2005 Dubai Quality Award Winners Announced

His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, deputy ruler of Dubai and United Arab Emirates (UAE) minister of finance and industry, recently presented the 2005 Dubai Quality Award.

The Dubai Quality Award is based on the excellence model of the European Foundation for Quality Management. The model has been applied in private and public sector organizations since 1992. The award had been given to participants from various sectors of the economy including manufacturing, service, tourism, construction, finance, professional and trade.

Previous winners included Union National Bank (UNB) and the National Bank of Dubai from the finance sector and Xerox Emirates from the trade sector.

From the tourism sector, the Ritz Carlton, Dubai, which won the Dubai Quality Award in 2001, received the award in the gold category. This category is open only to previous winners of the Dubai Quality Award.

Mohammed Nasr Abdeen, UNB’s CEO, attributes his company’s success directly to its dedicated people.

“Their skill, commitment and above all, their do-it-well attitude have lead to UNB winning the Dubai Quality Award,” Abdeen said. “UNB has once again proved its leadership in serving the customer in the UAE banking industry.”

UNB was established in 1991 as a public joint stock company. It has a supporting network of 35 banking centers throughout the UAE. The bank had a net profit of about UAE dirham 1.2 billion (U.S. $327 million) in 2005.

The bank offers products and services that meet banking requirements from individual needs to commercial transactions in retail, corporate, commercial finance, investment banking, union brokerage and trade finance.

UNB started its journey toward excellence in 2000 by identifying the need for a documented management system focusing on consistency and reliability. In 2001, it became the first bank of its size in the Middle East to be ISO 9001:2000 certified. It was recertified for another three-year period in 2005. UNB received the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) in 2002 and the SKEA Gold Award in the financial sector for 2005. The bank has adopted principles of total quality management (TQM) such as process measurement, benchmarking and customer care.

Sunil Thawani, vice president of TQM and performance management for UNB and ASQ country councilor in the UAE, said his company was happy and proud to receive the award.

“Winning such a prestigious award raises the expectations of our customers, investors, society and partners and the challenges to perform better in all we do,” he said. “It was a tremendous learning experience on our journey toward excellence. It further enhances my faith in teamwork and respect for people.”