Wednesday, Apr 06, 2011

Gulf News

Dubai Government plans new study

Dubai The Dubai Government yesterday honoured government departments, private companies and individuals for their outstanding contributions and services to the community through the Dubai Quality Award, Dubai Service Excellence Awards and Dubai Human Development Awards.

At a ceremony attended by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Shaikh Maktoum Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, the Department of Economic Development (DED) honoured UAE-based businesses for good practices, service and integration.

The Dubai Government launched these awards to improve business practices and bring them to an international level as Dubai has become a global business centre that must implement best practices.

Shaikh Mohammad said: “Excellence should be consolidated amongst the community and business as a culture, behaviour and practice that reflects positively on the work environment in terms of development, and confidence-building between companies and consumers and activation of trade, and tourism.”

Sami Al Qamzi, DED Director-General, said, “We did not rest after creating economic and job opportunities for the Emirati workforce. We continuously invested in their growth, development and career progression.”

Benchmark

He added that the awards aim to instil a culture of quality among the businesses and also to set benchmarks for the rest of the business community to follow.

“Since its inception in 1992, the Dubai Department of Economic Development has played a central role in driving the economic dynamics of Dubai. We are committed to strengthening the economy, enhancing its competitiveness, attracting foreign direct investment and ensuring the creation of a robust business environment,” Al Qamzi added.

The Dubai Quality Award was presented to three companies that demonstrated a commitment to best practices in their respective fields.

The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme (DSES) was also presented at the event. It honoured 13 winners for their efforts to sustain excellence in their practices as the best outlet and best brand in 2010.

Al Qamzi said the Dubai Service Excellence Awards, instituted in 2002, honours the commitment of businesses to promote services and enhance the customer experience.

“Dubai has a strong and dominant service sector, and over the years, we have paid great attention to trade, retail, hospitality, education, finance, healthcare — all of them sectors requiring the highest standards in customer service to succeed and grow.”

He revealed that about 4,000 organisations have registered and trained for the Business Excellence Awards. The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme has around 1,400 members, double the number at its inception. The Dubai Human Development Awards have also grown with the number of applicants nearly doubling since 2010.

Since 1994, more than 1,500 quality assessors working to enhance the quality and excellence standards of Dubai’s business environment have been trained. The new Toastmasters Club will further enable the Business Excellence Department assessors to improve their presentation skills.

Preeta Menon, General Manager, Al Madani Group, said: “Dockers has been selected as ‘Best Service Performing Brand’ in the Small Business Category for consistently maintaining good customer service standards during the 2010 cycle.

“Al Madani Group has endeavoured to maintain high quality standards throughout its operation, especially in the area of customer service. As part of the process, mystery shopping was conducted through the year by DSES management, the results from Dockers outlets at Diera City Centre and Dubai Mall have been consistently close to the 100 per cent mark.

“We are very proud of our achievement and owe this success to the team at the stores” Menon said.

Service standards

Al Qamzi said: “We are happy to note that the customer service satisfaction index across Dubai’s business community has been at an impressive 84 per cent, a target we set in 2009, and have maintained since the past two years. Of course, our goal is to have 100 per cent customer satisfaction. While it is a challenging goal, we know it is not unattainable with the co-operation of our business community.”

Al Yousuf Electronics was honoured as the best service performance outlet of 2010 and Dubai Quality Appreciation Programme (DQAP) 2010.

Rakesh Shah, General Manager of Al Yousuf Electronics, said the firm owes these awards to the customer service standard they adopt and well-trained staff.

“We have our own service structure and documentation standard which enable us to upgrade our service quality every year by adopting the best practices in our industry.”

He remarked that the company works hard to ensure customer satisfaction and the ultimate proof of this is that Al Yousuf Electronics has been winning the Dubai excellence awards for the last five years.

Moreover, Al Qamzi added, “We encouraged businesses to drive growth of their national workforce with the Dubai Human Development Awards.

Among the winners of Dubai Human Development Award (DHDA) was Dubal for their model that drives the national goal of empowering Emirati talent.

Saleh Jani, Senior Manager at quality assurance and business excellence department in Dubal, told Gulf News, “The Quality award helps the business environment in Dubai to be more pro-active and enhance services. Thus, this competitive environment in the emirate paved the way for creating a culture of excellence as a reference for determining the feature of competition and performance of companies.

“We are very proud to have been given this recognition for the third time, which further affirms our commitment towards excellence and to the region.

“The award is a good incentive for us to continue our efforts to secure further growth in terms of human development scheme.”

Dubai The government benchmarks the companies’ standard against international best practices, said Sami Al Qamzi, Director-General of the Department of Economic Development.

“We are benchmarking the performance of DQA winners against international organisations to ensure that we are on par with global best practices. Undertaking a benchmarking study is critical and is aligned with the goals of the Dubai Government to ensure that our businesses are globally competitive.”

He added that the department will continue to unveil major initiatives that will further drive improvements in quality and excellence. DED has now initiated the Best Practice and Benchmark Study, a first of its kind initiative in the entire Middle East, Al Qamzi said.

“As part of the new study, we will identify and codify the best practices of award-winning organisations, compare them with international best practices, and thus set a contemporary roadmap that will guide our business community on their journey to excellence.

Mystery shopping

“We are also unveiling a Dubai Service Excellence Scheme Online Mystery Shopping programme that will accelerate the mystery shopping programme that exists now.”

Another key initiative, Al Qamzi revealed, is a partnership to meet an international standard for people development. It will set a level of good practice for improving an organisation’s performance through its people.

“We see a huge potential to improve Human Resources and plan to launch the programme across the public and private sectors in the third quarter of this year,” he said.

By Zaher Bitar Staff Reporter

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