Emirates Steel, the largest integrated steel producer in the UAE, secured the highly coveted Gold SAP Quality Award for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) one month after winning the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) SAP Gold Quality Award for best implementation in 2008-2009. Emirates Steel’s SAP program, which is already delivering savings and business benefits, was recognized at a recent SAP awards ceremony, held in Frankfurt, Germany.
Competing against other companies from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and South Africa, Emirates Steel captured the prize in the small and mid-size enterprise implementation category. More than 150 companies from 13 market regions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa vied for the prestigious award in three different categories.
Gregor Münstermann, Emirates Steel’s Chief Executive Officer, expressed his delight with the recognition by SAP of Emirates Steel’s achievement. “By winning this award at the EMEA level,” he said, “Emirates Steel once again asserted its position as a world class Company within the industrial sector”. Underscoring the significance of the SAP implementation, he added that “the success of this award winning project is due to the resolute commitment from Emirates Steel’s management and the focus, energy and pragmatic style of its project team that has supported the implementation”.
The many strategic alliances that Emirates Steel has established with leading technology providers, coupled with its state-of-the-art facilities and highly-experienced and committed workforce, have enabled the Company to maintain focus on the needs of its customers and to orient itself towards the evolving steel industry in the EMEA region.
Emirates Steel’s business demands an absolute commitment to quality and the primary component of this business objective is to work with partners like SAP to deliver the highest levels of excellence, pointed out Mubarak Al Khaili, Emirates Steel’s Vice President of Commercial Strategy. “Delivering software solutions that bring significant benefits to the business takes careful planning and execution that can be measured against firm criteria for excellence,” he added. Emirates Steel’s implementation stood out as one that conformed to best practices and standards to deliver those benefits.
Emirates Steel introduced the SAP software in January 2009, with the aim of making all business processes sustainable and enabling the Company to meet its future challenges. During the seven-month implementation phase, twelve core modules of the SAP ERP system were established and integrated with the help of Mahindra Satyam, technology partners for the SAP project.
“Our objectives focused on the enterprise-wide implementation of an integrated business solution, covering multiple production lines, and the adoption of SAP best practices,” explained Stephen Pope, Emirates Steel’s Chief Financial Officer. “Continuous commitment from senior management, a clear focus on project quality and the effective use of positive external audit review were among the factors which contributed to the successful implementation of our SAP project,” he stated.
In addition to providing online data for all business processes, reducing cycle times and gaining better visibility of Key Performance Indicators, the ERP system now serves as the information backbone for further planned Emirates Steel expansions, highlighted Soumyajit Ghosh, Controller, Business Planning and ERP Manager, and the SAP Project Director at Emirates Steel.
The prize was given to companies that have implemented SAP solutions using formalized quality processes by the world renowned software company.
The decisive criteria for the prize were to effectively manage the systems and software implementation required by Emirates Steel’s complex technical and business process requirements. Receiving the SAP Gold Quality Award confirmed the Company’s ability to maintain consistent excellence in eight key areas: IT strategy, project and organizational change management, solution feasibility, and integration, support, technical and operational readiness.
