The celebration of the 24 th anniversary of the inauguration of Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) is an acknowledgement of a 2 decades of implanting the first cornerstone of comprehensive quality infrastructure and excellence in Abu Dhabi in 1999 by Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ADCCI).
The Award is a complete development approach built on the latest human knowledge to provide the private sector with practical and scientific roadmap towards adopting the principles of comprehensive quality and implementing them in the businesses of the Emirate. The scientific standards and framework of the Award were adopted from the best technical and administrational practices in organizational development of the most successful international corporations.
SKEA reflects the essence of quality and excellence which can be used by the participating corporations to highlight their true capabilities, so they appreciate what they see in themselves from strength points that go in line with the best practices in quality and excellence. Besides, those corporations can find when taking part in SKEA some technical and administrational areas for improvement so that they can address them and work to fill gaps, thereby starting their race towards excellence. In the Excellence Race (a name we chose for the magazine of the Award) there is no finish-line; thus, the participating corporations in SKEA since the past years remained and will remain in constant hard work towards organizational excellence.
The excellence of nations and societies around us is possible with the excellence of their individuals, men and women. An excellent corporation is built upon a number of excelled people, and the excellent corporations in economic, social, and political sectors can build an excellent country. Therefore, the strategic plans of realizing the sustainable economic and social development cannot be achieved but through distinguished corporations that are built on distinguished individuals with technical and administrational capabilities.
From here comes the strategic targets of SKEA which are based on the main axes of achieving sustainable economic and social development, and announcing an active participation in achieving excellence as follows:
• Active participation in formulating an excelled individuals
• Active participation in realizing excellent corporation performance
• Achieving excellence work outcomes
The excelled individual is the strong and honest man. The strong one is in his knowledge and skills, and honest in his behavior and hard work in realizing an excellent services for the entire society.
Excellent corporation performance is the most efficient one (to do things right from the first time and every time) while efficiently managing financial and human resources. The most effective one is in which the approach becomes a steering wheel towards realizing the strategic targets, and the hard work in founding compliance between the employees and the work policies in one hand, and in balancing the needs of all the related parties in the other, and then working towards answering these needs in the present and the future.
Finally, the outcomes of excellent work are those elicited from the comprehensive vision of our wise leadership which is being translated in the Abu Dhabi Economic vision 2030. This Vision is to be implemented by the private sector and the public one in a strategic partnership and sharing a vision that was expressed thoroughly in the enlightening directional words of His Highness the patron of the event. His words headed the books of Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance which were formed according to international models that were adopted by SKEA for the past years. His Highness pointed to the need for the development process of Abu Dhabi to move forward based on two solid grounds which are the public sector and the private one. I would like to note to the need for adopting the enlightening standards of organizational excellence in the performance of the public sector to achieve the same great results SKEA achieved in the private sector.
In every cycle of SKEA it witness an increase in its programmes which resulted in a considerable growth in the number of participants in different sectors and fields
SKEA Assessors, whom we like to term “Ambassadors of Excellence” as they were learned the culture of excellence through us for them to spread it home, are messengers of quality and excellence. More than 1000 assessors were trained.
Assessment and evaluation procedures every year witnessed significant development represented in comprehending the latest developments in excellence. Thus, SKEA was the first to adopt such modern approaches in corporation evaluation. The members from local, regional and international awards joined in to supervise the finest phases of the evaluation process. These phases are the matching evaluation and the field visits which included all the participating organizations.
SKEA Higher Committee members approved the results after a comprehensive review by all individuals, matching assessments and field visits in addition to ensuring the authenticity of all the performance reports which are the real prize the Award offers for all participants including the winners. All participants are winners by merely receiving this added value report. Again, there are no losers amongst the participants.
I am honored to convey my utmost appreciation to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s President, for his continuous and unlimited support to SKEA since its inauguration, May Allah bless Him for this country and its people.
