Dubai Economy Department announces winners of the 2021 Business Excellence Awards

Dubai

The Dubai Economy Department (DED) hosted an online ceremony under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to honour the 26 winners in the 2020 cycle of its Business Excellence Awards.

The prestigious Awards, which recognised the outstanding efforts and commitment towards adopting best practices and achieving excellence in diverse disciplines of business, were announced virtually for the second consecutive year in view of the precautionary guidelines against the pandemic. Over 1,000 attendees from varied business sectors, industries, as well as the government sector joined the online ceremony to celebrate the 27th cycle of the Awards along with representatives from the winning entities.

Samsung Gulf Electronics - Customer Service Department (Services sector) was named the winner of the coveted Dubai Quality Global Award 2021, while Transguard (Logistics sector) won the Dubai Quality Gold Award. The Dubai Quality Award went to Aster Pharmacy Group LLLC (Healthcare sector) and Bvlgari Resort Dubai (Tourism sector).

AG Power and Bu Haleeba Contracting LLC (both from the Construction sector) shared the Dubai Quality Appreciation Award, with the Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Studies (Education sector).

Sharjah Islamic Bank (Social Media) and 6th Street (Mobile App) were the winners in the Smart Services sector, which was a new addition this year to the Best Service Performance Brand Award in the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme (DSES). The other winners of the Best Service Performance Brand Award 2021 were: Dubai Mall (Shopping Centres), Carters (Fashion Retail), National Bonds (Services), Aster Pharmacy (Health & Wellness), Global Village (Hospitality and Entertainment), aswaaq retail LLC (Hypermarkets and General Retail), American Tourister (Hypermarkets and General Retail), Eros Electricals LLC (Specialised Retail), and Matalan (GCC).

The 2021 Best Service Performance Outlets in DSES included: G2000 - Abu Dhabi Mall (Fashion Retail), RAKBANK - Al Rams Branch (Services), Al Rostamani Intl Ex - Nasser Square (Services), Health First Pharmacy 23 - Ghaleelah (Health & Wellness), India Palace Restaurant - RAK Mall (Hospitality and Entertainment), Lulu Hypermarket - Karama (Hypermarkets & General Retail), Geekay Games - Bawadi Mall (Specialized Retail) and Infiniti - Sheikh Zayed Road (Specialized Retail).

Symbolising the strength and diversity of business

Speaking to the Khaleej Times, His Excellency Sami Al Qamzi, Director General of Dubai Economy Department, congratulated the winners, and said that they represented the phenomenal growth achieved by the Awards, symbolised the strength and diversity of business, and quality of services in Dubai.

"We were delighted to see that the overall number of applicants in the 2020 cycle of the Business Excellence Awards remained the same as in the previous cycles despite the prevailing challenges. It’s also worth mentioning that the Awards have seen an increase of over 300 per cent in applications and members since inception," he said.

"Most recently, and more importantly, the Awards have been instrumental in enabling businesses to adapt to disruptive changes and sustain growth post-Covid. 'Adaptive Capacity’ was an additional criterion in the evaluations and assessment in the latest cycle of the Awards. We also found that health and safety compliance rate among members in the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme post-Covid was over 90 per cent. It indicates the special attention given to monitoring excellent business practices among participants in the Business Excellence Awards, and the level of knowledge they all share," he further added.

Promoting excellence in business

The Dubai Quality Award encourages and motivates companies and institutions to adopt a policy of excellence, provide the best services, and recognise best practices in performance excellence. Since its inception in 1994, DQA has received the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who has been instrumental in driving the quality movement across the private and public sectors in the emirate. The DQA winners were honoured in four categories - the Dubai Quality Global Award, Dubai Quality Gold Award, Dubai Quality Appreciation Award, and the Dubai Quality Award.

One-of-a-kind initiative

The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme is a one-of-a-kind initiative that aims to gain customer confidence and to make the experience of shopping in the UAE a pleasurable one. Participants in DSES are honoured in two main categories: the best outlet and the best brand.

For more details on the Business Excellence Awards, please write to: bec@dubaided.gov.ae or call +9714 4455833.

Previous Winners of Business Excellence Awards

His Excellency Sami Al Qamzi, Director General, Dubai Economy Department (DED), congratulates winners of Business Excellence Awards 2021, for enabling businesses to adapt to disruptive changes and sustaining growth post-Covid

Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It’s indeed my pleasure to join you at the 27th Business Excellence Awards ceremony. Dubai, and the UAE, are emerging from the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic with renewed strength and optimism. In managing a crisis and reopening to welcome the world after Covid-19, we have led by example.

Today, we stop for a moment to celebrate the resilience and resolve of our people and institutions in continuing their journey towards excellence. Dubai Economy Department is proud to honour the 26 winners of the Dubai Quality Awards and the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme, the two flagship awards in the Business Excellence Awards, in the 2020 cycle. The winners honoured represent the phenomenal growth achieved by the Awards, symbolising the strength and diversity of business and quality of services in Dubai.

The Dubai Quality Awards was launched in 1994 to promote organizational excellence across businesses in Dubai based on the EFQM Model. The DQA framework includes the Dubai Quality Global Award for Multinationals, the Dubai Quality Appreciation Award for Representative Entities, and the Dubai Smart Industry Award for Industries focused on Digitalisation. The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme, initiated in 2002 to promote excellence in customer service in the business community, has also gone past many milestones.

Most recently, and more importantly, the Awards have been instrumental in enabling businesses to adapt to disruptive changes and sustain growth post-Covid.

‘Adaptive Capacity’ was an additional criterion in the evaluations and assessment of the Awards in the latest cycle. We also found that health and safety compliance rate among members in the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme post-pandemic was over 90 per cent. It indicates the special attention given to monitoring excellence practices among participants in the Business Excellence Awards and the level of knowledge they all share.

"What we witnessed over these years was remarkable. Excellence and competitiveness have transformed into an institutional culture," His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, had said earlier this year in his letter to the people of the UAE. The most notable achievement of the Business Excellence Awards is indeed the excellence culture being progressively shared and upheld by people and businesses here.

We were delighted to see that the overall number of applicants in the 2020 cycle of the Business Excellence Awards remained the same as in the previous cycle despite the prevailing challenges. It’s also worth mentioning that the Awards have seen an increase of over 300 per cent in applications and members since inception.

The excellence knowledge outreach in the Awards has seen an exceptional increase of eight per cent from the previous year, with over 1,500 delegates being brought on board and trained in various events aimed to develop applicant companies, assessors, mystery shoppers, and to support business continuity.

Processes and programmes associated with the Business Excellence Awards have seen substantial improvements and smart innovations. Assessment and capability development programmes have gone online and the 2020 cycle also saw hybrid assessments, with online and on-site engagement, and over 8,000 feedback reports were sent to applicants and members, highlighting key areas for improvements along with strengths.

A significant addition to the Business Excellence Awards in the current cycle is the launch of the ‘Smart Services’ category. As the circumstances prevailing globally continue to drive a digital transition, this new category evaluates quality of e-services available across social media channels, mobile applications, contact centres and websites. The objective is to proactively set a template for measuring and recognizing quality in the post - pandemic world.

I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for all the applicants who came forward to be a part of the Business Excellence Awards. Words cannot express my gratitude to the assessors for their hard work and voluntary service, to the jury for the fair selection of winners, our partners and suppliers for their continuous support and last, but not least, our own internal team for their untiring efforts to sustain the excellence momentum.

Thank you everyone for joining us. Stay safe.

Connecting minds, creating the future of excellence

Shaikha Ahmad Abdulrahman Al Bishri, Director, Business Excellence Department, Department of Economic Development (DED) reflects on the 27 years of excellence achieved by Business Excellence Awards in its journey of achieving sustainable progress through competitiveness

As much as we are proud of this milestone, we are also thankful to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for inspiring us to remain committed to our mission and under whose patronage we have had 27 consistent years of awards and will continue further.

The Business Excellence Awards (BEA) remain a major component of the initiatives launched by Dubai Economy to promote quality and excellence as a catalyst for further growth and development in the business sector and contribute to the aspirations of the Government of Dubai to encourage global best practices across the emirate and the UAE to strengthen competitiveness and sustainability.

The Awards have also continued to expand each year to recognise exceptional efforts of industry sectors and businesses to support strategic initiatives aimed to elevate quality standards and enhance customer happiness across Dubai, UAE and also globally.

The Awards have grown in scope and catered to different segments of industry like digitalisation with the Dubai Smart Industry award, or SME’s with the Dubai Quality Award for Representative Entities, or multinationals with the Dubai Quality Global Award. This has led to growth within different ecosystems, benchmarking progress, and sharing of best practices.

The Business Excellence Awards and its affiliated programmes have played a major role in promoting a culture of knowledge-sharing and capability development within the business community and across services in Dubai and beyond by successively developing a team of assessors and businesses capable of extending the excellence momentum into the future and sustaining it.

The Covid-19 phase resulted in all programmes and processes associated with BEA moving online. Both the applicants and assessors alike, were trained online on the Awards criteria and processes. The assessors conducted hybrid site visit assessments, combining both physical and virtual visits as required, for all the Award categories, and online feedback reports were sent to all applicant organisations. The Business Excellence Awards and the BEA online portal have evolved into an engagement platform and reference point for businesses keen on adopting global best practices and growing sustainably.

The journey for us and the winners does not end with the award and its glory. This is actually the first step of the next level. Emphasis is laid on feedback and implementation of action points within the report. Together we close the loop, learn and grow.

We look forward to more organisations participating in the Awards. Together we connect minds and create the future of excellence and encourage you all to join Dubai’s drive for excellence!