Dubai Electricity and Water Authority's road to success highlighted at forum

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) CEO and Managing Director Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer spoke of the utility’s dedication to innovatively and uniquely develop processes and quality standards at the first Dubai Forum for Government Best Practice. 

The Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG) organized the forum, under the theme "DEWA's Journey of Excellence,"  as part of the Arab Leadership and Government Excellence Program.

During his speech, Al Tayer highlighted DEWA’s goal of optimizing it services by building an environment of excellence within its daily operations and corporate standards. The company is also focused on building the skills of employees through different initiatives and activities.

“I would like to begin by recalling the inspiring words of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, 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,’” Al Tayer said. “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.”

“This week, DEWA won six distinguished awards at the 19th Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) 2016,” Al Tayer said. “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 honored 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. ... We also won the Dubai Quality Award in the Gold Category, and the Dubai Human Development Awards 2016.”

“Today, I would like to highlight the major concepts of corporate excellence at DEWA,” Al Tayer said. “DEWA's culture of excellence is based on continuous development and implementing standards of organizational 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 programs, to further aid internal activities and programs 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,” Al Tayer said. “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 percent of Dubai's total power output from clean energy sources by 2020.”

“The UAE, represented by DEWA , has been ranked first in the MENA region, and fourth globally for getting electricity, according to the World Bank's Doing Business 2016 report,” Al Tayer said. “Customer minutes lost per year reached 3.87 minutes, compared to 15 minutes recorded by leading utilities in the European Union and the U.S. Losses in power transmission and distribution networks reached 3.3 percent, compared to 6-7 percent in Europe and the U.S. Water network losses reached 8.26 percent, compared to 15 percent in North America.”

“In 2015 we recorded a fuel consumption efficiency rate of 90 percent,” Al Tayer said. “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 megawatts by 2020 and 5,000 megawatts by 2030”

“We are still proceeding on our journey to achieve excellence,” Al Tayer said. “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.”

“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,” Al Tayer said. “Our integrated corporate governance system ensures transparency, integrity and the implementation of a firm, balanced and flexible decision-making process. We encourage teamwork.”

“To sustain our excellent accomplishments, we developed strategic plans in accordance with national plans to achieve balance between current and future requirements and expectations,” Al Tayer said. “Our flexibility and agility actively contributes to our journey towards excellence.” 

“We developed corporate social responsibility (CSR) and received several international certificates including the Social Accountability Certification SA8000,” Al Tayer said. “We launched over 67 initiatives during 2015, and accumulated over 12,000 employee voluntary work hours, achieving a community satisfaction rate of 87 percent. 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.”

The Arab Leadership and Government Excellence Program works to prepare Arab leaders with the know-how to address the challenges faced by modern governments, bettering corporate performance and back the performance of government entities.