MBC Group is the first private free-to-air satellite broadcasting company in the Arab World which was launched in London in 1991 and later moved to its headquarters in Dubai in 2002. Over the past 20 years, MBC Group has grown to become a well-established media group that enriches people’s lives through information, interaction and entertainment. Based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, MBC Group includes 10 television channels: MBC1 (general family entertainment), MBC2 and MBC MAX (24-hour movies), MBC3 (children’s entertainment), MBC4 (entertainment for new Arab women), MBC Action (action series and movies), MBC Persia (24-hour movie channel dubbed in Farsi) , Al Arabiya (the 24-hour Arabic language news channel); Wanasah (24-hour Arabic music channel) and MBC Drama coinciding with the Group’s 20th anniversary; the Group also includes two radio stations: MBC FM (Gulf music), and Panorama FM (contemporary Arabic hit music); as well as O3 productions, a specialized documentary production unit. It has also several online platforms: www.mbc.net www.alarabiya.net www.alaswaq.net and www.shahid.net the first free video-on-demand (VOD) portal in the Arab world.
In October 2008 the MBC Group was awarded the CIPS Certification; a recognition of excellence achieved in the organisation’s procurement policies and procedures. It has brought a new level of respect to the procurement department both internally and from suppliers.
The process of certification has drawn management attention both to the procurement department and to the wider company factors that enable it to operate well. This has been thoroughly useful.
Sam Barnett – COO & MBC General Manager
Procurement’s profile within the organisation
MBC has a procurement team that is active across all spheres of operation within the organisation. Part of its internal remit was to ensure it was progressive, embracing continual improvement and operating within the demands of best practise. Crucially, it needed to be able to benchmark its methods and procedures against recognised standards.
Procurement’s challenges
Within MBC there are many different nationalities and the cultural differences can be challenging, creating a degree of reluctance to change. The procurement team needed to attain a higher profile and influence within the organisation and to do this key skills had to be developed and methodologies had to be improved.
Why choose CIPS Certification?
CIPS has international standards of excellence that are recognised both within and outside the profession. The policies and procedures that it demands helped the procurement team to become both a more disciplined and respected unit, applying proven methodologies such as RFI and RFP and implementing supplier evaluation programmes. The demands of CIPS Certification enabled MBC to identify areas where skills and procedures were not up to scratch and to rectify these with an ensuing benefit for the whole organisation. The process of gathering and streamlining all the information for the modules provided by CIPS helped increase and refresh knowledge of procurement policies plus a greater understanding of how it strategically fits into the company policy - the team became more aware of the strategic alignment of procurement business plan into the business plans of different departments.
Contributions to business improvement
While the findings broadly matched MBC’s perceived strengths and weaknesses they also showed that although they had identified the weaknesses they still had to take the necessary steps to improve these areas.
MBC were surprised to be informed that the Conduct Policy of the MBC Group is one of the most demanding and robust seen by CIPS.
As a result of the CIPS Certification, the procurement team has taken over major procurements for Technical Operations and in addition now also handles all hotel and travel purchasing.
Overall, more streamlined processes have enabled the team to work in a more efficient and cost effective manner.
There has been a significant increase in cost savings with a higher percentage being achieved than the yearly target.
Overall there has been a 42% increase in the influential spend.
The organisation now has a procurement team that is more commercially aware and focused on internal customer satisfaction by providing value and efficiency for all purchase requests.
Most importantly, the team has the full support of senior management, which has enabled better negotiations and better management of strategic supplier relationships.
Over the next 2 years MBC’s objective is to have all its buyers enrolled with CIPS and working towards qualification.