H.E Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Executive Chairman of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation and Director General of Dubai Customs, delivered a keynote speech at Ideas Arabia 8th International Conference 2013, hosted by Dubai Quality Group, under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group. The event was organised under the theme 'Innovation - Key to sustainability' and was dedicated to administrative development ideas produced by employees and customers’ suggestions.
“Fresh ideas are the focus of attention in management development. They are the crucial factor for pushing administrative and operational applications to the optimal performance, as practically proved by experiments at different organizations locally, regionally and internationally. Through the ‘‘Dubai Government’s Unified Suggestions System’’, Dubai has relied upon supporting innovation and renovation as a solid foundation to develop the emirate’s upcoming achievements, under the leadership of the innovation pioneer, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai. We learned from His Highness to take great interest in the ideas and suggestions that come from those in the field, as they come in close contact with work details and relate to its development requirements. Customers’ suggestions are an important source to learn about the development requirements from the perspective of services beneficiaries at various institutions”, Mr Butti said.
“Major global institutions have adopted systems that incite innovation and encourage suggestions and ideas, after the Japanese institutions and companies successfully implemented these systems and proved their efficiency, they moved from the Quality Circles system, in which employees handle the development of suggestions as a group to setting up an integrated internal system to receive suggestions and study their feasibility in order to actually implement them. When this experiment proved its efficiency and effectiveness in boosting performance, the Western world adopted the suggestions system and it was implemented in mega international institutions and companies. Statistics released by the National Association of Suggestion Systems in the USA show that American companies achieve a revenue of USD 2 billion by implementing such systems”, he added.
Mr Butti stressed that investing in new ideas effectively requires setting the structure of the corporation itself first to enable employees and customers to innovate and renovate by configuring its internal systems to receive and implement ideas and suggestions in a flexible manner that ensures cost-efficient and continuous development. Global experiences indicate that field suggestions that come from employees and clients are the most important source of development ideas, as they are realistic and practical, coming from active members who have a first-hand experience with actual needs.
He pointed out that reacting positively to new ideas enriches the department’s experience practically and enables it to discover innovative employees who engage deeply with their work to uncover actual requirements for development. Thus, the department must reward these ideas by recognising their owners and appreciating their efforts.
“Our experiment has proved that adoption and implementation of new ideas is a lucrative investment, serving to improve performance and motivate employees and clients to work diligently to produce ideas and suggestions, making them partners in the decision-making process within a work motivating environment that reflects positively on the organisation and enables it to better serve the economy and the society through its constructive role in department development”, he concluded.