The UAE now aims to shape the future, and not just anticipate it, said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), in his keynote address at the first World Excellence Summit today (November 20).

Al Tayer said that Dewa is organising the first World Excellence Summit as a platform for experts and specialists in different areas of excellence.

This includes organisational excellence, innovation, project management, governance, and modern technologies; to anticipate and shape future trends for excellence and sustainability, said the top official.

''Thanks to its clear vision, the UAE has become a role model for excellence and leads global competitiveness indices in different areas. Government excellence in the UAE is based on an integrated system to achieve people’s happiness by providing seven-star government services, as well as achieving the best financial and operational results," remarked Al Tayer.

"Participating in the local and international excellence programmes has helped us implement the best excellence standards and concepts. This has resulted in enhancing the efficiency, reliability and availability of our services and achieving customer happiness, which was 95 percent last year," he added.

Al Tayer pointed out that in light of rapid changes in the business environment, public and private organisations need to be more agile to continue their sustainable growth.

"Dewa has enhanced agility and organisational risk management based on a governance model that has four key pillars: Trust, Accountability, Transparency, and Fair Practices," he noted.

"In a move that underlines its leading role, Dewa, in cooperation with the British Standards Institute, has launched the Business Agility Concept and Framework, as the first-of-its-kind in the world.
Dewa’s flexibility and agility contribute significantly to its success and excellence,'' Al Tayer added.

''To ensure sustainability of excellence, we adopt creativity and innovation in our strategies, plans, and initiatives. We have developed a special strategy for innovation and the future that is implemented through a framework that uses systems and mechanisms to accelerate the generation and implementation of ideas, as well as developing the necessary enablers. It also includes using the best disruptive technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as AI, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAVs, energy storage, blockchain, and Big Data.''

Prominent international experts and specialists in excellence and officials from local and international excellence programmes, including Dr. Harland James Harrington, CEO of Harrington Institute, California, and Russell Longmuir, CEO of the European Foundation for Quality Management, EFQM, are taking part in the two-day summit, which includes panel discussions and presentations on different aspects of excellence.

The first day of the summit witnessed the launch of the New EFQM Module 2020 in the Middle East. Al Tayer was handed the first Arabic version of the Module by the CEO of the European Foundation for Quality Management.-TradeArabia News Service