Press Releases

Al Hassan invests in EFQM Model of Organisation Excellence (02 August 2010)

In a yet another initiative for its journey toward excellence and commitment to "People Power" and Organisational Development, Al Hassan Group recently organized a six days workshop on "Achieving organizational excellence through the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model". The EFQM Excellence model is used by organizations across the world to benchmark their practices with the best practices of excellent organizations. The workshop was conducted by a certified EFQM trainer, Mr. Shawqi Sajwani, with an objective to develop a team of in-house assessors and conduct a pilot assessment of the Group after the successful completion of the training.

More than 200 employees across various operations of the Group were given orientation through EFQM awareness training programs and a team of fourteen was chosen based on various criteria including leadership, creative and strategic thinking skills, etc. for conducting in-house assessment The team was then trained as a part of Train the trainer workshop for three days and they were all nominated as assessors after passing the assessors test.

For the purpose of pilot assessment, the Group was assessed across its all three SBUs, viz., Contracting, Trading & Manufacturing and Centralised Support Services. Assessors were divided into three teams to do the assessment of respective entities. The team of assessors visited various businesses, conducting a range of interviews and studying the Group’s work processes. The assessors along with an EFQM expert conducted the assessment exercise and identified some useful strengths and areas of improvement (AFIs) for the entire Group. After assessment, the three teams made a comprehensive presentation to the Senior Management of the Group.

Speaking on the closing day of the workshop, Mr. Shawqi Sajwani informed that Al Hassan is the only business group in Oman which has used EFQM model to enable continuous improvement across the organization.

Commenting on the EFQM Program, Mr. Maqbool Ali Salman, Managing Director, Al Hassan Group said, "This training reflects Al Hassan’s commitment to achieve the highest level of business excellence. The EFQM model aims to encourage businesses to conduct performance assessment and measure progress in areas such as strategic planning, leadership, people, customers, key results and others. We hope Al Hassan will quickly realize the potential benefits of applying the EFQM approach to assess strengths and weaknesses and identify improvement opportunities that make a difference. Our common understanding and a common frame of reference will serve as the foundation for creating improvements in the Group - for the benefit of our competitiveness”.

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