Principles of Business Excellence - Essay Example

Principles of Business Excellence Name Institution Date   Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 An overview of the DGEP organizational excellence Model 3 Categories of Government Initiatives in Dubai 4 1) Administrative Excellence Categories 4 Application of the Model 5 Promotion of competition 5 Ensuring Customer focus 5 Creativity 6 Transparency 7 Promoting efficiency and effectiveness 7 Initiatives of the Model 8 Employee Satisfaction Survey 9 Customer Satisfaction Survey 9 Summary 10 Reference 12 Introduction Dubai is a city in the United Arab Emirates. It has a distinct identity since it has embraced modernization and dynamism at the same time. In this respect, the city has been responsible for the birth and establishment of performance measurements and strategies of excellence. These performance measurements and strategies of excellence have proved bring efficiency, flexibility and competitiveness in the dynamic world of business. Because of the growing competition, Dubai needed to modernize the way the government approaches the different departments of marketing and production. This aim led to the establishment of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme in the year 1998 (Krane, 2009). An overview of the DGEP organizational excellence Model Dubai Government Excellence Programme is a widespread integrated programme controlled by the appointed executive council together with the Dubai’s Government. While the control is left in the hands of these two bodies, the leadership of the programme is under different hands- His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The initiative has a vision, which is a driving force towards achieving the set objectives of attaining the high levels of international standards. The main focus of this programme is to look for ways and means of improving the performances and the management of various government departments. It also seeks to provide rewards to individual and team workers on the basis of their contribution to improving the services which are recognized and appreciated both internally and internationally (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). In order for the government to attain its vision of attaining the international level of excellence, every department is required to come up with well-defined objectives together with measured systems and public report of the results. This explains the fact that the basis of the rewards given depend on the success of each department’s interaction with customers and reaching their satisfaction levels. Therefore, for this programme to come into reality, The Dubai government runs various initiatives under this program that are implemented in various departments to make sure that there is the realization of a couple of things. Among these things to be realized are the values of excellence. Here, the departments ensure that they embrace principles of excellence. Apart from the principles of excellence, creativity and quality are expected to be embodied by the departments. Besides, best administrative and professional practices must be seen in these departments. Last, the departments must employ working methods which are not only most sophisticated but also effective (United Nations 2007). Categories of Government Initiatives in Dubai There are various initiatives that have been developed in Dubai to over see the smooth running of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme. These initiatives have been divided into two categories that aids in awarding various departments in the government and giving encouragements for better performance. In addition to the awards, all departments are given full reports that show their strong points or areas as well as their weak points, which call for improvements on the basis of the model’s criteria (Bell, 2002). These categories include; 1) Administrative Excellence Categories This category has departments that includes; distinguished Government department, distinguished Government agency, distinguished Excellence appreciation, die-Government department, distinguished government team, distinguished government technical project, distinguished government joint project, distinguished employee satisfaction, and distinguished financial performances (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). 2) Employee Excellence Categories This category comprises of; distinguished employees of government, distinguished employees in the administration department, distinguished employees in the financial department, distinguished employees in the technical/engineering, distinguished employees in specialized fields, distinguished employees who are female, as well as distinguished employees who are new in the organization (Rehman, 2008). Application of the Model Promotion of competition The Dubai government excellence programme, in a bid to encourage and reinforce competition, has through Sheikh Mohammed announced to the different government departments that the programme has a broad array of awards and presents both in UAE and in Dubai, set a side specifically for those individuals who produce outstanding results in different areas. Among the awards announced are the Young Business Leaders Awards, the Dubai Government Excellence Programme Award, and the Arab Journalism Award.through these motivation, departments and individuals are challenged to strive hard in outsmarting their competitors. Ensuring Customer focus In this case, the Dubai excellence programme strives to ensure that any public organization has a well-defined mission as well as core processes whose expressed purpose is that of serving the customer needs. It encourages all the government departments to know their customers correctly, identify the needs of these customers, and make an assessment to see whether their organizational design and mission are in line with the customer needs. If the department’s organizational design and mission are congruent with the customer’s needs, the departments are encouraged to come up with a mechanism of putting in place the necessary technical and cultural changes to the department’s business design. The programme encourages the government departments to be driven by customer needs and to be customer- focused organizations. The programme encourages the government departments to adopt a number of steps in order to become customer-focused. The first step is that of identifying the targeted customers. This identification is done in terms of who the target customers are, what these customers expect from the organization and the times and the way they interact with the organization. The other steps involve developing the wants of the customers, creating a customer service culture, clear communication of expectations and service standards, provision of consistent customer service, empowerment of employees to handle customer service problems and reinforcement of good communication between the organization and the customers (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). Creativity The Dubai Government excellence programme encourages creativity and innovation by rewarding outstanding innovators. It has set some awards that they give those who come up with creative projects and great innovation. Before the Dubai Government excellence and employees being put in place, running of the institutions was very slow. Besides, poor production was experienced because of lack of creativity and innovations due to inefficiency. This gave an edge to the private sector, which used to have well managed institutions and high production as compared to government institutions. The private sector pioneered the aspects of creativity and innovation. On introduction of this programme, the government sector came to overtake the private sector several areas such as expertise, inventiveness and provision of outstanding services (Perry, 2009). Transparency Within the Dubai Government Excellence Programme, transparency, which has for a long time been a preserve of the private sector, became very evident among the various government departments (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). The programme propagated the significance and applicability of transparency in the public sectors. As a result, the various government sectors began to use transparent measures in order to win the confidence of the customers. This is done through adoption of modern concepts like objective scorecard, premeditated planning, premeditated management of the human resource, shared services as well as knowledge management (Perry, 2009). Promoting efficiency and effectiveness The Dubai government excellence programme was rated highly when it came to the aspect of promoting effectiveness and efficiency among the employees and the government departments. Consequently, the programme works to ensure that its policies are put into practice and maintained in order to achieve the objectives that are outlined in an efficient and effective manner. This is done through organization of comprehensive training workshops for all employees of the government. These workshops are purposed to be executed by different government departments as well as various representatives. Diverse departments are called upon to participate in the workshops and meetings and are given the assurance pertaining their commitments and ownership. It is common with the Government excellence plan to obtain inputs to the models development from unsurpassed practices and standards to guarantee applicability and authentication of the models and systems, which have been developed (United Nations 2007). All the assignments that are given out to individuals in various departments are assessed and reviewed in order to make continuous improvements and updates. On request for help on various area that needs clarification, the program will be right at hand to handle it and implement the phases of any of the programmes models. Sharing of ideas on how to best to implement the programmes models and systems is done through the organization of forums. Members from different departments congregate together in order to share ideas, moreover for sustainability of the programme, initiatives get more assurance through committed support and involvement of HIS HIGHNES SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL MAKTOUM, the ruler of Dubai during all the pogrammes activities and forums since it has major input to sustainable performance of the systems and models (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). Initiatives of the Model Customer and employee surveys are essential in aiding the state agencies, programs, and institutions to roll out ways of improving customer and employee satisfaction by providing better management of service quality for customers and conducive working environment for employees Customer satisfaction is usually determined by customers’ perception by the quality of the services while on the other hand Employee satisfaction is usually determined by employees’ perception of the quality of the workplace (Bhote, 2002). Employee Satisfaction Survey This survey is conducted with the sole purpose of ensuring that the employees of an organization are motivated and work in a conducive environment to boost the production and the quality of the produce. This is achieved through conducting employee’s orientation for them to be conversant of all the areas of engagement, organizing training sessions and meetings in order to exchange ideas. This is evident with the Dubai police where the officers are given high standards of education so that they remain conversant with the latest technology to deal with criminal activities. Dubai police having had this knowledge remained the first to apply testing of the DNA in criminal investigations. The police was also in the forefront in using electronic finger printing, courtesy of having this knowledge (Rehman, 2008). Customer Satisfaction Survey It refers to the establishment of how the organizational customers feel about the products and services being produced. This survey is conducted through face to face, over the phone e-mails or hand written forms. After thorough analysis of the feed back is done, business operations are conducted to meet the customers’ satisfaction. According to Dubai Municipality, customer satisfaction is achieved through work that is being done that encompasses urban planning and supervision of construction, environmental improvement and protection, conserving of the public parks, ensuring that the building materials, food and consumable items meet the international standards through laboratory certification an accreditation (Rehman, 2008). Summary Dubai seeks to find a lasting solution on the improvement of the governments’ performance in various sectors of the economy to be in line with the latest technology .This will ensure the enhancement of the governments’ capacity to implement modern principles of administration, which are based on the special pillars that includes customer satisfaction, resource development, procedure, simplification, systems documentation, creativity encouragement and capability development (United Nations 2007). Dubai also seeks working on ways to provide a working a sound working environment by motivating and supporting Government departments to take up strategies that induce widespread development, provision of services to the business community, provision of excellent and conducive environment for investment and give promotion to those in the private sector to promote free entrepreneurship (Porter & Tanner, 1996). Following the directions that were given by, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed in Rashid Al Maktoum, United Arab Emirates Vice President and Prime Minister, and Ruler of Dubai ordered the setting up of Dubai Government Excellence Program to build up the Government second advance its performance through good incentives, motivational working environment, constructive cooperation and healthy competition. Dubai Government Excellence Program has a vision of achieving a quantum rise in the performance of government departments and bodies by providing a position of benchmarking norms allowing them to conduct self estimation of activities (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). The program also sets the following goals which involves; Development of governments sector and improving on its performance through moral incentives and making sure that the environment being worked in is conducive and the workers are motivated in order to ensure that there is mutual cooperation and hence encourage positive competition. It seeks to create support on the development programs that are within various government departments and bodies in order to improve on productivity, ensure that there is efficiency, rationalize expenditure and ensure that there is commitment to the set objectives for outstanding results of service productivity. Promoting the values of excellence, embracing creativity and quality, establishing the unsurpassed professional and administrative practices to aid in the implementation of the highly developed and effective working methods are the other responsibilities of the programme. Providing emphasis on the duties that are being performed by the government sectors in the giving of support to the advanced developmental plans and at the same time find the duties of the government sectors by establishing a modern motivating working climate, promoting high standards of performance in all areas, providing support to the private sector and servicing the business community (Rehman, 2008). Establishment of a material that offers guiding reference through the principles and the assessment criteria for the level of the performances within the various government departments and bodies within Dubai. This programme also works to ensure that there is full government commitment to deliver the set responsibilities and obligations with the highest level of quality, efficiency and conveying appreciation and recognition to various departments of Dubai’s government and bodies in achieving excellence in performance, productivity, services, projects, programs, plans and working methods. Motivation of government employees of all ranks is also essential with the sole purpose of promoting creativity, excellence, commitment; know how, customer support and performance (Groves, Herbert & Correll, 2008). Reference Bell, G. (2002). The competitive enterprise: 10 principles of business excellence for increased market share. Sydney: McGraw-Hill. Bhote, K. R. (2002). The ultimate Six Sigma: Beyond quality excellence to total business excellence. New York: AMACOM/American Management Association. Groves, D., Herbert, K., & Correll, J. G. (2008). Achieving class A business excellence: An executive's perspective. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Hiles, A. (2011). The definitive handbook of business continuity management. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Hill, N., Roche, G., & Allen, R. (2007). Customer satisfaction: The customer experience through the customer's eyes. London: Cogent. Krane, J. (2009). Dubai: The story of the world's fastest city. London: Atlantic. Perry, M. P. (2009). Business driven PMO setup: Practical insights, techniques, and case examples for ensuring success. Fort Lauderdale, FL: J. Ross Pub. Porter, L. J., & Tanner, S. (1996). Assessing business excelence: A guide self-assessment. Oxford [etc.: Butterworth_heinemann. Rehman, A. A. (2008). Dubai & Co: Global strategies for doing business in the Gulf states. New York: McGraw-Hill. United Nations. (2007). Innovations in governance in the Middle East, North Africa, and Western Balkans: Making governments work better in the Mediterranean region. New York: United Nations. 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