Education Vision 2020:
Recognizing the need and importance of a sound educational system in the overall development and growth of economy, UAE government has initiated a comprehensive plan, called “Education Vision 2000″. This program is intended to provide equal academic opportunities to the citizens, improving the quality and effectiveness of curriculum and enhance learning resources, consequently building a modern education society that will lead to a knowledge driven economy. Huge funds have been allocated to education in successive budgets.

Higher Education:
Some time ago, it was hard to find a university that offered quality research and higher education facilities in United Arab Emirates. However, there’s an obvious inclination towards higher education these days, a big majority of students have started to show interest in higher education. Plenty of universities now offer various degrees and academic programs. Some worth mentioning universities are United Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain, University of Sharjah, American Intercontinental University in Dubai, Ajman University of Science and Technology, Zayed University for women, University of Abu Dhabi, Harvard Medical School Dubai Center and Michigan State University to name some of them. Ministry of education also provides financial assistance to promising students, who are willing to study abroad.

Dubai Academic City:
Dubai Academic City is a huge project that plans to host some of the most renowned universities from all over the world. Expected to be completed in 2012, Dubai Academic City is situated in Al Ruwayyah. It is poised to become a global center of knowledge and learning for more than 150,000 students. The city will contain a big number of world class universities and housing facilities for students and faculty members. 129 million square feet of land is allocated for the campus. Dubai International Academic City is a Free Zone (within Dubai Academic City) dedicated to international universities; more than 30 universities from different countries have vowed to open a branch in this zone.

William King is the director of Dubai Property Rentals and Karachi Real Estate Property He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

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This might be about to change however, if the recent trends from media and various government resources had to be believed in. With a booming economy and increased job opportunities, the UAE government was trying out its best to empower their women with higher education and job placements. This has given rise to a sudden influx of the local women applying for jobs in various professions. One could see as a result, many young and confident Arab ladies taking up responsibilities on various fronts in the UAE today. From being radiologists to TV presenters or managing online ventures, the UAE’s women are moving forward in all spheres gradually.

Like any other region of the Middle East, it’s deemed highly inappropriate for the UAE’s women to speak up with strangers in public. All government owned universities have been made single-sex for this reason. With a bullish economy and a large expatriate workforce in their own backyard however, people are now trying to come out of their orthodox mindset. This has now allowed for the women to work with their male colleagues in places like Dubai. The local media proudly keeps on displaying the achievements of lady police officers, medicos, businesswomen and other similar working women.

Take the case of Fatma Mohamed Haj (21) for example, who had to face a stiff resistance from her family when she decided to be a radiologist. Her profession would have asked for touching male strangers and working late at nights. She won her argument by negotiating tactfully though, and is headed to get her first job very soon. Similarly, Nariman al-Rostamani (19), used to face taunting men in public, but it only grew her into confidence, and made her task as a TV presenter more interesting. There are many young women who still can’t argue their cases with their families and therefore, may never get to have a public profile ever. However, the few like Fatma and Nariman are enough for creating a stir in the UAE’s life and pushing forward with the empowerment agenda.

Amna Mazam is a student counselor who teaches working women about negotiating skills. It comes handy in getting family’s nod for job placements. She confirms about the difficulties faced by the working women in the UAE, however feels positive about tomorrow at the same time. While many males do still not like the idea of working wives, there are some who might be willing to move ahead with time. An IT student, Fahad Qahtani (25), believes working wives can be a good idea for husbands as they won’t annoy by chattering about domestic issues. Jokes apart, Fahad’s opinion does indicate about the changing times in the UAE, and the future ahead for its aspiring women.

Pankaj Mohan is an India based freelance writer, who often writes on behalf of DubaiFurnishedApartments.com. Please visit this site to know more about apartments and hotels in Dubai, and the advantage of living privately as compared to that in Dubai hotels.

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Significantly, the segment has grown at a time when nearly all other sectors are bleeding due to the ongoing economic turmoil. Motivated by the robust growth and increasing demand, Indian SMEs in the FMCG sector are eyeing foreign markets to expand their footprint.

The UAE has an open economy and a high per capita income. Owing to its rich oil resources, the Emirates have evolved into highly developed and industrialised markets for foreign investors, including Indian SMEs.

On the trading front, India is one of the foremost trading partners of the UAE. In 2007-08, India’s exports to the UAE stood at $15,634.56 million.** In recent times, the demand for Indian consumer goods has increased at a steady pace in the UAE. As a result, a large number of Indian FMCG exporters have established trade linkages with their counterparts in the Emirates to tap this burgeoning market.

UAE’s FMCG sector weathers recession

In recent times, the FMCG sector in the UAE has achieved phenomenal growth. It has remained largely insulated from the adverse impact of the global economic crisis.

According to trade analysts, the demand and consumption of consumer durables will continue to rise in the UAE in the near term. Hence, market experts foresee that the Emirates will emerge as a key export destination for Indian SMEs in the FMCG segment.

Indian SMEs can capitalize on the duty sops extended by the UAE government on the import of components required for manufacturing consumer durables by setting up their manufacturing units there. Furthermore, Indian FMCG companies can grab a significant market share of the UAE market by offering B2b Products at competitive prices.

However, it is imperative for Indian SMEs to assess the market thoroughly before venturing into it. These companies can also collaborate with FMCG players in the UAE market to achieve long-term growth.

With bilateral trade between India and the UAE poised to exceed $25 billion by 2010, Indian SMEs can cash in on the demand for consumer goods in the latter.

David Parks is a well known author and has written articles on B2b Yellow Pages, B2B Portal, Computers Manufacturers, suppliers, manufactures and many other subjects.

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First of all I would like to highlight that this article is intended for Strategy consultants who would like to have an idea about the Performance Management initiatives in the UAE government. Why UAE? Simply because the UAE has established itself as an undisputed leader in this domain among its neighbors at least. There is a lot to be learned from the initiatives pursued by the leaders of the UAE, which clearly demonstrate a vision which accepts nothing less than governmental excellence.

II. The term “GPM”

Throughout my reading in the domain I have not encountered the term “Government Performance Management” as is. The term is totally derived from the concept of “Corporate Performance Management (CPM)”. However due to the differences in the goals and vision of corporate entities versus Governmental institutions, I decided to use almost the same terminology and switching “Corporate” to “Government”, thus coming up with the acronym “GPM”.

CPM consists mainly of three stages: Crafting/Planning à Execution à Monitoring and Analysis (some prefer to define the phases as Planning à Monitoring à Analysis. However, the first phasing seems to be more logical to me). GPM also consists of pretty much the same phases. However the main difference lies in the Planning stage, and mainly in the strategic planning stage (later I will hit on Strategic vs. Operational planning). When any organization “crafts” a plan, it does so based on its vision and mission. As per the Balanced Scorecards concepts, in order to measure the organization’s performance, the various objectives should be classified under 4 main categories:

1- Financial

2- Customer

3- Learning & Growth

4- Business Process

For Norton and Kaplan not only it was a sin to change the names or the classifications, but initially it was also another sin to change the order of these quadrants. This is the core difference between CPM and GPM. For GPM, the Customer (who is actually the “Citizen”) lies on top of all the quadrants, while the financials quadrant lie in the bottom, as it’s purely a means, not an end for Governments (obviously the opposite is totally true for corporate organizations). Therefore the quadrants under GPM are:

1- Citizens

2- Processes

3- Learning & Growth

4- Financials

III. GPM in the UAE

As I mentioned earlier, in this article I will focus on the GPM experience in the UAE. In future articles I hope I will be able to get into the GPM in general, mostly from a technical perspective (many strategy experts – which I’m not – have discussed the Performance Management concepts from pure business angles). The goal of my articles will be to assists Heads of Strategy Divisions, or IT manager, in government entities to form a general idea about the technical solution that will assist them in all the phases of the GPM lfecycle.

The United Arab Emirates is a gulf country that consist of seven emirates. Each emirate has its own internal rules and policies, which are all governed by the federal government of the UAE. Therefore when we talk about GPM in the UAE, we should be considering two levels: Federal and Local.

The first GPM initiative was implemented on the federal government level. It is embodied in a system called: Adaa (i.e. “Performance” in Arabic). The system was launched by His Highness the Prime Minister Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum during Gitex 2008. The system made a big noise in the media when it was launched, as it was announced as a new era for the governmental performance in the UAE. Adaa was owned and managed by the Prime Minster Office. Its main task is to provide UAE officials with visibility into the performance of Federal ministries and authorities.

All federal entities have secure access to Adaa in order to upload their plans and results. ON an annual basis, and towards the end of the year, all federal entities are requested to upload their operational plans for the following year. They include the initiatives and KPI’s that should be achieved. All these initiatives are linked to higher level initiatives set at the strategic level. For the UAE, this strategic level consists of 3-year periods. Therefore each strategic plan should eventually include three operational plans.

On a quarterly basis, federal entities are requested to upload their quarterly achievement for the previous quarter. At the moment this is done manually, i.e. the actual performance percentages are logged manually. In future phases this shall be automated via integration with other systems (more info about Adaa phases in future articles). Now that actual are logged in Adaa, the prime minister and other authorized officials have access to end-to-end reports about the performance of the federal government entities. Best performing entities are then announced and honored in public.

IV. Adaa – Technical Overview

Adaa was a one of the main systems implemented by Microsoft Consulting Services. The technology used was mainly Microsoft PerformancePoint Server (PPS). At the time of the implementation, PerformancePoint was still a stand-alone product, whereas now it’s called PerformancePoint “Services”, which is part of the leading Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Different modules of PPS were used to build:

· the Data Models and the Dimensions on one side

· and the dashboards, including the scorecards, reports, and strategy maps. Analytical capabilities such as filtering and drill-down are provided as well.

Since Arabic is the official language of the country, the system had to support full Arabic dashboards. This was also taken care of by Microsoft and the team who developed the solution.

At the moment all federal entities fill their plans and actual via uploading documents or sheets with pre-defined format. This will be definitely enhanced in future phases of Adaa, which are already being planned. As I mentioned earlier I will hit more on the future phases of Adaa in future articles.

V. GPM in the UAE – Conclusion

This article was a very brief introduction about GPM in the UAE. Maybe it is intended to entice other government officials’ curiosity about the concept of GPM. Future articles will constitute a roadmap for government organizations who are considering GPM platforms. I will try to discuss how to investigate a GPM platform, and what other factors are to be taken into consideration, what other challenges that should be tackled by a GPM solution, and how to phase such an implementation. In all these articles I will be basing my discussions on previous experiences in this domain, given that the company I’m working for – Netways – is establishing itself as a leader in GPM implementations based on Microsoft platforms. This is demonstrated through some major implementations which I will also discuss in future articles.

Stay tuned for future articles

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Although domestic demand and consumption have increased considerably in the past few months, Indian food manufacturers, especially the small-sized enterprises, are exploring new destinations to increase exports.

Market overview.
The UAE is among the world’s most economically developed countries. One of the largest producers of oil in the world, the UAE is a lucrative market for foreign investors. According to trade analysts, UAE’s economy will continue to grow even at a time when most developed markets are struggling due to the economic recession. This projection is attracting a growing number of small-sized Indian food companies to tap this burgeoning market.

The UAE imports around 60% of its food from Asian and African countries. Owing to the huge demand for cereals and other food products in the UAE, the country has approached Asian countries like India and Pakistan to supply rice, wheat and other food products.

Statistics reveal that over three-quarters of India’s food product exports are supplied to the Gulf region.[ii] India primarily exports vegetables, meat, dairy products and confectionery to the UAE.

Food for thought.
Food exports to the UAE are estimated at around $3 billion annually. To increase this volume and gain from the UAE’s business-friendly environment, Indian Food companies should offer high-quality products to consumers who have a high purchasing power.

To gain easy access to the UAE food market, several small-sized Indian food companies have collaborated with their counterparts in the region. Several trade fairs and conferences have also been organised in the UAE to help Indian SMEs explore the potential of the UAE’s food market. Indian exhibitors have recorded strong participation at Gulfood, one of the biggest food exhibitions in the region.

The Indian government is also looking at boosting trade in agro products with the UAE to help Indian SMEs capture market share in the region. Meanwhile, the UAE government has also shown interest in investing in the Indian agriculture sector.

With both countries showing a commitment to enhance the scope of mutual trade and investment, Indian food companies, particularly the SMEs, can look forward to a profitable outing in the UAE.

David Parks is a well known author and has written articles on Leather Manufacturers, B2B Portal, Toys Manufacturers, suppliers, Manufacturers and many other subjects.

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