UAE- Business Excellence Awards winners credit success to quality and employee engagement

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Winners at the 2015 Business Excellence Awards on Tuesday credited the success of their organisations to great leadership and noteworthy employee engagement and promised to set the bar higher for quality in the coming years.

Held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai the awards include the Dubai Quality Award (DQA) the Dubai Human Development Award (DHDA) and the Dubai Business Excellence Scheme (DSES). Now in its 22nd year the award winners were announced by the Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai.

Shaikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Shaikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Chairman of Dubai International Marine Club attended the ceremony and honoured the 42 winners for their outstanding pursuit of excellence during 2015. The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and UAE Exchange Centre received the coveted Dubai Quality Gold Award from Shaikh Maktoum.

Promoth Manghat CEO of UAE Exchange said: "We have always believed that business excellence is a journey with no end and it is this drive and passion that has helped us get where we are today. It is a big responsibility for us and we think of it as our commitment to our customers. We are constantly looking for ways to outperform in terms of quality of service quality of performance and quality of responsibility to society at large. Innovation means a lot to us and we will continue to invest our time and efforts in providing amazing products as well as variations in existing products to suit our customers' needs."

Tim Hortons & Cold Stone Creamery by Apparel Group along with Jumeirah Creekside Hotel Thumbay Hospital - Ajman Global Village Fun City Dubai Tecon Barakat Quality Plus Star Cement Company and Jaleel Distribution also received the Dubai Quality Appreciation Award from Shaikh Maktoum.

"This award is a great opportunity for us to go back and evaluate what we did right where we hit the caps and where we can improve our performance. Quality is very important for us especially since we are in the food sector. We want to communicate this to our customers everyday and as part of this we have involved everyone in the organisation in our process. Everybody from the store level and up is involved and the engagement of everyone counts. It is encouraging that all our efforts have paid off today. Our customers have consistently rated us favourably and we hope to continue this" said Gaurav Arora general manager for the Middle East at Tim Hortons.

Like Arora K.S. Santosh general manager of Barakat Quality Plus pointed to the importance of product quality to customers. "Quality for us is not just a word it is an effort. This effort cannot come if you just look at your operations everyday; you have to look at the world around you and scout out the best practices. This award has helped us to reevaluate our processes and the different benchmarks that we have set. We know that business sustainability can only come if you continue to provide consistently top quality products. For this to happen it is necessary to have happy workers. At Barakat we have happy workers who in turn create wonderful products."

Shaikh Mansoor honoured the 16 Best Service Performance Brands recognised under the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme which included Arabian Automobiles Company Al Jaber Optical Majid Al Futtaim Finance India Palace Restaurant (Restaurants) Joyalukkas and Al Rostamani International Exchange.

"We have set the bar with this award and now we need to raise it. We are constantly looking at the best practices in the market and around the world and once we have identified them we send our teams to go study them and then learn how they can be integrated into our own company. The idea is that this needs to trickle down from the top; however change does not necessarily come only from the top - it can come from any point in an organisation" said Salah Z. Yamout director of sales and marketing at Arabian Automobiles.

Naveed Ansari general manager of Tecon Limited added: "It is very important to consistently provide quality products for customers. The whole company depends on your processes and how you restructure your company in terms of leadership strategy and customer satisfaction and feedback. One segment that we will be looking at very closely now are our CSR initiatives. It is our responsibility to look beyond our offices to give back to the community. Currently we have around 20 ongoing CSR initiatives where we look at ways of protecting our environment as well as helping those in need; and we have plans to launch a few more this coming Ramadan."

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