Atlantis the Palm director of procurement Bhanu Singh delivers his keynote speech at the Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit 2013.
More than 120 procurement professionals from across the Middle East hotel industry attended the first ever Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit at the Oberoi, Dubai hotel.
The day saw an assortment of purchasing experts host a series of panel decisions and workshops on a range of topics such as international best practices, brand standards, people management skills and e-procurement systems.
The event began though with a key-note speech from the Bhanu Singh, director of procurement at Atlantis the Palm and Hotelier Middle East’s Procurement Person of the Year 2012.
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Bhanu began by reminding the crowd about the challenge facing all purchasing managers who must ensure that ‘the hotel has to run to the expectations of the customer, while also having to run to the financial limits of the owner.”
He also warned his fellow hoteliers of the dangers of cutting costs too much: “How do you select the best possible service when you are going for the lowest possible cost. You can’t always go for the lowest price as that does not help the hotel improve and deliver the best service.”
This was also an issue raised by one of the day’s expert panellists Pushpa Nair, director of procurement at the Crowne Plaza Dubai and Hotelier Middle East Procurement Person Of Year 2013 .
Nair, who was hosting a panel entitled ‘Attaining the Best Value While Maintaining a Property’s Brand Standards’ suggested that ‘instead of simply focusing on cost only, cost value should be the primary concern of the hotel’.
After a day of panel discussions, the summit then moved onto two expert workshops which allowed the day’s delegates to debate some of the key points affecting the industry.
The first workshop, entitled 'Consolidating Suppliers across Chains' was hosted by procurement expert Wissam El Cheikh Hassan and focused on helping purchasing personnel come up with great values that are easily attainable. The second, called 'Mastering E-Procurement', was presented by Golden B2B CEO Hospitality Dimitris Kontinopoulos and focused on adapting and enhancing centralised procurement systems through e-procurement.
The first ever Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit was held at the Oberoi, Dubai hotel on November 19, 2013 in association with a range of hospitality companies and suppliers including A.Ronai LLC, LG Electronics, Sysco Guest Supply Europe, Lavazza, TCL, Diversey, Unique Precise, Sanpellegrino and Al Diyafa.
Make sure you read the upcoming December issue of Hotelier Middle East for the full report from yesterday’s event, but in the meantime you can catch up with all our live coverage here.
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