The Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) Office, part of Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ADCCI), has concluded the assessment of the participants in the 20th cycle of the Award. The panel of judges will pass on its recommendations to the Award’s Higher Committee for final approval, before unveiling the winners of the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award early next year.

His Excellency Saeed Abdul Jalil Al Faheem, Chairman of the Higher Committee of the SKEA, said: “The 20^th cycle of the Award saw a significant participation from establishments in the UAE and abroad, marking an increase of over 20% compared to the previous cycle. The Award has developed its concept of excellence through focusing on the importance of providing services and products at the highest levels of efficiency and lowest cost, and limiting the squandering of organisations’ resources. This aims to achieve the strategic goals through developing employees’ skills, knowledge, and conduct, developing work systems and programs, raising efficiency and effectiveness, and achieving the best financial and operational results.”

“The SKEA is an integrated program that provides all participants from various fields with the opportunity to showcase excellence, highlight facts about their institutions in order to identify its strengths, and focus on improving and developing them into initiatives to achieve the required transformation,” Al Fahim added.

His Excellency Mohamed Helal Al Mheiri, Director General of Abu Dhabi Chamber and member of the Higher Committee of SKEA, said: “The SKEA aligns with the vision of our wise leadership, which stresses the values of excellence and innovation. It contributes to strengthening our future-readiness and ability to keep up with the rapid developments, in order to consolidate the UAE’s competitiveness and leading position in all fields. In every cycle of the Award, the Committee has a greater responsibility to keep up the momentum of achievements which was gained throughout the 23 years since the Award’s launch in 1999.”

“The support of our wise leadership, represented by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, contributed to realizing the Award’s success and distinctiveness, which has led to launching upcoming cycles of the Award. We have achieved the desired outcomes of the Award through identifying outstanding employees, and honouring establishments that have adopted comprehensive quality and excellence standards and applied it at work,” Al Mheiri added.

As part of SKEA’s current cycle, there will be several activities, training programs, and introductory seminars, targeting all participants, stakeholders, and people interested in the Award. This aims to raise awareness about the Award’s new structure, criteria, and the methods for achieving institutional excellence and measuring performance.

The SKEA Office has also organized around 27 specialized development programs for the assessors in UAE and gulf region, in which more than 260+ assessors were in attendance. During the courses, the assessors were introduced to the mechanisms of assessment of SKEA according to the best international practices which revolves around comprehending the strategic challenges the participating companies face and how successful they are in applying SKEA model while realizing astonishing and sustainable results.

The assessors were also trained on how to prepare a value added feedback reports that would benefit the applicants and support them overcome the challenges in implementing their strategies successfully and increase their competitiveness.

The SKEA award categories include the Elite Category, which was launched last year and is reserved for world-class organizations with scores higher than 700 points ; the Diamond Category is awarded to the excellent organizations with 600+ points; the Gold Category is awarded to a very good organizations with 500+ points; and the Silver Category is reserved to good organizations with 400+ points.

SKEA will also award Appreciation Certificates for organizations that made good efforts on the way towards the award and made appreciated efforts to apply organizational excellence to their work.