Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC) attributes its considerable business growth in 2004 in no small measure to the success of its centralized IT function.
The strategic “shared services“ bus…
Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC) attributes its considerable business growth in 2004 in no small measure to the success of its centralized IT function. The strategic “shared services“ business model has resulted in a number of achievements in an increasingly competitive environment, the company said. These include greater efficiencies, improved workplace collaboration, enhanced customer service provision and a improved ability to introduce innovative new services. “The Shared Services model is the result of a process of internal reorganization, under which IT and other functions have become a centralized resource. This has relieved group businesses of the need for independent technology systems and has enabled the implementation of best practice. Cost savings have also been created and operating efficiencies have been vastly improved by the standardization of business applications across our three operating companies: Zamil Air Conditioners, Zamil Steel and Zamil Glass,” said Mr. Abdulla Mohammed Al Zamil, Chief Operating Officer, Zamil Industrial Investment Company. Substantial investments in technology infrastructure have been part of the ongoing process to centralize and harmonize the IT function throughout the group“s various sector businesses, the company said. Moves to converge business processes with technology have also resulted in ZIIC“s Chief Information Officer being named “Middle East CIO of the Year“ at the recent Middle East CIO Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. “Our work to date in the IT field has included consolidating corporate networks, enterprise services and hardware infrastructure and the creation of a centralized data center to house server and storage components. The evolution is a continuous process and we are currently upgrading our security set up and creating service level agreements (SLAs) with our business units,” Mr. Zaki Sabbagh, CIO, ZIIC. ZIIC“s investments in IT, which include its development of proprietary software and web-enablement activities, have allowed employees worldwide to collaborate securely through the Internet. This has provided a host of internal benefits, said the company, including enhanced business intelligence capabilities and increased operational efficiencies across all levels, as well as numerous external benefits including the consistent delivery of exceptional customer services. In the glass processing industry the group said it has enhanced product quality, performance and durability. “The superior customer value proposition that we have been able to create as a result of converging a powerful technology infrastructure with a strategic business model positively correlates to our operating performance as evidenced by the fact that turnover for the first nine months of the year registered an increase of more than 20% over the same period in 2003. The IT function within our Shared Services model has contributed to this increase which was largely as a result of growing steel and air conditioning sector sales and this underscores the value of IT as a business enabler,” concluded Mr. Al Zamil.