Family Businesses in Focus: Abdallah Obeikan, Dubai, 2014
At the Strategy Leaders Forum, held in The Address Dubai Marina Hotel, Abdallah Obeikan has provided a presentation about `Leading the Obeikan business through successful cultural and organizational change to become one of the leading providers in their field’. Addressing the topic of strategy selection, Abdallah Obeikan, the CEO of Obeikan Group in Saudi Arabia, has discussed the following aspects:
- Obeikan Investment Group activity;
- creating a high performance culture;
- the importance of organizational change.
The Obeikan Investment Group is the leading provider of packaging and education solutions in the Middle East and Africa. In the company’s case, Abdallah Obeikan specifies three principles that guide the business on its way to achieving excellence:
- people first;
- customer loyalty;
- operations excellence.
Taking into account the idea of change, Abdallah Obeikan believes the balance between family values and corporate mindset to be a key aspect of organizational evolution. Regarding human capital, the CEO highlights the idea of empowering people in terms of strategy, processes, direction, not just in terms of numbers or indicators. More to the point, he adds that value drivers create sustainability and are more effective, even if they entail a longer decision process.
Abdallah Obeikan considers a high performance culture to be the function of two key factors:
- environmental: leadership has the role of creating an effective working environment;
individual: a sense of high engagement in individuals.
Source: Abdallah Obeikan, Strategy Leaders Forum, 2014.
The CEO says that, normally, change creates fear. Looking back, it took 10 years for the company to expand its attention from local to international customers, to shift focus from opportunistic activity to systemic, and to learn by managing real time information. Image source:- Obeikan, A., (2014, April). Leading the Obeikan business through successful cultural organizational change to become one of the leading providers in their field. Strategy Leaders Forum. Presentation conducted at the Strategy Leaders Forum, Dubai, UAE.
Tags: IIRME, Performance in Dubai, Performance in UAE, Strategy Leaders Forum, The KPI Institute
