SBCQ holds fourth Swiss Excellence Awards

The Swiss Business Council Qatar (SBCQ) on Tuesday held its fourth Swiss Excellence Awards, where it recognised three Qatar-based companies for their outstanding contribution to the development of bilateral relations between Qatar and Switzerland.

Switzerland’s Ambassador to Qatar, Edgar Doerig, and SBCQ President Dr Fariborz Samadian awarded this year’s winners at a ceremony held at the Marsa Malaz Kempinski Hotel in Doha.

Ashraf Abu Issa, Chairman of Abu Issa Holding, was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award 2019 during the event. Abu Issa, who is also an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner in 2011 and was named Businessman of the Year by an Arabian magazine in 2016, is credited for transforming a retail operation business into a company which is now one of the most distinguished groups in Qatar; with several activities and more than 100 stores in six countries, including the high-end department store Blue Salon. The company also represents several Swiss brands on its stores.

“It’s a truly family business that we have. And we try to treat everybody in the group as a family. We have an open door policy and a very important training for human development and talent management department. So we lean so much on people,” Abu Issa said during the event.

Nestle Qatar, which was represented by its general manager Zaher Abou Khamis, also won this year’s Excellence Award 2019. The company was recognised particularly for its achievements in the past few years since the blockade.

Samadian said: “The last two years has witnessed the major challenges for Nestle Qatar after the blockade; shutdown of Qatar’s borders and terminated sea and air traffic, where 40 percent of Nestle portfolio has been impacted since it was imported from their factory in one of the blockading countries. Despite all of this, Nestle Qatar’s team remained resilient, focused, and agile; and collaborated closely with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) and the Customs Authority to ensure quick recovery from the supply from different sources in Europe and America”.

Abou Khamis, who thanked his team in his speech, pointed back to the Swiss company’s global purpose. “Today, in Nestle, we believe that our role doesn’t only revolv around providing products and services, but it also goes beyond this. We believe that we have a responsibility towards the societies that we live in,” he added.

Sika Qatar, which has its main headquarters in Switzerland, completed this year’s list of winners after receiving the Excellence Award 2019. The company has also taken up the challenge of embracing its commitment to the Made in Qatar programme. Since the blockade in 2017, Sika Qatar has commissioned two factories producing top quality Swiss brand of construction materials. With research and development (R&D) as one of its main cores, the company’s Qatar office concentrated in the local market requirements and developed two research centres in Qatar to fit the local needs and Swiss quality, in addition to developing a training programme to educate the Qatari market on construction technologies.

Sika Qatar’s General Manager Samy Bishoy said: “We grew our team with the support of our partners and we will continue building trust with our team and partners. We now have two big factories in Qatar as we continue to build on our goals”.

Globally, the 110 year old Swiss company has over 18,000 employees in more than 100 countries, with 20 global technology centres in nine countries.