements have been significantly reduced. Occupancy Sensors Occupancy Sensors are used to control lighting systems and switch off groups of lights if mo-

tion is not detected for more than 5-10 minutes. This provides an ad-ditional opportunity of improved energy cost savings without com-

promising on the level of lighting across client sites. Occupancy Sensors have been installed across some of our resi-dential communities and prelimi-nary numbers indicate energy

cost savings of up to 80%.Occupancy Sensors installed across some of our key com-mercial accounts as well which have led to costs savings of AED 150,000/year.

Optimum Cooling Systems A study of the energy consump-tion through Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems was carried out by Idama engineering. Taking into account the change of temperatures across seasons, the exercise caused a revi-sion in the set point FCU’s in com-mon areas without compromising on the comfort of tenants, lead-

ing to direct cumulative energy cost savings of AED 5 – 7 million.

Water Conservation Water SaversWith a goal to maximize water conser-vation and m i n i m i z e operational costs, Idama has part-nered with

its clients and installed water savers across their premises. Without compromising on us-ers comfort, ultra low water sav-ers were installed in wash basin taps and water restrictors for shattaf that restrict water flow from 7.6 to 1.9 liters per minute.At some of our key commercial ac-counts, the installation costs were recovered within only 22 days and annual cost savings are esti-mated to reach AED 2.6 million. Recycle Water for Irrigation Idama has replaced the use of fresh water with treated wa-ter (Grey Water) in the irriga-tion systems for landscaping of several Accounts. In addition to ensuring the responsible use of natural resources and reduced use of chemical fertilizers, this exercise helps clients save more than 75% of the total cost of water. As a result of this change, our commercial accounts has achieved a cumulative cost saving of AED 3.921 Million to date or approxi-mately 87% reduction in costs.

Process Improvements Idama’s Process Priority Ma-trix has been developed to pri-oritize improvement opportuni-ties in Business Processes that will ensure process optimization, causing significant positive im-pact on Idama’s cost model. The matrix evaluates each process and its improvement opportunities on the 5 areas as shown above. In 2009, the following process improvements were prioritized to ensure cost savings acrossoperations.


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Modification in Operational Patterns. Idama studies clients’ prem-ises to identify “hot spots” (times of day when maximum activity is observed in common areas) to

maximize quality of cleanliness while providing clients with cost effective solutions. For example, washroom activity is increased during prayer times. As a result, the Idama team developed a suit-able cleaning schedule to ensure thorough care is given to the hot spots at these times. To date, Idama has achieved at least 28% of cost savings on the overall main-tenance contracts for its clients.

Equipment Maintenance – Thermographic Camera’s Idama studied the potential to use technology for planned preventive maintenance (PPM), in order to optimize on delivery costs for fixed jobs within the cli-ent maintenance agreement. As a result the 2008 Business Plan in-cluded the review and implemen-tation of PPM tools. This included the implementation of thermo-graphic cameras for effective and efficient planning of PPM. The camera enables the technical team to view and identify abnormal heating of electrical and electron-ic equipment and pro-actively maintain these areas, prolonging the life of equipment, reducing failure or reactive maintenance.

By being able to detect even the smallest electrical problems, Idama electricians can detect po-tential issues before they become serious. Identifying problems early enable our clients to elimi-nate costly emergency repairs

or equipment replacements, and eliminate emergency shutdown of their businesses. By reducing the chances of downtime to a cou-ple hours or weeks, we enable our

clients to save cost of repairs and lost business.

Adding value to customers through supply chain partnerships Development of ‘Strategic Part-nerships’ is one of the Key Ways by which Idama meets stakehold-er expectations. Idama’s supplier relationship management frame-work enables the team to work closely with outsourced suppliers to enhance the quality of services provided. This ensures custom-

ers receive consistent quality of integrated FM services with opti-mized costs. For example, imple-mentation of our partnership ap-proach for cleaning services has resulted in cost saving of approxi-mately AED 7 Million in contrac-

tual value which we have extend-ed to our customers as well. In ad-dition to this, an increased score of customer satisfaction results is achieved.

Enhanced CustomerSatisfaction Idama’s strategic approach to achieve customer satisfaction is driven by its commitment to un-derstand and continuously im-prove the response to meet cus-tomer needs and expectations. As detailed above, Idama ana-lyzes its client needs, premises, brand image and customizes FM solutions to meet these require-ments. As a result, Idama has maintained 100% client retention across all key accounts to date.

IDAMA

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DAFZA Overview Dubai Airport Free Zone (DAFZA) was established in 1996, and today it is one of the fastest growing free zones in the region. Over the years, the organization has provided connectivity and support to multinational com-panies from every continent, en-abling them to establish regional offices here in Dubai and capture the wealth of business opportuni-ties throughout neighboring mar-kets.As part of its environmental friendly superb infrastructure, DAFZA offers state-of-the-art of-fices, Light Industrial Units and land for foreign investors. Fur-ther, the costs of leasing these facilities have been standard and competitive. Total built-up areas exceed 311,000 square meters (12 buildings) and 256 light industrial units. Companies typically trad-ing in low volume, high value products such as telecommuni-cations & electronics, pharma-ceuticals, aviation and logistics, jewellery and luxury goods find DAFZA the most attractive hub due to its strategic location in Dubai City near the Airport.

Products DAFZA offers tangible prod-ucts such as building offices, light industrial units and intangible products (services) that include interior decoration design, facili-ties management (maintenance,

cleaning and security), telecom-munication services (telephone, fax and internet lines), commer-cial services (such as visas, resi-

dency, labor and health cards). Some intangible services are of-fered through requests submitted by tenants online via Tas’heel Sys-tem.

Commitment to quality Driven by its corporate val-ues , DAFZA has over the years emphasized the importance of quality in every product and ser-vice it offers, and was the first free zone to receive the coveted ISO 9001 certification for qual-ity from the largest certification body in the world “SGS”. In the year 2002, DAFZA received two other awards: The Dubai Govern-ment Excellence award for Best Governmental Department went to the Sales & Marketing Depart-ment and the Best Website Award from the World Federation of Free Zones. It also won MELA in the Best Middle East Logistics Air-port Park category in 2006, 2007,

2008 & 2009. In 2010 DAFZA is ranked by FDI Magazine of Fi-nancial Times number 2 world wide and number 1 in the region as best economic free zone.

Continuous growth DAFZA has set its main cor-nerstones of operations to focus on customers and attracting for-eign direct investment. Serving more than 1300 companies em-ploying more than 10,000 people in 139,000 square meters of of-fice space, the numbers speak for themselves. The customers’ base increased rapidly as shown over the past 13 years and DAFZA has become one of the leading free zones in UAE under the direction of H.H. Sheikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum- the Chairman. DAFZA provides its custom-ers with the advantage of a stra-tegic location, a hub from which to access vibrant and fast grow-

Dubai Airport Free Zone (DAFZ)Commitment to Quality

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ing markets not only in UAE but across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. DAFZA boosts fast process-ing of paperwork, rapid customs clearance, a wealth of expertise amongst staff and a customer oriented approach to facilitating business for its tenants. DAFZA is committed to building and sus-taining long lasting partnership with its customers. Strategic Challenges DAFZA considers its strate-gic challenges as a driving thrust and an opportunity to grow and exceed the norms. Being located within the Airport parameters one of the strategic challenges faced by DAFZA is the safety and security of the airport. Another strategic challenge is the limita-tion of land space where DAFZA expansion is bound horizontally and vertically. Therefore, DAFZA has raised and continues to lever-age its regional class standards by enhancing service delivery process, increasing productiv-ity level, reducing overhead, and using best financial, human and technical resources and be results oriented organization. Organizational relationships DAFZA enjoys a good and pro-fessional relationship with key partners such as Immigration De-partment, Chamber of Commerce and Dubai Customs. DAFZA has provided to these partners free facilities and offices in the free zone to respond to customers’ re-quirements in most efficient man-ner. Suppliers are diversified and rewarded annually for good per-formance. Major contractors and consultants are awarded repeti-tive contracts. In 2008 DAFZA management based on the feedback engaged special agency to rebrand the name and enhance the marketing campaigns. The challenge was simply to make people aware of DAFZA’s name and services. In 2009 new brand name and logo was launched by his highness

the Chairman. Now DAFZA will focus more on the perception of what we mean to people of the so-ciety. DAFZA has a very good im-pact on Dubai Economy in par-ticular and UAE economy in gen-eral. DAFZA contributed 1.8 to GDP which is substantially good. Benefits of Applying for the DQA • Sustain the excellence culture within organizations. • Receive feedback report from independent assessors on organi-zation strength points and areas for improvement.• Create challenge within orga-nization to offer their best services and be ahead of competitors.• Benchmark processes and re-sults against best in class or in-dustry. Advice to Future Applicants • Start the excellence journey as soon as possible and record re-sults and involve everyone in the organization.• Look for the feedback report rather than the overall score. • Implement corrective actions immediately and seriously and seek continual improvement.• Benchmark results and set rea-sonable targets by learning from winning organizations. Best Practice 1:

Corporate Social Responsibility One of DAFZA core values is “social responsibility”, therefore, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been all the way one of DAFZA’s established activities. DAFZA leaders personally attend and participate in CSR projects to stimulate involvement and col-laboration. They are members of many councils and associations. DAFZA has a CSR policy and al-located special budget for CSR activities. DAFZA constantly con-

ducts outsourcing community surveys that cover consultants, legal entities, and people aiming at providing DAFZA with percep-tion data on its image in the soci-ety. DAFZA acts ethically and ex-changes information with cus-tomers on issues related to safety and environment. DAFZA regu-larly educate staff and tenants to build stronger awareness and re-inforce the culture of saving the environment and protecting the health of the community. This is done since 2005 through work-shops where DAFZA invite ten-ants to attend free of cost. DAFZA leaders promote sus-tainability through ‘go green’ ini-tiative and In 2009 & 2010 DAFZA launched two Business Awards related to the environment and safety among its tenants to pro-mote best practices in environ-ment and safety. The awards are addressed to tenants utilizing of-fices, warehouses and food court. The awards were launched and celebrated officially by DAFZA leadership. The awards aimed at educating the tenants on the im-portance of maintaining health, safety and environment at the workplace and to bring them to be in line with DAFZA HSE pol-icy. As a part of CSR DAFZA in-troduced the concept of green buildings even before being made mandatory by Dubai Municipal-ity. DAFZA has its own standard for maintaining sustainability in buildings and facilities which led it to win the Kingdom Award for Sustainable Initiatives in 2009 which is organized by KSA (Saudi Arabia) amongst GCC for demon-strating commitment to combat environmental challenges and sustain its environmental perfor-mance. DAFZA has sponsored the establishment of DCCV ‘Dubai Center for Corporate Values’ along with TECOM and DIFC to enhance and lead Corporate So-cial Responsibilities initiatives in Dubai.

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In 2006 and 2007 DAFZA achieved certification against the international standard ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) and OHSAS 18001 (Oc-cupational Health & Safety). The certification proves that DAFZA have maintained the health and safety of its people and tenants and managed its environmental aspects and related impacts such as wastes and consumption of power and water, which resulted in positive trend of reduction in power consumption i.e. reducing 5.4% in 2008 compared to 2007 which was recognized by DEWA. DAFZA also encourages custom-ers to protect the environment through the “recycling waste bins”, collecting and sending for recycling papers located in each buildings floors. DAFZA coordinate with UAE colleges and other institutions for internship programs. DAF-ZA provides opportunities to students to learn from its profes-sional staff through internship program. DAFZA have signed memorandum of understanding with some institutions for recruit-ing and training National em-ployees (Higher Colleges of Tech-nologies and Sharjah University). DAFZA hosted 97 internship stu-dents during 2007- 2009 and 38 summer trainees in the last two years. In 2009, DAFZA received an award of governments’ contribu-tions from H.H. SH. Nahayan for supporting educational institu-tions and development of Nation-al UAE students from colleges of technology. In line with the government’s Emiratization strategy, DAFZA creates many jobs for UAE Na-tional employees. 70% of DAFZA workforce is UAE citizens. DAF-ZA provide equal opportunities to employ people of different cultures from over 18 nationali-ties and both genders. DAFZA provide equal opportunity to its people to prosper and get promo-tion into leadership positions.

Based on DAFZA corporate values, DAFZA have had a con-sistent approach to sponsorship. It sponsored / was involved in various social and welfare activi-ties from 2005 till 2008 such as philanthropy, sponsorship, blood donation, clean up UAE. The amount of sponsorship has ex-ceeded 3 million AED since 2006. Most of DAFZA’s sponsorship is planned in line with Dubai Gov-ernment policy regarding social responsibility (eg. Dubai Cares, Dubai Metro, etc.) Best Practice 2:

Tasheel System One of DAFZA best practice stories is Tas’heel System. It is the online portal of DAFZA providing a one-stop solution to prospective clients looking to establish their companies in DAFZA and acting as a gateway for all their require-ments once the company is regis-tered (see below table for number of transactions performed via Ta-sheel System). Tasheel system which was de-veloped and implemented in 2001 is effectively used as a communi-

cation channel with the custom-ers for processing all customer requests. The range of services provided by Tas’heel covers the entire requirement of any custom-er starting from registering a new company till a company decides to terminate its license. The services include licensing, office leasing, security, car park-

ing, maintenance and employ-ment related services and even to the extent of providing services to clients’ employees’ needs for ser-vices at their residences. Tas’heel system is very user friendly mean-ing that users with basic web us-age knowledge can easily use the system. DAFZA also provide training for tenants on how to use the sys-tem. Major upgrade was done in 2009 to cope with growing num-ber of customers and services and in order to cater for transforma-tion stage to be in line with the e- government initiatives. Based on assessment and re-view of Tas’heel performance as a system, and a feedback received from tenants during customers surveys, in 2008, DAFZA lead-ers took a decision to do major upgrade to the system. This in-volved complete overhauling of the system including Hardware and the development platform (ASP.Net). A new workflow engine was incorporated within the system to facilitate workflow. As a re-sult, inclusion of this gave a true

reflection of the business process involved. The number of com-plaints reduced due to enhanced communication with customers and responding to their requests faster. The user has the ability to view the status/Location of each business process. The data mining software (Tasheel system), is now used to help evaluate and design new products and services.


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Brief overview

Established in Dubai 15 years ago, Danube Building Materials FZCO Danube has grown from a small trading firm in 1993 into one of the largest building mate-rials company in the region. The company has in stock more than 15,000 products and value added services in-house, and operates from its head offices in a 17,550 sq. ft. facility in Jafza North and 50,000 sq. ft. area in Jafza south, which both house warehouses, lo-gistics, kiln drying and a factory. The company operates from its global hubs, including 18 branch-es in the UAE and over ten loca-tions worldwide, and has record-ed revenue figures that crossed AED 1 billion in 2008. With a team of 1000 pluspeople working from strategic locations in Jebel Ali, Deira, Sharjah, Ajman, Abu Dhabi and Muscat, the company has been a part of the most pres-tigious projects of leading devel-oper such as Emaar, Nakheel and Arabtec, including Emirates Hills, Burj Al Arab, Shangri-La Hotel, Grand Hyatt, and a private palace in Muscat. Driven by Danube’s vision to provide customers an experience that will inspire them to transform their homes into a unique and personalized expression of them-selves, Danube launched ‘Danube BUILDMART’. It is a retail store concept that offers a personalised retail store experience with excel-lent service and design assistance, to help ‘do-it-yourself’ and ‘buy-

it-yourself’ customers redecorate their homes. It provides inspira-tion to discerning, quality-con-

scious buyers of interior decora-tive products and home fixtures through the colours and modern designs of the products it offers.

Our Vision

1. To improve the lifestyle of our customers by providing innovative products and ser vices2. To be the number one retailer of building materials globally;3. To be the most preferred

choice for customers by the year 2015.

Our Mission1. To operate 30 stores by 2010 and 100 stores globally by 2015;2. To set standards in service, quality, safety and environ ment 3. To provide our customers and the community with quality products at un matched prices to build their dream homes

DanubeRapid Strides Ahead

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To offer environment-friendly and innovative building materials and services to the construction industry “It is our pleasure to embark on the road to excellence guided by H. H. Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and we are very proud to have been given this recognition, which further af-firms our commitment towards excellence and to the region as a dynamic and ever-growing mar-

ket,” said Rizwan Sajan, Chair-man, Danube Building Materials. “This award is also a remarkable motivation for us to continue our efforts to secure further growth in terms of our manufacturing capa-bilities and expand our retail pres-ence in the region. We are com-mitted to continue implementing the DQA excellence model in our business.”

Benefits of Applying for the DQA We are confi-dent that with the DQAP certification will help in further strengthening our repute in the re-gional market. By remaining faith-ful to the stringent guidelines dictated by the Awards’ ex-cellence model, we are also positive that we will be able to sustain and further expand our business horizons in spite of the global economic slowdown. This rec-ognition also serves as a true inspiration for us in pursuing further efforts to exceed the expecta-tions of all the stake-holders. All these reasons add to the prestige that comes with being awarded this remarkable rec-ognition.

Advice to Future Applicants

Companies who are aiming to se-cure any certifica-tion from the ‘Dubai Quality Awards’ should strictly fol-low the Awards’ excellence model. Another important

factor to always consider is the repercussions of every decision made on all stakeholders. They should also establish strong poli-cies and strategies that comple-ment the values and standards being promoted by the ‘Dubai Quality Awards’.

Best Practice:Swimming against the waves During the crisis Danube had come up with a strategic move to expand and diversify the busi-ness instead of downsizing. Re-sults proves that it was best move and it was the result of a strategy called ‘turning the tables to your own advantage’.

Please see the expansion details.Number of new outlets opened in 2009 –1) Ras al Khaimah2) Ajman3) Alquoz4) Bahrain5) KSA6) DFC (Dubai festival city branch)7) Fujairah

Number of new outlets in 2010

1) Al Ain Bawadi mall2) IBN batuta mall3) Aweer

In the pipe line

1) India2) Delma mall Abudhabi 3) Dibba4) Pravasi India5) Bahrain The key benefits of open-ing the showrooms in economic


“It is our pleasure to em-bark on the road to excel-lence guided by H. H. Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and we are very proud to have been given this recognition, which fur-ther affirms our commit-ment towards excellence and to the region as a dynamic and ever-growing market,” said Rizwan Sajan, Chair-man, Danube Building Ma-terials. “This award is also a remarkable motivation for us to continue our efforts to secure further growth in terms of our manufacturing capabilities and expand our retail presence in the region. We are committed to contin-ue implementing the DQA excellence model in our busi-ness.”

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crunch is that the cost of the land and all related expenses are com-paratively less than that when the market was thriving and we could maintain the overall turnover of 1 billion of 2008 in 2009 too.

We have achieved 30 per cent growth in the first half of 2010, driven by massive expansion of its retail chain despite challenging market conditions.

The results underline its strength despite the challenges posed by the dwindling market as a result of the recent global fi-nancial crisis.

In addition to securing sig-nificant growth, the company has also undertaken major expansion initiatives which have expanded its market reach further across the region, as well as to India, one of the world’s fastest-growing econ-omies. Danube has been investing a hefty Dh200 million in expansion of its retail network under Build-mart branding that has helped it

reach new markets and new cus-tomers.

Diversification

Danube has successfully launched a new retail concept in the Middle Eastern Market called ‘Buildmart’, a mega store complex stocking a vast range of building materials and home inte-rior products under one roof with an innovative concept of selling to the end users. The first store was opened in RAK in UAE followed by Bahrain, Jeddah (KSA), Dubai Festival city and also renovating our existing store in Deira and Alfalah (Abu-Dhabi) to feature the new concept of selling. More stores in Fujairah, Ibn Batuta Mall in Dubai and Bawadi Mall in Al-Ain are due to open later this year, with 3 more stores to follow in 2010. The unique features of Build-Mart are: i) Single Source Solution (SSS) i.e all the building materials and home interiors under one roof. ii) Strategic locations of our

outlets providing easy access to all consumers. iii) Superior Quality and Unique product-mix at affordable competitive price. In fact DANUBE one of the few companies within its nature of business that continued ex-panding its business and hiring new people to fill new positions in spite of all odds. Even in 2009 during reces-sion when most of the companies have down sized their operations, DANUBE has expanded its op-erations by adding 7 new show-rooms and thereby has increased its workforce in 2009 by 35%. DANUBE was able to main-tain the growth because of the network and the number of prod-ucts that it deals with. The greatest challenges that DANUBE faced during the re-cent economic crisis was closure of many construction projects but still DANUBE expanded its busi-ness into KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

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The Apparel Group is a global fashion and lifestyle brand con-glomerate residing on the cross-roads of modern economy – Dubai UAE. The mercurial growth in the last 12 years has seen it acquiring a host of world class fashion la-bels from around the world– Nine West, Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole, Bally, Charles & Keith, Aldo, Dune, Aeropostale, Naturalizer, Skechers just to name a few. Today the group caters to thou-sands of eager fashion conscious shoppers through its 575+ brand-ed stores, employing over 4,500+ multi-cultural well informed staff. Apparel believes it is where your dreams come alive – we give our customers, our stakeholders and employees an equal opportunity to do so. The business formula is simple. Happy & Loyal customers equals to healthy business growth. By bringing together various inter-national brands and setting up stores in every important location in the countries that we represent, the Apparel Group gave millions of customers the access to prod-ucts and services of supreme stan-dards and global aspirations. The business was built on solid groundwork. The Group had to master the complex science of lo-gistics and supply chain manage-ment, operations, IT and financial management systems, employee training and integration, cus-tomer service betterment and comprehensive real time manage-ment. A result-oriented customer

feedback system is followed to gauge customer satisfaction at all levels.

The Apparel Group draws on the strengths and prowess of its people. The team consists of in-dustry experts, professional sales staff, consultants, experienced managers, strong sales staff and service providers. It believes that future success and sustainable long term growth of the Group is dependent on its employees who are regarded as the most important stakeholder and busi-ness partners. As such the Group is committed to attracting, retain-ing and developing the most suit-able people and establishing an environment in which people are encouraged to realize their full potential. Today, the 4,500+ peo-ple employed within the Group are lending to its phenomenal growth. The team is regularly up-graded with in-house training – by senior staff members as well as professional consultants. Training is provided on various aspects to Apparel Sales Staff for

Apparel GroupGlobal Fashion Lifestyle Brand

The business formula is simple. Happy & Loyal customers equals to healthy business growth. By bringing together various international brands and setting up stores in every important location in the countries that we represent, the Apparel Group gave millions of customers the access to products and services of supreme standards and global aspirations.

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implementing a Best Customer Service platform via in class-room guidance & preparation, Mystery Shopping, On Floor Training, Product Knowledge Training, and through the re-investment in our Employees by the means of recre-ation. As a way of integrating the eco-nomic, social and environmental imperatives of business activities, the Apparel Group puts Corpo-rate Social Responsibility in every aspect possible. As responsible corporate citizens, the Group has initiated and successfully imple-mented a number of social drives which include blood donation camps, cleanliness drives, Breast cancer awareness, aiding children with special needs and others. With its footprint firmly set in the Gulf, the Apparel Group then leaped the regional boundaries to embark in the Global market. Cur-rently the Group runs retail oper-ations in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Poland, Russia, India, Sin-gapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Strategies are in place to enable markets such as Czech Re-public, Hungary, Pakistan, Egypt, and Philippines join their thread of operations. The ambition is to bring together all the top fashion brands of the world under the Apparel wing and to become the “Topmost Global Retailer”. Yes, it’s possible. And the way the Group is growing, it seems evident. The Apparel Group is all set to cross new barriers and cre-ate new benchmarks in the retail industry with its mission being to achieve the 1,000 retail store network mark by the year 2012. Surely recreating retailing history.Benefits of applying for DQA • The application to the DQAP provided us an indepen-dent assessment of the entire process and to objectively evalu-ate our strengths and weaknesses and to carry on the journey of im-proving our processes, operations while raising industry bench-

marks. • The application process allowed us to align the organiza-tional resources with corporate goals, strategy and vision. • The DQAP submission process contributed to a renewed spirit of team work within the col-leagues and a sense of achieve-ment and pride upon submission of the document. • Enhanced awareness of the business excellence model and concepts that boast a strong

focus on the implementation of best practices for continuous im-provement.

• The feedback from exter-nal and independent assessors is very valuable in terms of the areas for improvement and helps us to get to the next phase in the jour-ney towards quality.

Advice to Future Applicants:

• The DQAP preparation and assessment process should be taken as a journey towards im-proving functions and not just to win an award.

• The applicant organiza-tion should ensure that a dedicat-ed Business Excellence team is in

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place - is sponsored by members of the organization’s senior man-agement team – to support a busi-ness excellence culture. The said team should also be supported with cross functional team mem-bers to promote awareness and to bind the entire organization to-wards the quality journey. • Adopt a strong commit-ment towards excellence that can only be accomplished through cascading the culture across all levels of the organization. • Obtain memberships with local organizations such as the Dubai Quality Group for ac-cess to experienced applicants and professionals and also at-tend various seminars, working groups organized by the DQG. • Benchmark your organi-zations key performance matrices and processes to understand the achievements in the highlighted areas.

Best Practice:

Club Apparel-Our New Loyalty Program

APPROACH Right from the inception of the Group, Apparel has always believed in being unique and dif-ferentiates itself in whatever it does. This began with the year 1999, when Apparel introduced arguably the first fashion foot-wear brand “NINE WEST” to the Gulf market. From that day, the journey has never ended. The Group has been innovative in its approach and has always ad-opted the Blue Ocean Strategy in launching its various products, brands, programs to the wider customer spectrum. In its drive to provide the customers a much friendly, innovative and state of the art loyalty program, the group launched its new loyalty program titled “CLUB APPAREL” which is based on Near Field Communica-tions (NFC) technology. Apparel group has over the years committed to enhance SPEED in everything that it does. It is a culture that flows down from the senior management to the junior most executive within the company. SPEED is not only expected from the employees but is also integrated into the systems

and processes that are implement-ed within the company across all departments and functions. It is essentially a WAY OF LIFE at the

APPAREL GROUP. S- ServiceP- ProductivityE- EfficiencyE- EffectivenessD- Dedication It is with no doubt that when the idea of launching a LOYALTY PROGRAM for the Group was conceptualized in the year 2007, it had to be in coherence with the above two guiding principles.

PROCESS The two year evaluation & implementation program went through a careful thought pro-cess evaluating the pros and cons of the various alternatives avail-able in the market. Starting from the basic concept, the integration of the program to the company’s existing IT systems, the required back office infrastructure and manpower, ease of use for the customer and finally the cost in-volved amongst many others were the criterions that the Group was evaluating. The outcome of this process was to ensure the needs of all the stakeholders were met, keeping in mind the basic purpose for the in-ception of the plan: to reward and retain LOYAL CUSTOMERS and to cross-sell and up-sell between the various brands, products, product categories of the Group. • SPEED: The speed with which customers could enroll and redeem their points, with mini-mal or no hassles. NO CARDS ONLY REWARDS-the tag line of the program meant plastic-free loyalty program with instant re-wards and recognition. • ECO FRIENDLY: Since the program is totally paperless and works electronically with modern state of the art technolo-gy, there is no requirement of any


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paper collaterals or stationery.

• INNOVATIVEAND UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY: Apparel Group has grabbed the irst mover advantage to launch such a program in the re-gion. At the same time, the group maintains exclusivity of the tech-nology within the UAE block-ing out its competi-tion. The program has been developed on a distinctive system of recognizing custom-ers via their mobile numbers which makes it surprisingly simple and secure. Any de-tails regarding the membership can be accessed on the mem-bers’ mobile or club apparel website.

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS:As the program is directly linked with the software used at the Point of Sales (POS), it allows the company to monitor its customers buying

patterns and preferences, not only for individual purchases but also across different brands operated by the group. The data so collated through this loyalty program goes long way in understanding the Customers Nationality Mix, Age Distribution, Gender Mix to address the right products for the loyal customers and also how

to move the various customers across the different brands of the group etc.

• REFININGFUTURE BUYING PLANS:The above information helps the business managers in refin-ing their buys for the future and adapt quickly to the needs of their

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customers, directly resulting in business growth and more satis-fied customers.• REDEFININGGROUP IDENTITY:Over the years the company has grown to operate more than 35 brands across 275 stores in the UAE and 580+ stores globally. A lot of our customers know our individual brands but do not know the force behind them. CLUB APPAREL presents a great opportunity to tie in all our brands and let our customers take advantage across the range rath-er than just at individual brand stores. It gives the Group a very powerful identity and also helps customers to know where all they can redeem their rewards instant-ly.

THE LAUNCH • The biggest challenge for launching the program was that we currently operate in 14 coun-tries across the globe with 580+ stores across the network. How-ever, as Phase-1 of this project, we took the challenge of rolling the program across all 275 stores in the UAE and utilized our core strength of being the strongest marketing player in the retail in-dustry to our full a dvantage. Af-ter having finalized the technol-ogy and completing all the formal agreements with the vendor, the support partners (Etisalat and Du), we sat on the drawing board to draft our roll out plan. • The roll out of the pro-gram was a Staged Process with the ideology of having a pilot test run with couple of stores and brands. The idea was to ensure that once we do a formal launch of the program, it is completely foul-proof. As part of the pilot approach, the program went on a soft launch with the Group’s stores across the following 3 brands-Dune, Naturalizer and Charles & Keith effective from October 2009. The soft launch also helped us to improvise our early drafts of manuals, policies and

processes for Club Apparel. Once we were ready with these and had overcome all technical & opera-tional glitches, we started work-ing towards our grand launch. • After the initial success of the program, a grand market-ing & operations plan was drafted to launch the program across the UAE. An effective marketing & operations plan was conceived and executed with perfection, hand in glove with an extensive store by store & staff by staff train-ing. This was further followed up with a stringent post training module that was conducted fre-quently. The Group also engaged the services of professional loyal-ty Management Company to sup-port the success and efficient ad-ministration of the said program. FAQ and manuals were drafted for better knowledge and training of the staffs. • Periodic mystery audits were conducted to ensure and gauge the satisfaction levels of the customers with the new loyalty program. At the same time, those mystery checks would also check the orientation and knowledge of the staffs in educating the custom-ers about the benefits of this pro-gram. Once the audit results were positive, the new program was rolled across all 275 stores in the UAE. • The grand launch took place on the 23rd May 2010 at the Atlantis Hotel, Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. The event starred a fash-ion show featuring top models from the region and an Apparel House Party with all the brands being showcased at the venue. The event was very well received and media & business partners from across GCC & India graced this special occasion. Post launch an aggressive above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) plan was rolled. Interviews, press coverage and media articles were released in all major English, Ara-bic and Hindi Press, Magazines and Radio Channels. The market-ing impact results were clear as we achieved a laudable target of 20,000 memberships in less than a

fortnight. • Future plans include roll-ing of the program across GCC & all regions where Apparel Group has presence and commence-ment of Tier II in the UAE with launch of Gold & Black member-ships. Various benefits have been devised for the customer tiers to reward them and giving them the flexibility to choose their rewards. • We foresee stupendous growth in the number of our members in the near future and more power to this unique idea that is surely redefining the rules of the retail world.

RESULTS Since the soft launch of Club Apparel, the loyalty program has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of customer enrolments, redemption of loyalty points and repeat visits of the customers. From 53 customers enrolling for the Club Apparel loyalty pro-gram in December 2009, Apparel Group has come a long way today with 215,000+ customers enrolled and increasing.

We have recorded a splendid increase in the number of enrol-ments in June and we attribute it to our leader’s initiatives in build-ing strong relationships with our customers. We have recorded a great in-crease in Nationality Mix and all these analytical reports help us in big way in understanding our broader Market spectrum and tar-geting the untapped segments. The break-up of customers by age group helps us in deciding which new brands to target and how is the current brand portfolio meeting those target age group’s needs and requirements. In order to evaluate the success of the program, various analytics are used in terms of new custom-ers enrolled, new points awarded, repeat customer visits, repeat cus-tomer points, total points award-ed, total points redeemed etc.


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APPAREL

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Overview of Unibeton Ready Mix

Unibeton Ready Mix special-ises in the production, delivery and pumping of a broad range of concrete mixes that include self-compacting, high strength, heavy weight, light-weight, lean and in-sulating concrete as well as shot-crete, screed, etc. It is one of ten wholly owned subsidiaries of the Al Fara’a Integrated Construction Group (Al Fara’a) founded by Dr JR Gangaramani.

VisionTo be the first choice in sustain-able readymix solutions.MissionPractice social and corporate re-sponsibility by:• Establishing partnerships for mutual sustainable growth.• Leading in technological and environmental innovation.• Providing cost effective cus tomized solutions.• Delivering high quality prod ucts and valued services.

Values• Ethics• Exceeding expectations• Excellence• Entrepreneurship• Empowering employees• Emphasis on quality• Ensuring safety• Environmental leadership

• Enduring social investmentBenefits of applying for the Dubai Quality Award• Getting an opportunity to study the organizational systems taking a holistic view.• Learning about managing the business using the EFQM model.• Getting aware of the Areas for improvement through the Feedback Report.

• Being able to structure our im provements based on the EFQM model.Advice to future applicants

Do’s• Start preparations at least one year before.• Understand the model well. Train as many people as pos sible, on awareness of the model and the DQA process.• Do a gap analysis on your or ganization using the EFQM

model and the RADAR score as reference.• Make a correct choice whether to apply for DQA or DQAP.• Involve as many people as possible. Assign clear responsibilties.

• Encourage your staff to partici pate as assessors in the DQA process.• Make a comprehensive list of documentary evidence and data that you can support the submission with.Don’ts• Start the process by writing the submission document.• Falsify any data or information.• Use limited people in the submission process.

Unibeton ReadymixLeading Through Innovation

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History: Unibeton Ready Mix com-menced operations in Al Ain with Engineer Mohamed Shehadeh as its General Manager in 1995. As Unibeton progressed and ac-quired superior operational and supply capabilities, it extended its operations into Abu Dhabi in 1996 and then further to Dubai in 2003, where it contributed to the devel-opment of projects in the city and set up multiple batching plants at strategic locations. The company continues to grow in production, manpower, market segment and image. Unibeton’s volume of production has quadrupled from 1’million to 4’million cubic metres per year in the last five years. This increase was driven by the 15 fold increase in concrete sales in Dubai over the same period.

People: Unibeton’s business is sup-ported by around 3000 employees and workers, spread over 4 offices and various plants and construc-tion sites. Unibeton encourages diversity and equal opportunities by hav-ing in its employment, people of 32 nationalities with 5 Doctorates, 31 Post-graduates, 255 gradu-ates including 83 engineers, 52 trained vocationally, among other qualifications. These people are accommodated in 286 positions across the company. The remu-neration package of each person is decided on the value of the job and not on any other over-riding factor such as nationality, etc.Uni-beton invests in its human capital by sourcing the best talent from around the globe and continuous-ly providing excellent training.

Culture: The work ethos and culture of Unibeton is one of retrospection and continual improvement. This is demonstrated by its adoption of various international standards over time, such as ISO 9001: 2008, ISO 18001: 2007 and ISO 14001: 2004. The organization has also

recognized the EFQM model to become its foundation for sus-taiability in business excellence. Unibeton has been awarded with various accolades such as Sheikh Khalifa Industrial Award, DQAP, and 6 Stevie International Business Awards for achieve-ments through its various depart-ments.

Business strategy and plans: The key to Unibeton’s success has been its ability to adapt to the ever changing business landscape in the UAE. When management foresaw the impact of the world-wide liquidity crisis on Dubai’s real estate and development sec-tors, they made the decision to rationalise expenses in Dubai and concentrate sales efforts on the Abu Dhabi market.Customers/serviceusers: Unibeton’s preferred custom-ers are predominantly major con-tractors who construct complex structures and therefore require advanced concrete products and related pumping expertise. Uni-beton aims to acquire, maintain and maximise long term customer

relationships and has developed a comprehensive system for moni-toring the effectiveness of its sales and supply processes.

Over the years, Unibeton has achieved a solid track record of having supplied concrete to the most prestigious projects in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which include: Sheikh Zayed Bridge, Landmark Tower (16,000m³ single pour), Saadiyat Bridge, Garhoud Bridge, the Ferrari F1 Racetrack, Al Attar Tower (20,000m³ single pour) and the Palm Jumeirah, Development. Today, Unibeton is the largest supplier to the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). Uni-beton is the nominated supplier to MS Asteco, which has devel-oped a wide spectrum of projects in Dubai Marina, Palm Island and Jumeirah Lake Towers. Unibeton is also the nominated supplier to Emal, the Emirates Aluminium Smelter in Taweelah.

Partners: Unibeton’s leadershipcontinu-ally develops and nurtures stra-tegic partnerships that span all spheres of the business. These partnerships not only include customers, but also master de-velopers, global technology part-ners, global academic institutions, world-class suppliers, govern-ment organisations and non-profit organisations, etc. such as Ecosmart from Canada on green concrete development in UAE and the Emirates Green Building Council.

Best Practice:

Sustainable readymix solutions It is a known fact that the ce-ment and concrete industry, by the nature of its product, is one of the causes of pollution in the world. The Portland cement clin-ker manufacturing process releas-es 0.7 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of clinker. Currently, worldwide the concrete industry uses approxi-mately 4.5 billion tons of cement

Unibeton encourages diversity and equal opportunities by hav-ing in its employment, people of 32 nationali-ties with 5 Doctorates, 31 Post-graduates, 255 graduates including 83 engineers, 52 trained vo-cationally, among other qualifications. These people are accommo-dated in 286 positions across the company.


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annually.

Being aware and conscious of this huge environmental impact, Unibeton’s focus as a responsible corporate citizen is to minimize its influence on the environment and to provide sustainable ready-mix solutions to its clients.

Taking this forward and fol-lowing the vision and mission, the leaders made the following strategic decisions:

• All waste material from the production process of con-crete shall be managed in-house and recycled.

• Major research and de-velopment on concrete products shall be conducted in-house.

• Unibeton shall champion the cause of using Green concrete as the product of the future, in all business locations.

As a result of these deci-sions, many initiatives have been planned and implemented and are given in a concise form below:

Waste management and Recycling. There are 2 types of major wastes resulting from a concrete production and delivery process: Waste concrete and Waste water.

• Recycling of wasteconcrete The concrete that is left as a re-sidual in the transit mixer trucks after delivery was washed out from them in the batching plants and third party trucks had to be called in to collect the waste for disposal. Firstly, this involved storage of the waste concrete and secondly the removal was a major cost to the Company.

Thence, it was decided to man-age the waste in-house. The pro-cess used is to separate thewater fromthe aggregates and sand.

Unibeton designed and devel-oped the first aggregates recycling

system in the Gulf region based on the rotary classifi-er that allows for a cleaner process, it is safer to use and is more efficient in operations. These aggregates (size 5, 10, 20mm) are recycled into the production pro-cess, saving ap-prox. 20,800 USD per month. This process also pre-cludes the usual practice of dispos-ing off the aggre-gates in landfills thereby protect-ing the earth and environment.

Unibeton also designed and de-veloped the first Dune Sand Clas-sifier system in the Gulf region that allows reclaiming the Dune sand from the sludge waste and is re-used in the production of con-crete. This also further minimizes

the generation of sludge waste quantity. The incorporation of this process has brought in savings of 20,000 USD per month, as a result of saving on the cost of dune sand that is used as raw material.• Recycling of wastewater The waste water results from the washing of the transit mixer trucks. This water is channelled into lagoons near the washing bays.

Initially, this water was re-moved by disposal trucks by a third party who treated the water to a level of having an acceptable limit of pollutants. This proce-dure not only incurred a cost to the Company, but also polluted the earth and sea as the water was either disposed on the land or dumped in the sea.

Currently, the waste water is treated in the in-house developed

compact and automated Waste Water Treatment Plants (WTP). This treated water is reused as raw material in the operations.Also, partially WTP processed water is reused for cleaning the transit mixer trucks. This process

Unibeton’s leader-shipcontinually de-velops and nurtures strategic partnerships that span all spheres of the business. These partnerships not only include customers, but also master develop-ers, global technol-ogy partners, global academic institutions, world-class suppliers, government organisa-tions and non-profit organisations.

UNIBETON

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has resulted in ZERO discharge of waste water in the water bodies, thus avoiding pollution to them. Additionally, USD 50,800 per month is being saved from the cost of water as raw material and cleaning agent and also as cost of the treatment and waste water disposal.Research & Develop-ment and Innovation Unibeton, in its bid to proac-tively look for sustainable solu-tions, decided to build sophis-ticated state-of-the-art labs for research on product innovation and to produce the best mixes that cause the least pollution and are viable in the market.

Unibeton, in its bid to proac-tively look for sustainable so-

lutions, decided to invest in a continuous process of research and development. Technologi-cal advances consist of internal developments and external part-nerships. The Company also fo-cuses on process systemisation, quality control, environmentally-friendly (‘green’) technology and improvements that maximise the return on its investments. Uni-beton’s latest innovation is low carbon emission concrete (called green technology).

Not excluding the delivery process, a major innovative initia-tive is the inclusion of IBB probes in its transit mixer trucks. These innovations are reflected in the excellent quality of the end products. Unibeton has developed the most comprehensive material

testing capabilities in the region to ensure consistent and strict com-pliance with the most stringent specifications. Internal research laboratories have been built to global industry standards. Unibe-ton closely monitors each and every production phase with in-house laboratories coupled with quality control teams.

For several years, Uni-beton has been engaged in a series of research and de-velopment (R&D) projects on environmentally friendly (green) technology explora-tion and sustainable develop-ment. Unibeton is a commit-ted member of the Emirates Green Building Council and is certified to ISO 14001. Uni-beton is considered an in-

dustry leader in the field of green technology and has achieved sig-nificant progress towards sustain-able develop-ment.

The Company has employed world renowned experts in the field of concrete

to contribute to this develop-ment process. As a result, Uni-beton has been able to produce and test product mixes with least CO2 emissions while retaining all qualities of strength, stability and finish. It has researched on Green Concrete that has reduced carbon emission by 93% and has devel-oped capability to produce the same.

Another innovation is the de-velopment of concrete wood that has the same weight and has sim-ilar properties to teak hardwood in strength. Moreover, it has a greater fire resistance and is not eaten by insects, thereby mak-ing it more durable. The concrete wood can be used just like normal wood and saves the trees being cut down, thus protecting the en-vironment.

Unibeton has patented the technology of cement free con-crete in the Middle East and Asia. This kind of concrete also has re-duced emission of CO2 similar to that of Green Concrete.

Champion the cause for sustainability Unibeton has taken the onus of actively promoting Green sus-tainable concrete solutions in the UAE. It does so by inviting cus-tomers and government bodies to its plants and labs for demon-strations and awareness sessions. As a result of these efforts, Abu Dhabi municipality has accepted Green Concrete as a viable prod-uct to be used for construction in the UAE.

Unibeton’s vast knowledge re-source pool is used to advocate the cause of sustainable concrete solutions all over the world by at-tending conferences and deliver-ing lectures in local and interna-tional seminars.

The future The vision of Unibeton is sup-portive to our environment and there will be no efforts spared to continue working towards its ful-filment.

The leaders are totally commit-ted to this cause through words and actions, hoping to catalyze major improvements in the indus-try in UAE.


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Dutco Balfour Beatty – Plant & Transport Division which forms part of Dutco Balfour Beatty LLC (DBB LLC), a leading Civil, Ma-rine & Building contractor in the region was formed in 1984 with a vision “to become the most pre-ferred Plant & Transport provid-er within the Group.” DBB LLC, a part of the well known Dutco Group was originally established in 1978 with the local Dutco Group joining hands with UK based Balfour Beatty plc. The Di-vision currently possesses a wide range of plant and transport cov-ering asphalt and wet mix plants, pavers, concrete batching plant, crusher and screening plants, crawler, mobile and tower cranes, compressors, compactors, exca-vators, forklifts, graders, piling equipment, HIAB trucks, marine equipment such as speed boats, barges and tugs, specialized Piling equipment, tippers, trailers and tankers for transporting asphalt, diesel, sludge, sweet and salt water. Equipment is maintained to the highest standards of qual-ity and safety by the Division’s workshop comprising of trained mechanics and technicians. In ad-dition three mobile workshops comprising of preventive mainte-nance equipment, highly skilled technicians and mechanics regu-larly carry out maintenance ac-tivities at site to minimize break-down and increase availability. The Division was accredited with the ISO 9001:1994 standard in 1995 followed by ISO 9001: 2000 Standard in 2002 for providing customers (projects) with service of the highest professional stan-dards. In addition to this, we have

acquired the ISO 14001:2004 and OHSAS 18001: 2007 during 2006 making us one of the few compa-nies in the region operating to an Integrated Management System.

Benefits of Applying for the DQA• The exercise highlighted to us our strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. • Encouraged us to benchmark our performance both internally and externally.• Brought about an involvement of all our employees and helped promote “out of the box” think-ing.• Exhaustive feedback report received at the end of the cycle provided us an effective planning tool on how to improve upon our existing performance.

Advice to Future Applicants• Ensure full support from top management before applying for the award.

• Do not apply with the pre-conceived notion that you have to win the award – consider it a learning experience to improve your organization.• Create “criteria champions” from among employees giving them full responsibility for allot-ted criteria.• Continuously monitor and re-view the document to ensure all employees are on the right track.

Best Practice - Making Safety Personal Dutco Balfour Beatty LLC (DBB LLC), operating to an Inte-grated Management System (OH-SAS 18001, ISO 14001 & ISO 9001) has implemented a “Make Safety Personal” campaign in May 2009 throughout the entire organiza-tion which aims to achieve the following goals:-• Zero fatalities.

DUTCO BALFOUR BEATTYPLANT & TRANSPORT DIV.

MAKING SAFETY PERSONAL

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• No seriously disabling injuries.• No long term harm to health.DBB LLC has identified the fol-lowing measures which it em-ploys to implement this concept effectively throughout the organi-zation:-• Leading – where every Proj-ect Manager/ Department Head commits to “make safety per-sonal” and inspires his people to make this their personal priority.• Simplifying – where we ensure our systems and processes sup-port people to do this.• Rethinking – where we look at what we do with fresh eyes, chal-lenge status quo and re engineer how we carry out tasks to elimi-nate risks.• Involving – where we engage our stakeholders including our suppliers & subcontractors to contribute to “make safety per-sonal” through their activities. • Learning – where we seek out and share what works well and adapt this to suit our working en-vironment.• Tracking – where we identify areas for improvement and device ways to close this gap.To achieve this goal of “making safety personal” among all our employees, DBB LLC has imple-mented the following initiatives:-

1. Mobile Safety Train-ing Unit (MSTU):

The MSTU (see alongside), orig-inally an unused and scrapped transport vehicle was completely refurbished and converted intoa trailer to accommodate 35 individuals comfortably and equipped with latest audiovisual and computer equipment.

The fully air-conditioned unit is provided with its own built in generator making it suitable for use across our business with ded-

icated training personnel moving along with the MSTU. A full time Training Officer was appointed in 2008 and the MSTU moved from site to site providing valuable health, safety and environmental lectures directly on the project site thus eliminating the need for workmen to come to the Central Training & Development Cen-tre to receive the training. Top-ics covered during MSTU train-ing included working at heights,

COSHH, effective use of PPE, fire safety, manual handling and lift-ing and prevention of slip, trip and fall. An analysis of employees covered under the MSTU training is shown above:-

Benefits of Implement-ing the MSTU Training:-

• Eliminates the need for site personnel to come to the training center to receive training.• Productivity levels on sites re-main unaffected as employees sent in smaller batches. • Greater awareness created to risks associated with the scope of activity.• Specialized training tailor-made to specific site requirements can be provided.


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• All employees on the site get covered under the training. • Remarkable reductions inAccident Frequency Rate levels

2. Safety Observation Report (SOR Cards): The SOR (Safety Observation Report) Card System implement-ed on all DBB Project sites during 2009 provided employees with an opportunity to highlight unsafe acts occurring on sites which immediately swings into ac-tion to tackle this. The filled up SOR cards are dropped into SOR

boxes (see alongside) installed at a prominent locations on site and opened at the end of the day by the concerned Safety Officer on site who discusses points raised in the SOR Card with the Project Manager. Employees submitting good suggestions via SOR cards are acknowledged by the project team with certificates and cash incentives to encourage more par-ticipation among them. A sample

analysis of SOR cards submit-ted by our Plant & Trans-port Division during 2009 is given beside:-

3. Star Audit Program: The 5 Star Audit Program implemented by DBB LLC is based on a set of predefined crite-ria based on which the site is au-

dited. Based on their compliance to these criteria, sites are award-ed stars ranging from 5 for the best site to zero

for a poorly man-aged site. Sites ob-taining less than 3 stars are required to provide an ac-tion program to improve their cur-rent performance. The total number of stars awarded to the project or division are dis-played at a prominent location on site (see picture above) so that all

site employ-ees including visitors are aware of this. This unique program has resulted in a healthy spirit of competition being created among our project sites and divisions who vie to

collect maximum number of stars from these audits simultaneously improving upon their HSE per-formance. Divisions and project sites are encouraged to improve on their allotted stars by taking action on the points mentioned in the 5 star audit reports. An analy-sis of closeout of findings by proj-ects sites is given below:-

4. Training & Development Centre:

DBB established in May 2008 a new “state of the art” Train-ing & Development Centre to equip employees with relevant skills to ensure their successful overall develop-ment. Spread over an area of 3000 square meters, the centre consists of an external enclosed training yard occupying an area of 1600 m2 and used to provide train-ing to operatives in block laying, plastering, scaffolding and form-work, steel fixing and carpentry. Both CITB - UK & IOSH (Institu-

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tion for Occupational Safety and Health) have certified DBB as an approved training provider for the following programs - Health and Safety Awareness, Site Super-visor’s Safety Training Scheme, Site Management Safety Training Scheme (SMTS) and IOSH Work-ing Safely & Managing Safely. An analysis of Skills Training and HSE training provided by our Training & Development Centre over the last three years is pro-vided below:-

DBB regularly participates in numerous national and international awards relating to Health and Safety and has won the following national and international awards:-

• ROSPA Gold Award for Health & Safety in 2009.• Best Contractor for Health & Safety by RTA in 2009.• HSE Personality of the Year by Construction Week in 2009.• HSE Idea of the Year by Dubai Quality Group in 2008 & 2010.• Project of the Year by Construction Week in 2009.• Runner up in IOSH SHP Award organized by IOSH in 2009.• DQAP Award for Scaffolding & Formwork Division in 2007.• DQAP Award for our Plant & Transport Division in 2009.• Winner of EEG’s Toner Recycling Trophy in 2008 & 2009.


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5. Defensive Driving

Campaign:

All DBB employees who meet with accidents while

driving company owned/ leased vehicles are made to compulsorily undergo a refresher course in defensive driving conducted at our Training & Development. Centre provided by a full time and qualified Driving In-structor (see photo-graphs below). This unique initiative has helped to create an increased awareness among our employ-ees on the hazards of dangerous driving which has

led to a significant drop in Road Traffic accidents and AFR levels.

6. Issue & display of Safety Alerts:

Immediately af-ter an incident or ac-cident occurs on any project site, a Safety Alert (see alongside) is released by HSE Office providing complete details of the incident or accident with pho-tographs and details of corrective and pre-ventive action taken to prevent recurrence. These safety alerts are displayed on all project sites as well uploaded on the company in-tranet site to ensure all employees are aware of the risks involved.


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7. Awards for Employees and Projects: Employees who help pro-mote safety at their workplace are recognized with “Safety Employee of the Month” awards. In ad-dition, projects achieving con-sistently low AFR levels are awarded with the “HSE Proj-ect of the Year” award present-ed to the Proj-ect team by our Chairman dur-ing our Annual

Staff Party held during December of every year.

8. Display and distribu-tion of leaflets/ banners

in local lan-guages:

Printing and distribution of Safety leaflets on the theme of “Making Safety Personal” in languages un-derstood by the workforce has helped create an improved aware-ness among em-ployees on the importance of working safely which has re-sulted in signifi-cant drop in AFR

levels.


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9. Conduct of Annual Innovation Competition: DBB organizes an Innovative Competition every year (see poster given alongside) during which our employees are encouraged to submit suggestions which help to promote and improve health and safety of the organization and its people. All entries are judged by an independent panel of judges and the best three entries are awarded cash prizes at the Annual Staff Party held during December of every year. The competition has resulted in several sig-nificant entries being submitted by our employees and some of these suggestions have been successfully implemented throughout the organization.


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10. Participation in local and international Health & Safety Awards: DBB regularly participates in numerous national and international awards relating to Health and Safety and has won the following national and international awards:-

• ROSPA Gold Award for Health & Safety in 2009.• Best Contractor for Health & Safety by RTA in 2009.• HSE Personality of the Year by Construction Week in 2009.• HSE Idea of the Year by Dubai Quality Group in 2008 & 2010.• Project of the Year by Con-struction Week in 2009.• Runner up in IOSH SHP Award organized by IOSH in 2009.

• DQAP Award for Scaffold-ing & Formwork Division in 2007.• DQAP Award for our Plant & Transport Division in 2009.• Winner of EEG’s Toner Re-cycling Trophy in 2008 & 2009. Benefits provided by the “Make Safety Personal” Cam-paign: 1. Drop in Total Days Lost (see graph). Drop in Accident Frequency Ratio levels (see graph). Drop in no. of Incidents (see graph). Drop in Road Traffic Acci-dents (see graph). Drop in Major Injuries (see graph). Drop in First Aid Cases (see graph).


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Making Safety Personal

Zero Harm


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Arabian Radio Network (ARN) is the region’s fastest growing ra-dio network and communications service. Striking a bal-ance between community values and commercial growth, ARN has swiftly garnered the largest loyal audience base in the Unit-ed Arab Emirates and the entire Gulf region. Hitting record results, it established itself as the UAE’s number one proac-tive station through sound programming supported by talented teams of com-mitted, well-trained and highly talented present-ers. Established in Septem-ber 2001, ARN launched its first radio station, Al Arabiya 99FM followed, soon afterwards, by an-other station broadcast-ing in English-language called Free FM on 96.7FM as well as City 101.6FM, aimed at the expatriate In-dian community. The network concep-tualized and launched another radio channel, Al Khaleejiya, on January 15, 2003, thus creating a new platform for Khaleeji mu-sic and giving it a wider reach and true voice re-

flective of the UAE’s inherent roots and traditions. In 2005, ARN launched Hit 96.7FM, a station designed to serve the interests of the largest expatriate community in the gulf, the Malayalees. Living up to its namesake, Hit was a ‘hit’ from the

start, attracting a large, loyal lis-tener base. Spearheaded by a dynamic and innovative leadership, ARN has established itself as the lead-ing radio network in the Gulf re-gion.

Transmitting across the UAE gives ARN an ad-vantage. Its unique perfor-mance levels are further enhanced thanks to its on-air, state-of-the-art studios as well as some of the lat-est software systems and broadcast equipment. In addition to the regu-lar radio relays that allow ARN to reach wider audi-ences, the network caters to online users through its live web-streaming services. ARN is the first network in the region to use RDS - Radio Data System - as a means for providing break-ing news, travel updates and other useful and timely information. Moreover, ARN develops its own SMS software solutions. Our lat-est venture is the creation of unique mobile phone applications thus making ARN a true multiplatform provider.

Benefits of Applying for the DQA Award- Organization’s official

Arabian Radio NetworkSweet Sound of Music

In addition to the regular ra-dio relays that allow ARN to reach wider audiences, the network caters to online users through its live web-stream-ing services. ARN is the first network in the region to use RDS - Radio Data System - as a means for providing break-ing news, travel updates and other useful and timely infor-mation. Moreover, ARN de-velops its own SMS software solutions. Our latest venture is the creation of unique mo-bile phone applications thus making ARN a true multiplat-form provider.

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commitment to excellence and continuous improve-ment using the EFQM Ex-cellence Model as its back-bone.- Independent and thorough assessment of the organiza-tion’s strengths and areas for improvement to contin-ue to deliver high-quality products and services.- Cement our commitment to all our stakeholders.Advice to Future ApplicantsWhat are you waiting for?!?- Applying for DQAP took our organization through an incredible journey of self-discovery.- Every step on this jour-ney, leading up to the prestigious recognition, has opened our eyes to the plethora of almost endless possibilities in creating a profitable and highly sus-tainable business.- The organization and primarily the team is now more energized and en-gaged in seeking innova-tion, sharing practices and celebrating the success we continue to achieve.- Media in the Middle East is an incredible industry to be in with consumers displaying a healthy appetite for world-standard en-tertainment.

Best Practice:

Excellence in radio Best practices employed at ARN are varied and intertwined. To single out one of them would be to ignore a bigger picture. The success of Arabian Radio Net-work, in becoming the single larg-est radio network in the UAE with a market share of over 35% and weekly listenership of around 1.8 million is due to the team’s talent, quality of programs, creative spir-it and comprehensive research

focused and based on our stake-holders. First and foremost, ARN ad-dresses the interests of various audiences, communities and cul-tures through genre specific pro-gramming. ARN’s programming is an amalgamation of news, mu-sic and information developed in conjunction with a deep under-standing of the region’s diverse sensitivities and areas of inter-est. All of ARN’s radio stations have been established to deliver the most sought-after content relevant to our audience. From the young-at-heart listeners (Al Arabiya, City 101.6, Virgin Radio Dubai) to strong business focused programming (Dubai Eye) to cul-tivating the rich cultural heritage of the UAE (Al Khaleejiya) as well as catering to the largest expat

community in the region, the Malayalees (Hit96.7). Equally important is our strive to become the most cost effective service for advertisers. To achieve this goal ARN uses cutting edge technology and solutions in-cluding unique traffic man-agement services, breaking news updates systems, ac-tive uplinks, SMS software and database management systems. The organization changed the topography of the airwaves and became an interactive medium for clients and consumers alike through its early monitor-ing of the psychograph-ics and preferences of our audience. Furthermore, ARN’s presenters continu-ously engage feedback from listeners through fun on-air activities, competitions, topics of the day and inter-action using social network-ing websites Facebook and Twitter. ARN’s entertaining content can be sampled on terrestrial radio, online and mobile phone through cus-tomized applications.

ARN also employs brand-ing and customized content to ensure that each station

has its own distinctive identity so as to target consumer segments in a systematic manner. In a rela-tively short span of time, ARN has succeeded thanks to its qual-ity of broadcasting, management and marketing techniques, which have been changed to restructure radio broadcasting in the region and make it a very effective me-dium.

ARN also uses customized data informatics to accumulate, store and use valuable informa-tion that helps devise shows, events and features for its target audiences. Progressively keeping pace with new broadcast technol-ogy, ARN continues to foster stra-tegic partnerships with various suppliers to continue enhance-ment in hardware and software.

Best practices employed at ARN are varied and inter-twined. To single out one of them would be to ignore a bigger picture. The success of Arabian Radio Network, in becoming the single larg-est radio network in the UAE with a market share of over 35% and weekly listen-ership of around 1.8 million is due to the team’s talent, quality of programs, cre-ative spirit and comprehen-sive research focused and based on our stakeholders.

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The Al Rostamani Internation-al Exchange (ARIE) started opera-tions in 1979 (formerly known as Thomas Cook Al Rostamani Ex-change Co) and has been a mar-ket leader in providing Foreign Exchange Services in the UAE for over three decades. The company is wholly owned and managed by the Al Rostamani Group, a highly resourceful, reputable and dy-namic organization.

Retail Business ARIE is a market leader in pro-viding foreign exchange services in the UAE for over three decades. ARIE offers a wide range of for-eign exchange products including demand drafts in over 40 curren-cies, multi currency funds trans-fer to over 100 countries, encash-ment of travelers cheques, and exchange of all convertible and exotic foreign currencies. ARIE also acts as agent for various in-stant money transfer services like Moneygram, Xpress Money and Coinstar Money Transfer.

Corporate Business In addition to retail opera-tions, ARIE serves corporate cli-ents with a commercial foreign exchange division at each branch. Key benefits include better ex-change rates and lower charges, evening trading, free collection and delivery, dial-a-draft service

and internet services. ARIE also has a separate wholesale foreign currency division that trades in foreign currencies with banks and

other financial institutions.ARIE has over Three Hundred well trained Financial Profession-als to serve the customers through 21 one stop shop branches located in key town centers all over the UAE using a fully computerized operating system with sophisti-cated Dealing Room equipped with terminals directly linked to International Markets.

Vision To be one of the leading money exchange firms in the country fol-lowing ethical business practices while earning the respect of all our stake holders.

Mission We will be a customer orient-

ed and value creating company. Being a financial services com-pany, we will achieve our vision with commitment and passion, through innovation and technol-ogy and in an environment of fairness, honesty and courtesy to-wards our stakeholders.Quality Policy We are committed to provide professional, reliable and timely delivery of the highest qual-ity. We shall continually improve our knowledge, technology and processes in order to meet the expectations of our stakeholders and comply with the statutory re-quirements.

It has always been our endeav-or to give our customers best val-ue for their money and for over 31 years we have been striving with

Al Rostamani International ExchangeValue Creation & Service Excellence

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great exertion and energy to ful-fill that commitment. Today, we are considered to be one of the largest, most reputed and reliable exchange companies in the UAE.

Benefits of Applying for the DHDA

•To put into action the Emirati-sation policy for achieving higher levels of Emiratisation.• Improve the methods in attract-ing, retaining and development of UAE Nationals.• Understanding on how to fur-ther develop UAE Nationals of the organization.• Improving productivity and ef-ficiency of UAE National staff.

Advice to Future Applicants• Use DHDA feedback reports to improve process and reach gold level.

• Benchmark with world class organizations renowned for best practices to know the true posi-tion of the organization.• Consistently assess and review the approach and process to-wards Emiratisation.• Communicate strategy, goals and objectives to all employees.

Best Practice

TATWEER ARIE has consistently exceed-ed the government expectations of minimum 5% of the total work-force being UAE Nationals. The management team of ARIE sat together to identify and formu-late a new scheme that will fuel a spirit of Emiratisation within the organization which will bring the Emiratis into the mainstream business. Thus a new initiative “TATWEER” was born to develop and nurture the UAE Nationals within the organization.

Road shows were carried out

by the CEO to carry the message of the ARIE management to all its employees. He communicated the organization’s interest to develop the UAE Nationals and bring them to the main stream business. A steering committee was set up comprising of the CEO, the AGM-Operations, the UAE Nationals Resourcing & Development Man-ager, the Head – Business Excel-lence & Strategy Analysis and Emiratisation Executives to moni-

tor the performance of the TAT-WEER Program. The steering committee meets regularly to devise implementa-tion plans to the suggestions and requirements identified by the management to review the sta-tus of the actions initiated. Stra-

tegic support and directions are given to ensure that the initiative is aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives. The TATWEER program kick started with a meet where all the UAE Nationals were called and informed about the organiza-tion’s new initiative. The meet also staged the efforts of Ms Zahra Muthana of Mall of Emir-ates Branch who shared her ex-

periences gained in the two long years she spent with the organi-zation. The forum was also used to honor the employee of the first quarter 2009. The meeting was also used to discuss the various issues faced by the UAE Nation-als and also gave them a forum to share their ideas. Thus becom-ing a place where all the nation-als had a direct contact with the senior management. The meeting is being organized every quarter to give an opportunity to the UAE Nationals to share their ideas and experiences. The quarterly TAT-WEER meetings also stand as a platform for the UAE Nationals to stage their abilities and skills. The management initiates steps to address the ideas and sugges-tions by the nationals that meet the organization’s policies & pro-cedures.Activities for TATWEER The organization recognizes and believes in recruiting UAE Nationals directly from colleges.

We are committed to provide profession-al, reliable and timely delivery of the highest quality. We shall con-tinually improve our knowledge, technology and processes in order to meet the expecta-tions of our stakehold-ers and comply with the statutory require-ments.

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As a part of it, the organization has always taken part in career exhibitions and career fairs. The organization sends out its inter-est to the educational institution to participate in their career fair. Once confirmation is received from the institution, the organi-zation’s Emiratisation Executives attend the fair and identify po-tential candidates for absorption in the organization. The organi-zation takes part in career fairs across the UAE to attract UAE National talent. Parallely the or-ganization also works in conjunc-tion with Government agencies like Tanmia, Abu Dhabi Emirati-sation Council and Emirates Insti-tute for Banking & Financial Stud-ies, Sharjah. Internship Scheme

The organization coordinates with educational institutions showing its interest to support students for summer internships. The students undergoing intern-ship program will be given a chance to work in various depart-ments in the organization’s H.O and in selected branches.

The organization provides suitable jobs, rewards and incentivesThe organization has an employ-ee rewards scheme specialized for the UAE National staff. The scheme is developed to evalu-ate the employees on different parameters. The employees who have exemplified exceptional levels of work performance, dis-played high regard & loyalty to-wards the organization and their

job responsibilities will be de-clared as Employee of the quarter. Further cash incentives are also provided to staff who are undergoing the ‘Shadowing’ pro-gram.

UAE Nationals open day The UAE Nationals Resourc-ing & Development Manager calls

for UAE nationals open day from time to time and mentors the ju-nior staff with all the required skills and knowledge, guidance, integration and career path moni-toring and has one to one interac-tion for advancements.

Salary Survey A salary survey was conduct-ed for UAE Nationals in major private corporations across the UAE. The survey revealed that our salaries are at par with the major private companies across the UAE.

Individuals with special needs Individuals with special needs are those who have varying de-grees of disabilities. The orga-nization remains committed to employing UAE Nationals with special needs. The organization ensures that individuals with special needs are entrusted with responsibilities which meet their capabilities.

Retaining The organization identifies tal-ent within the workforce and pro-vides them with necessary coach-ing and mentoring. This is done by the immediate manager and the senior manager chips in with their inputs from time to time during their visits to the branches and public gatherings.

Shadowing Shadowing is a process by which deserving staff are given an opportunity to learn the job of their immediate line managers. The shadowees are given per-sonal attention by the shadower who imparts knowledge that they have gained over the years to their shadowees and these shad-owees after successful completion of the shadow period will func-tion in their identified positions. The performance of the Shad-owing program is monitored on a periodic basis by the AGM – Op-erations.

Flexible working hours & priority in the workplace The UAE National staff of the organization have the option to choose their working hours. All our mall branches work from 10.00 am to 10.00 pm; hence the Emirati staff can decide their con-venient timing. Six of our Emirati staff has opted for flexible work-ing hours. Some of them work part time to facilitate their ambi-


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tion for higher studies.

Development and Training It is a recognized fact that the main asset of any organization is its skilled workforce. When an employee joins the organization, he/she may have the necessary educational qualification, but may not have the skill sets to perform his/her job efficiently. On the job and off the job trainings play a big part in shaping the skills of an employee. The organization pays more attention to the training and development of UAE National staff keeping in mind the training needs of the staff and the require-ments of the organization. This is done by a mixture of Induction Programs, On the job training and specialized trainings.

Sponsorship for higher studies The organization supports UAE National staffs who wish to pursue higher education which will help them to further grow in the organization and career. An offer has been made to Higher College of Technology whereby the organization will sponsor higher education of two deserv-ing students. There is a system in place by which the UAE National Staff are continuously assessed and appraised. After three months of joining, the UAE National staff has to undergo an interim ap-praisal. This appraisal is done by their immediate line manager.

The staff is appraised on various parameters like communication skills, customer service orienta-tion, initiative, quality and Quan-tity of work, technical knowledge and teamwork.

Training and Develop-ment resources The organization has a sepa-rate budget allocated for UAE Nationals. This budget is 17% of

the organization’s total training budget. The training needs are identified based on the feedback received from line managers and the staff themselves. Based on the training needs identified, the training department devised an annual training plan where the UAE Nationals will undergo a product training of minimum 40 hours. The annualized figure for 2009 is 38.48 hours.

Continuous Education Program

The organization supports UAE National staff who wish to pur-sue higher edu-cation which will help in their ca-reers. The compa-ny sponsors their tuition fees, sta-tionary allowance and other expens-es. The staff are entitled to flexible

working hours during the dura-tion of the course. They are also entitled to sufficient study leave for exam preparation.

Career Paths

Career Paths are carefully planned and structured programs defined to individual staff who show the required talent and skill, but lack the experience. They are guided and trained to meet the

requirements of the new job profile. In the first phase, staff are assessed on various parameters for this program. The feed-back from the line manager’s and the re-sults from the annual appraisal are taken into account while taking a decision. S u c c e s s -ful staff are informed of the same and they are put through an in-tensive training pro-

gram for a duration of six months or above. During this period, they have to work with each depart-ment in Head Office and selected branches for a specific period, at the completion of which the se-lected staff will be ready to take on added responsibilities.

Results

National Employment Results

The organization has always maintained a very high percent-age of UAE Nationals against the total workforce. The organization employed 20 of the 114 UAE Na-tionals recruited by the entire in-dustry during 2008. The organiza-tion’s commitment to recruit and develop more UAE nationals is demonstrated by recruiting 17.5% of the UAE nationals recruited by the entire industry which has more than 100 registered organi-zations with the Central Bank of UAE in 2008. The number of UAE Nation-


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als employed by the organization stands tall at 37 at the time of sub-mission of this document. They hold various positions in almost all levels of the organization. The senior management of the orga-nization has a very high support from the sponsors of the business who take an active part in the ef-fective running of the organiza-tion. The senior management of the organization has a representa-tion of 86% UAE Nationals. The middle management is fo-cused to meet the commitments of the board. The organization has a full time UAE Nationals Resourcing & Development Man-ager to meet the needs and de-velop the UAE Nationals within the organization. The organiza-tion has succeeded in developing its workforce from junior levels to supervisory levels. The organiza-tion has as many as 28 of its UAE Nationals employed in the front office. The organization takes great pride in the fact that more than 85% of the UAE Nationals em-ployed with it are women. The or-ganization carries a very long tra-dition of retaining UAE National women staff in its system. Some of the organization’s lady staff are with the organization for more than 8 years which clearly spells the success of the organization in retaining UAE national women within the system. The average number of years spent by UAE nationals in the organization is consistently over three years for the last three years

demonstrat-ing the abil-ity of the or-ganization to retain more number of UAE Nation-als within the system. The knowl-edge of the banking and r e g u l a t o r y compliance of the desti-nation coun-

try is a key aspect of the business. Yet the organization employs more num-ber of UAE N a t i o n a l s and invests a very big sum of its t r a i n i n g budget to the devel-o p m e n t of UAE N a t i o n a l Staff. The o r g a n i z a -tion spends close to 17% of its total training & development budget for the development of UAE Na-tionals.The organization carries out satis-faction survey for all its employ-ees over the years. The satisfac-tion survey exclusive for the UAE Nationals was carried out during the year 2009 and the results are encouraging. The survey was con-ducted covering the following.

1) Involvement2) Growth3) Leadership4) Belongingness5) Facility & Equipment6) Work culture & respect

58% of our UAE Nationals felt that the organization should give them more opportunities in the workplace by involving them in

all the operations. The organiza-tion has initiated shadow posi-tions to involve the UAE Nation-als in main stream business in all possible ways. Almost 70% of the UAE Nationals felt that there are growth opportunities within the workplace. The organization has devised various career progres-sion plans, and on the spot train-ings to enable them to grow in the organization. 70% of the UAE Nationals are of the opinion that the leadership involvement in the development of UAE Nationals is very high, both from the immediate man-ager and the senior management.

The organization has initiated TATWEER program to have a direct contact with the UAE Na-tionals periodically to have their feedbacks and ideas. 85% of the UAE Nationals had a sense of be-longingness to the organization. This is clearly demonstrated by the retention of 4 of our UAE Na-tionals who have spent more than 8 years with the organization. 74% of our UAE Nationals are of the opinion that the organization has given good facility within the workplace. 36% of UAE Nationals feel that the work culture in the organiza-tion has to improve. The organi-zation has taken steps to improve this finding. 85% of the UAE Na-tionals are either satisfied or ex-tremely satisfied with the overall initiatives of the organization and the work environment that pre-vails within the organization.


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Dubai Municipality is regarded as one of the largest establish-ments in Dubai in terms of the number of people it employs, the volume of services it provides to the public and the projects it car-ries out. The municipality was established in the 1940s with to-tal staff strength of three persons who were operating from a single room. The Municipality kept up its steady growth since its incep-tion and has now become a large organization with more than 11,000 staff working in 31 organi-zational units.Vision: Creating an excellent city that provides the essence of success and comfort of living.MissionWorking to plan, design, build and manage the municipal in-frastructure and other related fa-cilities and services through the appropriate investment in our human and other resources.Values:

Employees: The real asset Stakeholders: Commitment to partnership and appreciation of their needs and expectations. Transformation: Appreciation of change and strive for positive development Performance: Doing the right things right. Interdependence: Focus on teamwork through cooperation and sharing of ideas.

Innovation: The adoption of initiatives and the recognition of innovators.

Main Functions• Formulating the Emirate’s comprehensive urban de velopment plans

• Regulating and monitoring building activity

• Developing and supervising sewage and irrigation network

• Developing, managing and providing markets & abattoirs for the public

• Developing and maintaining public parks & recreation facilities

• Forestation and green ing of the Emirates roads and open spaces

• Waste collection, manage ment, and recycling.• Ensuring food safety through inspecting the food factories, res-taurants, supermarkets, etc.

• Develop and maintain a com prehensive GIS for use by govern ment organiza tions and private sector.

• Ensuring the preservation of

urban heritage through restora-tion of historical buildings and structuresBenefits or Applying for the DHDA• Recognition of DM within Dubai, UAE and internationally.

• Getting feedback report and

Dubai MunicipalityCreating An Excellent City

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develop the areas of improve ment in order to continue the ex-cellence journey.

• Compare our practices with the Best practices in HR areas.

Best Practice:

Dubai Municipality Emaratization practices Dubai Municipality continuous-ly attracts & recruit UAE nation-als it has adopted Emiratization Practices since 1990 until today. Dubai Municipality realizes the value of recruiting qualified UAE Nationals and thus has introduced and implemented methodologies to approach the Strategic target , today more than 2000 UAE Na-tionals are enriching Dubai Mu-nicipality reforming more than 50% of the staff excluding labours.

The Value of Recruiting UAE Nationals : Dubai Municipality leadership strongly believes that recruiting UAE Nationals will ensure the mentioned values •Meeting The Strategic plan (Federal, Local, and Organizational).•Maintaining & sustaining organizational Stability.•Long term investment.•Fulfill its obligation to

wards the community.• UAE Nationals are more related to the local busi ness and Local Services

Dubai Municipality Strategic Emiratization Strategy • Analyze the current situation

• Defining critical and po tential Jobs for Emiratization.

• Identifying resources (univer sity , technical schools ….etc).

•Designing Educational& Vocational Programs.

•Seeking Partnership with the Education Partners Colleges & Universities.

•Participating in Career Fairs to attract UAE Nationals.

• Scholarship programs for em ployees and students.

Vocational and Academic Pro grams :

•(1996) Health and Environment Diploma Program with Higher Colleges of technology.• (1996) Construction Engi neering Diploma Program with Higher Colleges of tech nology.

• (2001) Quantity Surveying

Program in Queensland University of technology (Australia).

• (2002) survey Program in Queensland University of technology (Australia).

• (2003) GIS Officers & Techni cians Certificate Program with Zayed University & Tanmia.

• (2005) Highway Maintenance Diploma Program with Higer Colleges of Technology (Program transferred to RTA).

• (2006) Heavy Equipment Mchanic certificat Program with Zayed University.

• (2008) Food hygiene inspetion certificate Program with Canadian university.

• (2008) Rawafed Program.

• ( 2009 ) Rowad Al Tamayuz

• ( 2009) Draftsman’s Certifi cate Program with NAIV.

RAWAFED:

IDEA: Design a program to recruit qualified UAE National high school graduates to fill admin-istrative vacancies (admin assis-tant, secretary ….)


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Objectives: • Recruit competent applicants to join DM .• Design a comprehensive training program that provides knowledge and skills to enable them to meet the targeted jobs requirements and future challenges.• Contribute to society through designing development programs to train and qualify UAE Nationals.

Duration of the program: • 6 weeks including on-job training.Program Content:

1. E Correspondence 2. E Archiving 3. TQM workshop 4. Effective secretarial skills 5. Contemporary planning , execution & follow up skills 6. Effective report writing 7. Presentation skills 8. Personal Developments skills 9. Self & Time Management 10.Total Customer service Skills (Customer service skills, Telephone answer ing Skills , Dealing with Customer complains)Selecting & Recruiting

• Pre-training: • Screening applications

• Personal Interview. Post training completion : • Presentation should be made by the applicant • Final interviewOutcome: 50 qualified UAE Nationals inadministrative Positions.

Assessment & Review: Dubai Municipality conducts reg-ular evaluation and review to im-prove the quality of content and delivery of those programs.

ROWAD AL TAMAYUZ:

IDEA: Investing in qualifying UAE Na-tional university graduates to join DM in the capacity of Quality Specialists.

Objectives: • Qualifying UAE Nationals in core business areas of Dubai municipality by producing a success story that would serve as an example to other business sectors within the organization .

• Qualify UAE Nationals to as sume responsibilities on orga nizational & strategic levels.

• Achieving DM Strategic Tar gets in Emaratization and Training

Program Contents:

• Phase1:Training Courses • Quality & Administrative Training Courses: 1. Introduction To Managment. 2. Balance Score Card. 3. Benchmarking. 4. Introduction to Dubai Quality Award 5. Six Sigma 6. Total Quality management 7. EFQM 8. SO 9001 9. Radar Assessment system. 10. Advanced report writing 11. Strategic Planning. 12. Excellence Customer Service 13. Project Management professional (PMP)

14.Presentation Skills Workshop.

• Organizational internal systems:

1. DM Strategic plan

2. DM KPI’s & PPView

3. DM Process Management (ARIS)

4. Introduction To HR & Dm HR policies

5. Employees right & Duties as Per Dubai Government LAW

• Office Automation Training

1. MS Word

2. MS PowerPoint

3. MS Outlook

4. MS Project

• Phase2:External On job Training:2 Weeks on job Training on the Following entities: • Emirates NBD

• Du

• Emirates Petroleum

• Phase 3 :Internal On job training :

• 8 weeks on job training un der the supervision of DM Expert with a follow up of Human Resources Devel opment SectionSelecting & Recruiting • Pre-training : • Screening applications • Personal Interview.• Post training completion : • Presentation should be made by the applicant • Final interview

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MARINA

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MARINA

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Launched in 1999, Mikyajy has grown to become one of the most loved cosmetic and fragrance brands for young women in the region. With numerous stores throughout the UAE, KSA, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Libya, Mikyajy is reaching out across nations, helping young women to be creative in expressing their unique beauty. Meaning “My Make-up” in Arabic, Mikyajy’s innovative product range is inspired by local culture and needs, coupled with international trends and techno-logical know-how, resulting in a unique combination which cannot be found elsewhere. Dedicated re-search and thorough groundwork go into designing our products which are manufactured accord-ing to international standards all around the world. Our stores are central to the Mikyajy experience. From the de-sign, merchandising, use of colors and choice of music played, the atmosphere mirrors the brand positioning - friendly, inviting, young and fun. Today, the brand is present in more than 45 cities in the region, enabling us to provide a stable and enjoyable work environment to our more than 450 Mikyajy employees. The rapid expansion

of the brand also offers these em-ployees unlimited growth poten-tial.

The Mikyajy Brand Belief

In a world where female beau-ty is highly valued, portrayal of women’s beauty has been stereo-typed through images of perfect features and an anti-septic envi-ronment. This limited portrayal of beauty is impacting women’s well-being, happiness and self esteem by preventing them from recognizing and enjoying beauty in themselves and others. By questioning the accepted definition of beauty, we hope to help women change the way they perceive themselves and encour-age them to feel beautiful every day. We recognise that beauty tran-scends nationality, ethnicity and creed, establishing Mikyajy as a truly international brand.

Mikyajy’s Brand Values

Customer Focus: We believe that every customer who steps into our store should enjoy every aspect of her experience with us.Honesty: We are honest and trans-parent about the origin, contents, benefits and quality of our prod-ucts. Respect: We respect our cus-tomers, their choices and opin-ions at all times. Individuality: We are different from our competitors and have our own individual identity. This helps us differentiate ourselves in the minds of the consumer. Culture: We are culturally sen-sitive, and respect the cultural be-liefs and behaviour of ourcustomers.

MikyajyFriendly, Inviting & Fun

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Benefits of Applying for the DSES Mikyajy is proud to be associ-ated with the Dubai Service Ex-cellence Scheme, which has ben-efited the brand by:

• Ensuring a continual focus on customer service, resulting in an increase in footfall in stores.• Providing an objective, effi-cient and comprehensive external monitoring system for in-store standards.• Enabling us to measure cus-tomer perception as opposed to brand perception in every aspect of the retail environment, as well as the level of service offered in store.• Helping us to identifying strengths and weaknesses on a store-by-store basis to create con-sistency in store and service lev-els.Advice to Future Members• Clearly communicate the im-portance of the project at all levels of the organization, to ensure that all teams are focused on achiev-ing service excellence across the board.

• This is a great tool to instill a positive sense of competition be-tween stores; share Mystery Shop-per results, reward the heroes, and motivate others to achieve the same successes.• Analyze the data received on a regular basis, and use this valu-able information to implement new processes to improve the levels of service excellence. This clearer understanding on the re-quired areas of improvement can greatly benefit any organization.

Best Practice:Mikyajy’s three Phased approach to achieving excellent customer ser-vice• Our primary objective was to

focus on training in several areas, as we firmly believe that well trained staff translates directly to satisfied custom-ers. Three separate training modules were created to cover:- Customer service levels and sales training- Industry specific training including make-up application, fragrance identification, skin care etc.- Product knowledge These modules were devel-oped with the needs of our cus-tomer in mind, to ensure that we provide her with accurate prod-uct information, thereby meeting her specific requirements, and to ensure a great shopping experi-ence. Staff are tested and evalu-ated regularly on the training modules, and results form part of the staff evaluation process.• Another aspect of good cus-tomer service within a retail envi-ronment is to ensure that the store is easily navi-gable, enabling her to locate the products she needs without difficulty. We evaluated the store layouts and VM prin-ciples based on customer feedback, and implemented new display principles to ensure an eas-ier shopping experience through improved VM.

• We believe that a customer should always have an “experi-ence” when visiting our stores, and we therefore created a special menu of added services for our customers. This includes a special make over service in stores, of-fered free of charge to customers.

To achieve this we create a special intensive training program for the staff, and coupled this with marketing materials like product recommendation charts and look books, so that customers could really benefit from this service, making it true “added value”.

Results: Increase in cus-tomer count and custom-er retention The three-phased approach to achieving excellent customer ser-vice has been an integral part of an overall brand strategy, and has impacted positively on both cus-tomer count and customer reten-tion.

Through our ongoing participa-tion in programs like the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme, we aim to constantly identify gaps and new opportunities to im-prove our customer service. This will allow us to meet our objec-tive of continual improvement in our customer service levels for the overall benefit of the brand.

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The Center specializes in the construction of a modern and comprehensive statistical sys-tem and shall be the only official source for the collection, analysis and publication of statistical in-formation and data in the Emirate adopting harmonized method-ological international standards in the collection, analysis, and dissemination of statistical data. Dubai Statistics Center consists of four main Department Economic statistics Department, Population Statistics Department, Informa-tion Technology Department and Corporate Excellence and Sup-port Department that harmoni-cally work together in order to serve all customer categories in the Emirate and U.A.E according to the following: 1. The collection, updating, maintenance, and protection of statistical data and information on the Emirate from all sources of data. 2. The conduct of the popula-tion census, and economic and social statistical surveys either by total size or through sampling on a periodic basis and in coopera-tion with the Federal Ministry of Planning. 3. The design and execution of studies and surveys based on the requirements of local and other departments and agencies, and based on what has been agreed upon with these agencies and de-partments. 4. The provision of advice and statistical consultations to local government departments and in-stitutions.

5. The provision of data and statis-tical information to government institutions and departments, to

the business community, and to individuals within its mandate. 6. Work to standardize sta-tistical concepts and definitions which are applied in the Emirate in conformity with international standards and classifications, and with coordination with Federal entities in the country. 7. Preparation and publication of statistical booklets and material at the Emirate level. 8. Preparation of population, economic, and social statistical in-dicators based on best practices as reference indicators at the level of the Emirate.Dubai statistics Center vision is

to become an internationally rec-ognized statistics center, support-ing development in the emirate of Dubai. The center has a clear mission to collect and dissemi-nate economic, demographic and social, statistics in Dubai for deci-sion makers and all users, timely publication adopting it’s quali-fied capabilities in close coopera-tion with our partners, and ap-plying state-of-the-art techniques, standards, and international best practices.

Statistics Centre Objectives Dubai Statistics Centre intends to initiate an ambitious transfor-

Dubai Statistics CentreCLARITY WITH VISION

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mation programme by which it should become a world-class sta-tistical reporting services organ-isation. This should be translated into strong capabilities in 4 areas:1. Understanding and catering for the needs and requirements for statistical informaion about the Emirate of Dubai;2. Gathering, integrating and validating statistical data from a large number of sources and through different media;3. Analysing and reporting sta tistical information from the gathered data; and

4. Providing easy and effective access to this information for de-cision makers, in ternal and ex-ternal government organisations, and the general public. To achieve these objectives, Dubai Statistics Centre requires an information solution to be designed, developed and imple-mented. The functional and tech-nical aspects of this solution are highly dependent on the business and technical current conditions and future needs of the Statistics Centre and statistics users in the Emirate of Dubai.Benefits of applying for the DGEP:- Reviewing the standards adopt-ed in managing employees and customer satisfaction.- Providing a comparative re-search and gap analysis to assess and help the center achieve high-er management excellence.- Promote excellence as a working culture, not only as a competition with other departments.Advice to Future Applicants:- Involvement of top management in establishing, implementing and improving of excellence model.- Continiously motivating the em-ployees since they are the core of any success.- Using gap analysis results to contiously improve management system.

Best Practice:

ELECTRONIC STATISTICAL SYSTEME-statistics system is considered as one of the pioneering elec-tronic systems in the statistical field globally with the primary objective of supporting the pro-cesses of planning and decision making. The e-Statistics System will provide its users with spe-cific databases on economic, de-mographic, and social surveys and censuses conducted by the Center with a substantial value-added especially in light of the possibilities that the system will provide ‘smart tools’ which the users can use to construct statisti-cal reports according to their pref-erences. The system will provide the mechanisms for looking at the most updated data and statistical registry reports issued by vari-ous government departments and institutions through the nature of its achievements. The system will also provide updated and accurate statistical reports which

can be directly used by its users through the Dubai Statistics Cen-ter’s web page. The system is also covering in first phase the statistical registry reports of several departments and institutions through the Sta-tistical Sources System which al-low the center to collect the reg-istry reports from the sources. Within the next two years, 100 sources of statistical data will be connected to the system ranging

from governmental, semi-govern-mental, and private sector institu-tions.ESS Statistics• 300 users from over 50 govern-ment organizations are using ESS (as of now)• 24 Source of information pro-vides Statistical data to ESS (as of now)• Interactive tools where users can build his report, Chart online.• Interactive Statistical Map• Web base solution , 24/7 service

Project Overview This project is about helping the Dubai Statistics Centre (DSC) in formulating a strategy for their statistics solution that will serve the Emirate of Dubai. This strat-egy has three main components: Clarity, Vision, and Action.

Clarity This project aims to provide clarity about the current environ-ment within which the DSC is pursuing its mandate. This is in

terms of the nature of informa-tion and its sources, the types and distribution of users, and the sys-tems and processes involved in providing statistical information.

Vision

This project also seeks to devel-op a vision for the optimal future environment within which the Statistics Centre should operate to fulfil its responsibilities, and a ‘roadmap’ through which to reach

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that vision. This is with regard to business and operations, technol-ogy and systems, processes and organisation, and resources.

Action Finally, this project will con-clude with the setting of actions for DSC to take towards achiev-

ing the vision. Specifically, this will involve providing DSC with evaluating solutions, Implemen-tation Approach, Roadmap and Prioritization, Phasing implemen-tation, and Strategic partnership with Source of information.

ApproachInformation Collection

All of the methodology ele-ments were defined prior to the start of the information collection phase of this initiative. This en-sured a consistent approach and permitted objectivity of analysis.

Questionnaires and written re-quests covered those elements that were simple to translate into straightforward questions, and where the types of responses could be anticipated. This mi-nimised the time taken to collect information and simultaneously

distributed the effort across the participating groups in a struc-tured manner.Findings Analysis

The information collected was consolidated and reviewed. De-tailed records have been main-tained – captured responses, specific answers to particular questions – for each element and for each organisation involved. However, only by consolidat-ing this information and taking a high-level view could the mean-ing for the Statistics Centre be re-flected upon.

ProjectImplementation From experience, cities or spe-cific Governments who embark on a statistics provision and man-agement information related proj-ects go through various levels of maturity. Typically, Government departments start off with a tech-nology focus and achieve limited benefits and over the course of time, these departments move towards a focus on the provision of the right statistical information through multiple and easy to use channels for end users. The proposed roadmap is based on the concept of improv-ing the ‘maturity’ of the Statistics Centre on the process, people/organisation, and technology di-mensions. The road map splits the overall implementation into phas-es and each phase aims to move the Statistics Centre through a higher level of maturity within the maturity model.

Solution Strategy Phase

This phase covers the Clarity component of the DSC solution strategy. It is the output of the De-fine stage of the project. The De-fine stage has involved reviewing information collected previously by the DM Statistics Centre, col-lecting, consolidating and ana-lysing further information, and


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developing conclusions about the current situation in DSC and the related parties in the Emirate of Dubai.

Phase one Implementation

• Foundation – Addresses the pre-requisites in terms of the so-lution, organization, and people.

• Solution Outline - Creates a conceptual, high-level view of the solution by defining the compo-nents of the solution (business, ar-chitecture, organization) and the scope;• Macro Design – Creates a top-level, logical design for the BI so-lution including the data integra-tion system, the data repositories, the analytics system and the ac-

cess system;• Micro Design - Delivers the fi-nal, detailed set of blueprints for building the BI solution;• Build - Construct the BI solu-tion including the data integra-tion system, the data repositories, the analytics system and the ac-cess system;• Deploy - Implement the BI so-

lution in a “production” environ-ment and deliver to the user com-munity; and• Follow Up – This phase is to facilitate the adoption of practices and strategies related to the ongo-ing operations.

Deliverables• Centralized Statistical Data-

base where Dubai Statistics Cen-tre plays a role of facilitators as a hub for all other Government sources of information.• 50 Governmental Organisa-tions, 300 users, varies from end user to researcher to executives, are benefiting from the service as of now.• 24 Source of Information (Gov-ernment and Semi Government) are integrated with the system, feeding information using differ-ent medial (varies from Database integration to emails and text files)• E-Source System which en-ables Sources to feed information on the web, if no other method was used. (E-Source System is totally developed internally by DSC.• 24/7 access on the web for Statistical requirement eliminat-ing administrative procedures and spaghetti relationship among Government Organisation. • In Phase I, to solution is pro-vided to the Government Sector only.• Continuous Data coverage and business expansion to deliver wide range of statistics in all busi-ness areas with time series. • Online Report generation by end user, to facilitate his require-ment online with no interference from DSC or any other source.• Statistical Analysis, Charts, available for end user online.• Metadata availability, Data ac-curacy and cleansing are carried out, elimination duplicates fig-ures, duplicate publications and miss confusion to the community.• Service Providers for other Government Organisation in Sta-tistical solution.

What next?• Phase II under implementa-tion, providing dash boarding so-lution, advanced Statistical Mod-ule, Predictive analysis.• Coverage of more Sources in-cluding private sector i.e. (Bank-ing sector). • Building a marketing strategy and providing the solution to the private sector.

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DNRD was established in Dubai in 1971 as a governmen-tal authority working under the umbrella of UAE Ministry of In-terior. It offers several services to nationals and residents. DNRD holds the responsibility of issu-ing visas, entry permits, and pass-ports for nationals in addition to other issues relating to residency in Dubai. • October 1971 By an order of the late H.H Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the two fol-lowing departments were estab-lished:- Central Immigration Department - Ports and Borders Department • October 1972 The ports and borders department and the central immigration department were joined under the Ministry of Interior. The same year in-cludes the issuance of Federal law No.(17), regulating the naturaliza-tion and issuing passports for na-tionals. • 1973 Based on the federal law no( 6), which was the first law of its kind to organize the entry and residency of foreigners enter-ing the UAE. After the issuance of this; aw, DNRD became the au-thority in charge of implementa-tion of naturalization, residency, passports, entry and residency permits in the UAE. • 1977 The two depart-ments were integrated, and the new integrated Department was moved to a new location. • 1982 The Administration shifted to its current known loca-tion. • 1982-2006 Several Direc-tors were in charge of the Depart-ment of Naturalization and Resi-dency-Dubai.

July2006-Now Major General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri joined the DNRD as its Director. Under Al Marri’s administra-

tion, DNRD adopted a new vi-sion which insures that the De-partment will become the model benchmark in quality services and will contribute effectively towards the enhancement of the country’s image and its security.

• DNRD- DUBAI launched a total of 20 centers and offices in various strategic locations in Dubai, such as major malls, in ad-dition to 3 offices at all three ter-minals of Dubai International Air-port in an effort to facilitate and ease the necessities and wants of those dealing with the Depart-

General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs DubaiMoving Towards Excellence

Rank 2 for Best Result in customer satisfaction

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ment. Certain external bureaus for the Department are under construction. • In October 2009, all Natu-ralization & Residency Admin-istrations changed their title to “General Directorate of Residen-cy and Foreigners Affairs” as per the instructions of The Ministry of Interior.

Best Practice:

The Excellence in Cus-tomer Service:

“Satisfaction and Loyalty”

Executive SummaryDuring the last three years DNRD has gained significant progress in various aspects, having in turn reflected its performance as a federal yet local service depart-ment. DNRD plays a crucial role in applying the law, boosting the country’s security and enhancing its image. This advancement was reflected in the results achieved in Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP). Furthermore, DNRD adopted a new strategy based on:

• Federal and local strategy.

• Ministry of Interior Strategy.

• Current and future challenges that directly impacts the de partment’s functions. • The accelerating changes in various aspects witnessed in the international, regional, and local arenas. For the purpose of evaluating the current status of the adminis-tration, and analyzing the internal and external work environment, a reformation and improvement committee has been formed to steer the process of change.

Factors of Success:• The leaders’ adoption of the change policy as a path for trans-formation.

• Moving towards excellence through embedding the DGEP criteria in the Department’s credo.

• Ideal investment and utiliza-tion of human, financial, techni-cal, and knowledge resources.

• Effective communication with partners and stakeholders. • Development of the core and the supporting processes.

• Increasing the contribution to wards our community.

• Providing high quality services, side by side with efective communication with our clients and partners to achieve clients’ satisfaction and loyalty.In this best practice, we will focus on:1. The high services that DNRD provides to its clients

2. DNRD’s effective communi-cation with government sectors, private institutions, diplomatic missions and others.

This case study will enlighten you on how DNRD acquired the second rank in customer service being part of Dubai Government Excellence Performance Program in 2009, leaving far beyond itself the third rank it occupied in the year before and the fourth rank a year before.

Preamble When the new leadership has assumed its responsibilities in DNRD in the mid of the year 2006, there has been no appar-ent strategy that determines the future tendencies of the Depart-ment.

The DNRD’s experience dur-ing the initial period in the field of institutional excellence has been very limited, whereas its first participation as a government Department in the Dubai Govern-ment Excellence Program (DGEP) has been in the year 2005, then in the year 2007 and its last partici-pation has been in the year 2009.

However, the Department results of participation in Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) revealed that satisfaction was not very high, therefore the leadership decided to carry out a comprehensive review of the current status and formed a lead-ership committee entrusted with development, improvement and conduction of the change process. Such committee, however, has carried out a further analysis re-viewing the internal and external environment within the whole process through SWOT and PEST analysis.

SWOT ANALYSIS

- The Department (DNRD) has set up a new strategy stemmed out from:- Federal and local strategy 2007.- The Ministry of Interior Strategy.- Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP)- Current and future challenges which are potential for the Department Work environment.

DNRD New VisionTo set model benchmark in qual-ity services, and contributing effectively towards the enhance-ment of country image and its security. However, the leadership has worked on the following:- Circulation and dissemination of excellence culture.- Development of the core processes. - Focus on internal and external customers.- Upgrading the existing services and providing new services. The Department, henceforth, has in the year 2009 achieved the noteworthy but prominent prog-

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ress in the DGEP in more than one category of the program. It is no doubt that DNRD has acquired the second rank in customer ser-vice being part of Dubai Govern-ment Excellence Performance Program (DGEP) in 2009, leaving far beyond itself the third rank it occupied in the year before and the fourth rank a year before. (DNRD) has been capable of achieving these results in terms of customer service through the fol-lowing:- Effective communication with the partners, through holding periodic meetings with (Government Deparments, Private Sector, Ambas sadors and Consuls, PROs, Labor Supply Agencies and Typing Centers).

- Developed New Quality Services (such as: Mobile Visa, TABA DOL, TAKAMOL, BARQ, AMER – Self Service Kiosk- etc.).- External Centers and offices (23 centers and offices).- Application of Government Excellence Criteria, in particular in relation to the customer service.

All these activities have led to rising up the level of customer’s satisfaction and loyalty of the partners according to the result of the DGEP and the question-naires created which in turn have covered all the categories of the customers (nationals, expatriates, males and females, from various nationalities).

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