The Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit attracted more that 120 procurement professionals to discuss industry best practices. Speakers included Pushpa Nair, Wissam El Cheikh Hassan and Bhanu Pratap Singh, above.
More than 120 procurement professionals from across the Middle East hotel industry attended the first ever Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit at the The Oberoi Dubai on November 19.
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.
During the course of the event, procurement experts from hotels in the UAE took a strategic look at the way they do business, network with their peers, and benchmark practices against the best in the region.
| Advertisement |
The event began with a key-note speech from Bhanu Pratap Singh, director of procurement at Atlantis, The Palm and Hotelier Middle East’s Procurement Person of the Year 2012.
Singh 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 warned his fellow hoteliers of the dangers of being motivated solely by cost in purchasing decisions.
“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,” asserted Singh.
“Unless we move away from cost being our primary driver, we can never improve,” he added.
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 the winner of Procurement Person of Year in this year’s Hotelier Middle East Awards.
Nair, who hosted the opening panel entitled ‘International Best Practice — where does the region stand”, drew a distinction between cost and cost value.
Article continued on next page…
Search our database of more than 2,700 industry companies
