MD & CEO of DEWA highlights DEWA’s journey towards excellence during Dubai Forum for Government Best Practice

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), has stressed at the 1st Dubai Forum for Government Best Practice, DEWA’s commitment to developing procedures innovatively and creatively. DEWA implements the best international practices and adheres to the highest standards of quality and excellence. DEWA aims to optimise its services by promoting a culture of organisational excellence in all its operations. It institutionalises a culture of excellence in the government sector by continuous development and implementing organisational excellence standards in all its operations across the organisation, and continuously launches initiatives and activities to further develop its employees’ innovative abilities. The Forum, organised by the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG), took place on 21 April, as part of the Arab Leadership and Government Excellence Programme, under the theme ‘DEWA’s Journey of Excellence.’ "I would like to begin by recalling the inspiring words of Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who said "success is not a destination, but a journey. Each time you reach a summit on this journey, you must look ahead to the next one." He also said, "Excellence is not attained by hopes, it can only be achieved by exertion of efforts and hard work." The words of His Highness guide us in our efforts to achieve excellence, to achieve our vision to become a sustainable innovative world-class utility, and build sustainable development in the UAE," said Al Tayer. "This week, DEWA won 6 distinguished awards at the 19th Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) 2016. DEWA received awards in the categories of Distinguished Government Entity, Financially Distinguished Performance, Distinguished Government Entity in Communications, Distinguished Innovative Idea, and Distinguished Technical/Engineering Employee, and the Unknown Soldier Award. We also won the Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance as a result of our Best Consumer Award." The Conservation award has allowed for a great deal of savings over the last 10 years. DEWA has honoured 162 educational institutions and has passed on the message of conservation to 270,000 students. Total savings made in electricity and consumption since the implementation of the award is equivalent to 125 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, and 24 million gallons of water, worth about AED 90 million. We also won the Dubai Quality Award in the Gold Category, and the Dubai Human Development Awards 2016," said Al Tayer. "Today, I would like to highlight the major concepts of corporate excellence at DEWA. DEWA’s culture of excellence is based on continuous development, and implementing standards of organisational excellence across all operations. DEWA’s system adopts the concept of self-evaluation, to identify points of strength and opportunities for improvement in corporate performance, this creates a roadmap, initiatives and programmes, to further aid internal activities and programmes of corporate excellence. It also ensures integration, communication, and benchmarking, resulting in the improvement of general performance and achieving the happiness of customers." "DEWA’s strategy for 2021 supports the UAE Vision 2021, the Dubai Plan 2021, and the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, to ensure a brighter future for you, and for generations to come. This supports our mission, and our commitment to ensure the happiness of our stakeholders, it also promotes Dubai’s vision by providing water and electricity services that meet the highest standards of reliability, efficiency, and safety, in an environment that nurtures innovation with a competent workforce and effective partnerships; supporting resources sustainability. We adopt corporate values based on sustainability, innovation, excellence, wise governance, and the happiness of stakeholders, and we continuously integrate these values while measuring their efficiency." "DEWA is working to achieve the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, which is shaping the energy sector in Dubai over the next three decades. The strategy aims to provide 7% of Dubai’s total power output from clean energy sources by 2020. It will increase this target to 25% by 2030 and 75% by 2050. Dubai is the only city in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to launch such a promising strategy, with specific targets and deadlines that outline the future of energy in Dubai up to 2050. The strategy consists of five main pillars: infrastructure, legislation, funding, building capacities and skills, and an environmentally-friendly energy mix. Today, we are one of the most efficient government organisations in the world, and have achieved incredible progress both nationally and internationally," added Al Tayer. "The UAE, represented by DEWA, has been ranked 1st in the MENA region, and 4th globally for getting electricity, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2016 report. Customer minutes lost per year reached 3.87 minutes, compared to 15 minutes recorded by leading utilities in the European Union and the USA. Losses in power transmission and distribution networks reached 3.3%, compared to 6-7% in Europe and the USA. Water network losses reached 8.26%, compared to 15% in North America." He added, "In 2015 we recorded a fuel consumption efficiency rate of 90%. We run and manage the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which is one of the largest international renewable energy projects, and will develop electricity production techniques by using solar energy, and its capacity will reach 1,000 MW by 2020 and 5,000 MW by 2030. The project involves total investments worth AED50 billion. The Hassyan Clean Coal Power Plant is another pioneering project implemented by DEWA based on the IPP model. With a production capacity of 2,400 MW, the first and second phases will be operational by 2020." DEWA's total amount of assets in conjunction with affiliated companies exceeds AED 127 billion. DEWA has a strong credit rating, as scored by Moody's, and Standard & Poor's (S&P). DEWA’s five-year investment strategy amounts to over AED 65 billion. A sum of AED 8.72 billion has been allocated to capital expenditure and projects, compared to AED8.028 billion in 2015. The 2016 budget includes a number of key projects, such as infrastructure in generation, transmission, and distribution. To emphasise its commitment, DEWA has launched a host of successful initiatives and has allocated over AED 2.6 billion towards the development of world-class electricity and water infrastructure in the Emirate, ahead of the World Expo 2020, which will showcase Dubai’s state of the art public facilities, as well as its focus on exploring renewable energy, to support the Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative, in line with the Dubai Expo 2020’s theme of 'Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,’ which focuses on the concepts of opportunity, mobility, and sustainability. "We are still proceeding on our journey to achieve excellence. We are playing a pioneering role to deepen and spread a culture of excellence and its concepts to achieve our vision. I have faith in working to become number one. This encourages further efforts towards becoming an international pioneer," Al Tayer said. "Our senior management has established strategic pillars, and an administrative work system that allows active communication with all stakeholders, to learn about their needs and expectations. Our integrated corporate governance system ensures transparency, integrity, and the implementation of a firm, balanced and flexible decision-making process. We encourage teamwork. We were acclaimed as a Stevie Award gold winner for Best Leadership Team in the world in 2014. We strive to achieve the happiness of our customers, and provide services with added value. We follow up with customers on their experience, and measure the effectiveness of our services by conducting Mystery Shopper surveys, customer satisfaction reports, and providing a customer complaint system. We measure customer experience indicators to provide service and define opportunities for improvement. We consider the needs and expectations of our customers when improving services, which are provided 24/7," he added. Al Tayer noted, "This saves time, money, and effort, facilitates procedures, and provides smart innovative services that adhere to the most up-to-date technologies, achieving the happiness of customers. We have a customer service division in our organisation that supports our 750,000 customers with 15 customer centres and call centres. We provide all of our services via our website and smart apps, which supports well-used mobile operating systems. It provides an integrated group of services that meets customers’ needs, and includes 150 smart services and features. We provide customers with value-added initiatives (TAM, QAFAY, TARISH, Hayyak, Asher, Ashal, Tarsheed, and Shura). In 2014, we achieved a customer satisfaction index of 94.3%, while the Happiness Meter surpassed 95%." "To sustain our excellent accomplishments, we developed strategic plans in accordance with national plans to achieve balance between current and future requirements and expectations. We adopted the Balanced Scorecard to measure corporate performance and benchmark its results. The leadership team regularly follows up with performance results to improve future performance, through an integrated system of performance reports, " Al Tayer said. He added that the leadership team can monitor performance in real-time on tablet computers. "This supports our decision-making. We analyse the needs of stakeholders, identify priorities, and regularly review our objectives regarding our customers’ needs. We predict future results through planning scenarios. We evaluate progress towards achieving our vision, based on indicators related to our strategic goals. The general rate for achieving these strategic goals in 2015 was 91%," added Al Tayer. "Our flexibility and agility actively contributes to our journey towards excellence. We define opportunities for growth and development by analysing the internal and external environment, the needs of stakeholders, the needs of the energy and water sectors, and producing short -and long-term demand forecasts. We successfully carry out flexible strategic approaches to support Dubai and the UAE: these include Sustainability 2012, Smart Government 2013, Smart Dubai 2014, and Innovation 2015." "We translated our strategic plans into initiatives and projects, which were then implemented in record time. Our Risk Management and Business Continuity Management are based on internal and international standards. We launched the first specialist cyber-security centre to protect Dubai Government from potential security threats. Our agility is reflected by reducing the process of getting electricity from 5 to 2 steps, and reducing the time taken to do this from 35 days to 10." "We achieved a 100% smart transformation in less than a year after the Smart Dubai initiative was announced. We build strong infrastructure and develop excellent corporate capabilities. We work tirelessly to enhance our installed capacity, which is currently 9,656MW of electricity and 470 million imperial gallons of desalinated water per day (MIGD). We completed M-Station, the newest and largest power production and desalination plant in the UAE, with a total capacity of 2,060MW of electricity and 140 MIGD. We are currently expanding it with a AED1.47 billion budget, and will complete it by 2018. The new combined-cycle power plant will add a further 700MW to the installed generating capacity of M-Station at Jebel Ali, boosting its capacity to 2,760MW when the project is completed in 2018." "We are currently working towards the completion of one of the world’s most efficient smart grids. We have allocated AED7 billion worth of investments to the development of smart grids. We launched 3 smart initiatives to support the Smart Dubai initiative. These include Shams Dubai, Smart Meters, and Green Charger to establish electric vehicle charging stations. We are currently implementing the international SAP Enterprise Resource Management system, which plans to save AED69 million annually. Our people are a major pillar of our success. Over 10,000 employees from 63 different nationalities work at DEWA. We defined our current and future needs to achieve our strategic qualitative and quantitative objectives. Our Human Resources department works based on an integrated framework of policies and systems," added Al Tayer. "We strive to achieve a sustainable future for generations to come. We are the first government organisation to adopt sustainability as part of our strategic vision, and 5-pillar plan to achieve long-term sustainability objectives, beginning with starting from sustainable growth. In 2014, we updated our strategy to facilitate 3D sustainability, the triple-bottom approach based on economy, environment, and society. We created the Climate Change & Sustainability department and adopted the motto, ‘For Generations to come.’ We also launched the Sustainability Report, which is released annually. The first report was released in 2014, and the second in 2015. We diversified our strategic investment to ensure the continuity of financial resources. We also diversified our business portfolio. We have diversified our sustainability initiatives to include energy and water demand side management, to reduce energy demand by 30% by 2030." "Electricity and water conservation programmes save over AED 840 million. Our Sustainable Building is the largest government building in the world to secure a LEED Platinum rating for green buildings, and we generate electricity at buildings using solar energy through Shams Dubai," added Al Tayer. "We developed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and received several international certificates including the Social Accountability Certification SA8000. We launched over 67 initiatives during 2015, and accumulated over 12,000 employee voluntary work hours, achieving a community satisfaction rate of 87%. We have developed a host of international platforms to facilitate sustainability, these include the World Green Economy Summit (WGES), the Water, Energy, Technology, and Environment Exhibition (WETEX), Earth Hour, and our expedition to Antarctica. DEWA has participated as a main speaker in different international occasions such as the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21), and the World Government Summit. We adopt the best international practices to exchange knowledge and improve the lives of Dubai’s citizens and residents, and ensure a bright future for generations to come," concluded Al Tayer. The Arab Leadership and Government Excellence Programme, organised by MBRSG, featured activities including the UAE Forum for Government Best Practice, which focuses on the pillars of Leadership Challenges in a Changing World, Government Excellence Approach, Development and Implementation of General Policies, Information Technology and Communications, and Best Applications and Practices in Government Management of Leadership, Strategy, Management, Policies, Quality, and Excellence. The progammme aims to arm Arab leaders with the ability to address the challenges faced by modern governments, improve corporate performance, and support government performance. – Emirates News Agency, WAM - http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395294543918.html http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395294544149.html