SEDD Carries Out About 30 Benchmarks

Sharjah Economic Development Department (SEDD) has organised number of meetings with local and federal departments and bodies in the public and private sectors, in implementation of the benchmarking plan, through which the Department aims to exchange experiences and knowledge and learn about best practices in various fields.

Thus, around 29 benchmarks were organised with local and federal departments and bodies in the public and private sectors during the year 2022 to reach quality and continuous development in the services and procedures followed.

It should be noted that benchmarking is one of the means used by various agencies and institutions to identify best practices at the local, regional or international level, within or outside the same scope of work, with the aim of benefiting and improving performance indicators and developing strategic projects.

Commenting on this, Sultan bin Hadda Al Suwaidi, SEDD Chairman, stressed on the importance of these meetings because of their role in strengthening various cooperation relations and accelerating development processes.

The work of developing Sharjah’s economy is considered one of SEDD’s main tasks, to reach its vision of leadership in comprehensive development.

This help to attain a diversified competitive and innovative knowledge-based economy in accordance with its strategic plan calling for contributing to the planning and leadership of the comprehensive economic development in the emirate. Such thing ia done according to the highest standards in implementation of the wise leadership’s approach to excellence and creativity in all fields and services.

He pointed out that meetings are an important station for consolidating cooperation and exchanging visions between the various parties.

He also noted that the exchange of visits comes within SEDD’s concerns to strengthen various relations and accelerate development processes and joint work system to find outputs that serve all parties to improve the levels of service provided to investors.

This contributes to the country's direction towards building a strong and solid economy that is characterised by knowledge and sustainability, and enhances the country's competitiveness at the global level.

Hamad Al Midfa, Acting Director of Strategic Planning and Performance Department, said that it is important to hold such meetings between SEDD and various entities in implementation of the benchmarking plan, which aims to exchange experiences and knowledge and learn about the best practices of the various entities.

He added that this helps to enhance the role of the Department in raising the emirate's competitiveness in various sectors, and contributes to strengthening the emirate's position in local and global competitiveness reports.

Also, he illustrated that SEDD works continuously to develop performance and services in accordance with the highest standards, in implementation of the wise leadership's approach to excellence and creativity in all fields and services, stressing that the exchange of virtual meetings enhances various cooperation relations.

He explained that the Department is preparing a detailed report on the extent of benefit from the meetings and visits of these bodies within the benchmarking plan and how to implement it in a way that is in line with the Department. Likely, the results of the application are also monitored, and its results measured against the pre-established goals in order to empower the department by providing best practices.

Al Midfa pointed out that benchmarking satisfaction rate reached 90 perecent.

He said that this honourable percentage comes as a culmination of the Department’s continuous endeavours to motivate its employees and encourage them to improve performance and excellence.

He added that the Department organised more than 30 virtual meetings during 2022, which in turn contributed to reaching more than 60 outputs of benchmarking distributed among (knowledge acquisition - improvement - and development).

It is worth noting that the benchmarking organised by SEDD included a field visit to the Ministry of Interior in Abu Dhabi, where cooperation and experience exchange took place, as well as reviewing best practices in the Research and Development Centre.

The mechanism for applying the benchmarking specification PAS 7070: 2016 was also identified, and the procedures of the Research and Development Centre related to knowledge management, opinion polls and external participation were identified.

Likely, SEDD held a benchmarking meeting with the Majid Al Futtaim Group in order to review the geographical distribution of commercial areas.

In addition, the Department, represented by Sharjah Foundation for Supporting Entrepreneurship "RUWAD", organised a virtual meeting with the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development to learn about the mechanism for evaluating projects through their funded project evaluation system.