Country Councilor Discusses Quality with Minister of Economy

In October 2007, Sunil Thawani, the ASQ Country Councilor for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had the opportunity to meet with His Excellency Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansoori, the Honorable Minister of Economy, and present his book, Business Excellence Awards—Strategies for Winning, to him.

In UAE, all ministries and government departments are improving their performance and services to the public by adopting the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) framework. The SKEA model is based on the European Foundation of Quality Management model. To oversee successful implementation of the federal government improvement program, the Ministry of Development for Government Sector has been established, with H. E. Mansoori as the former minister. Thawani felt his book would be of interest to H. E. Mansoori, so he requested a meeting with him.

H. E. Mansoori, who has an industrial engineering degree, spent time discussing with Thawani the challenges of implementing business excellence in the government sector. These challenges include the relevance and application of a business excellence model to the government sector and using it to effectively improve services and the mind-set that government departments, like the courts and police, are not in the business of providing services.

Together, they recognized some of the critical factors for successful and sustainable improvement programs and the implementation of business excellence. These factors include the active involvement of people, visible commitment and involvement of leadership and perseverance.

“Compared to private and public organizations, I was under the impression that it would be relatively easy for government ministries and departments to improve performance as they have limited stakeholders to serve and satisfy,” Thawani said. “Reflecting back on my interaction, I realized implementing improvement in the government sector has its own and unique set of challenges. At times, it may be harder because it may not be easy to make a business case for change or improvement.”

Interaction with H. E. Mansoori inspired Thawani to further commit himself to his profession. H. E. Mansoori was highly supportive of Thawani’s idea of translating his book into Arabic, he said. “He promised to read the book, share it with his colleagues in the office and was kind enough to autograph one book for me, which I shall always treasure.”