LEVENBERT Consulting and Saudi Telecom Company joined hands to form a success story

In 2004, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) had the vision of ensuring and maintaining their position as industry pioneers in the region, through constant and continuous improvement of the services and products offered to their customers.

STC has over 24 million customers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), experiencing approximately 4 million daily interactions; 3 million calls into their Call Centers, 25000 visits into their branches and 15000 installations daily. This vast customer base was served through different sales and after sales channels like the toll free numbers, sales outlets, website and indirect sales channels.

Equipped with a clear mission to continuing the high standard of customer commitment, it was clear that one of the challenges to be faced with the vast geographic distribution and the need for world class standards of operations.

Telecomm Services a member of LEVENBERT Consulting, became the strategic partner for STC’s success. Embarking on the largest development and improvement initiative in the Middle East for STC, a detailed roadmap was placed to deliver an extensive people and process development program to establish, develop and build the capacity of staff for a number of contact centers for STC.

LEVENBERT has delivered training across KSA for more than 7,500 STC customer service employees with a total of 3,800 training days, involving 68 training consultants and coaches. The training consultants were of various backgrounds and expertise with 35 graduate degree holders, 12 Master degree holders and 16 certified trainers. After the successful completion of the development project in 2008, LEVENBERT is proud that the customers had noticed a considerable improvement, as indicated by some of the measured dimensions.

The challenge was not easy but achievable, and the attained results echoed not only through the offices of STC but through the nation. The completion of this program was marked by a noted celebration of appreciation.

LEVENBERT Consulting has concluded a project to define the strategic intent and formulate a three-year strategy for the Institute of Public Administration in the Sultanate of Oman.

Led by the core consulting team in LEVENBERT, the project included five workshops with IPA’s top management and middle management, conducting interviews with stakeholders and clients, as well as focused information gathering activities using methodical tools.

The new strategy for IPA is formulated in harmony with Royal Decree 28/2016, and entails a number of Strategic Goals in six pillar areas, with Strategic Objectives that are linked to specific initiatives for the IPA to execute over the coming 3 years. The strategy will be put in action and will span to deliver desired results to position the IPA as an enabler for national development and a supporter to the government by 2020.

The strategy focuses on the employment of new technologies in learning and development, the adoption of new learning models to accelerate the process of capacity building for different government organizations, as well as the diversification of IPA’s services to include consulting, coaching, knowledge publishing and transfer.

It is worth mentioning that IPA plans to launch its first batch of initiativesas of Q2 2017.

LEVENBERT Consulting has launched phase two of Himam, the Leadership Development Program that is targeting high-ranking executive staff.

The second phase will span for one year, and is aiming to develop the leadership and management skills of more than 350 executive staff members of different clients . With great focus on modern leadership competencies and skills, the program aims to equip the participants with what is required for the development of strategy, operations, and activities in the coming two decades.

The program for the second phase was carefully designed to focus on a number of pillars such as “The Fourth Generation in Government Excellence Criteria”, “Continuous Improvement of Working Practices and Personal Efficiency using the Japanese Business Philosophy KAIZEN”, “Innovation Leadership and Management”, as well as “The Strategic Leadership Personality”. During the second phase, the client will be amongst the first institutions implementing the 70-20-10 learning methodology that is focused on putting the knowledge and the skills attained during the program in the workplace.

It is worth mentioning that phase one of the program was concluded in 2016 and has targeted 62 top leaders who were exposed to different topics including “Leadership Personality”, “Strategic Leadership”, “Leadership Communications”, “Leadership Influence” and “Leadership Innovation”. Phase one was concluded by identifying a number of strategic leadership initiatives that are focused on modern and disruptive technologies.

LEVENBERT Consulting and the Secretariat General of the Consultative Council have joint hands to develop the Council’s and the SG’s strategy and action plan.

Engaging its strategy team, LEVENBERT Consulting have conducted a number of joint events with executives from the Secretariat General including some interviews with Consultative Council members to better understand the future requirements of the Council and its Secretariat General.

The strategic plan has focused on supporting the Council and the Secretariat General to develop the parliament performance by focusing on the achievement of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the development plans at the Sharjah Emirate level.

The strategy also focuses on building the capacity of both the Council and its Secretariat General in an effort to support both bodies apply and compete on Global Excellence and Quality Awards.

LEVENBERT Consulting continues to support the National Programs delivered through the Institute of Capability Development (ICD) at the Diwan of Royal Court in Oman; by providing technical and administrative support to the National CEO Program and the National Leadership and Competitiveness Program in the Public Sector, in addition to providing support to all other operations and activities of ICD.

The Institute of Capability Developmentwas founded under the blessings of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said to further develop the capabilities of the Diwan of Royal Court Staff at all levels, especially for the different Leadership levels.

Since its inception in 2013, the ICD has appointed LEVENBERT Consulting as its “Strategic Partner” to help ICD develop various competency frameworks for different staff levels of the Diwan, design and execute a large number of learning and development activities such as the specialized knowledge sessionsfor the DRC Undersecretaries, the leadership development programs for the Director Generals, Assistant Director Generals, Directors, and Managers. LEVENBERT has also provided seasoned development programs to Diwan’s division heads, current and newly appointed staff.

With LEVENBERT help and support, the ICD is engaged with strategic partners from leading organizations such as Oxford University, Henley Business School of Reading University, the Civil Service College of Singapore, the International School of Protocol and Diplomacy, the Institute of Management Development (IMD), in addition to other professional and academic bodies from the region.

LEVENBERT support also included developing the ICD’s strategy, its administrative and operational framework, new concepts and initiatives in learning and development, the ICD branding and communication strategy, its website, in addition to knowledge management, publishing, and transfer to its local staff.

LEVENBERT and Saudi Post have successfully concluded Phase Three of Saudi Post’s “Strategic Transformation Support Project” that aimed at helping Saudi Post to put its transformation strategy into action. The strategy when it is fully implemented will transform Saudi Post to work entirely on commercial basis and will transform Saudi Post Establishment into an investment conglomerate in logistics, technology, and postal services and will have its independent investment and operational arms incorporated using different pro-growth alternatives including mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs, and partnerships.

Phase One of this strategic project started in 2012 with a comprehensive review of Saudi Post Strategy, defining crystal-clear objectives and setting KPIs for a 3-year period that spans from 2012 to 2015.This phase also included the establishment and staffing of Saudi Post’s Strategy Management Office (SMO), devising its objectives, and developing its operational framework that has enabled Saudi Post to head in the right direction. Saudi Post’s SMO was also empowered to be in charge of monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Strategic Initiatives of Saudi Post’s Strategic Plan.

Building on the successes of Phase One, the Second Phase of the project started with a corporate-wide awareness program for Saudi Post, Capacity Building Program for the SMO staff, and an exercise to make sure that the Strategy, Process, People, and Technology are all aligned together in order to develop a state-of-the-art SMO which also had a specialized Project Management Unit as a technical arm to follow on the progress of all projects related to the Transformation Strategy.

Phase Three was launched in June 2014 to develop a full-fledge Corporate Performance Management System for Saudi Post using the Balanced Scorecard tool. The phase lasted for 18 months and resulted in the development of all processes, tools, and templates required to implement BSC in Saudi Post. This phase also included capacity building for more than 300 executive staff members in Strategic Management including the processes of Strategic Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Evaluation. BSC tool was successfully implemented and cascaded into the top 3 layers of the corporate.

With the aim of enhancing the performance of Saudi Ground Services company in the 4 major airports of KSA, LEVENBERT Consulting has successfully concluded its 7-month development project ADAA – “Achieving Excellence and Professional Performance in Customer Service”.

The project broader goal wasto support SGS endeavors in uplifting the levels of Customer Service especially at the main touch-points of the four international airports of KSA being King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, King Fahad International Airportin Dammam, and Prince Mohammad International Airport in Madinah.

The project composed of 4 phases and aimed to design, develop, and deliver a Customized Training and Development Program for more than 500 Customer Service Supervisors (CSSs), conduct an in-depth Training Needs Assessment Initiative for 3000 Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), conduct a Traveler Experience Measurement Exercise, and launch a Targeted Awareness Campaign for SGS Staff; all aimed to create “the Identity of Excellence” amongst Customer Service Staffat the four Main Airports.

As a result, an awareness campaign with a unique Brand, Logo, and Identity of the Program (ADAA) in addition to a Customer Service Strategic Intent and Charter for SGS were delivered. Also, a two-week, hands-on, in-depth training program for each group of the Customer Service Supervisors including on-job coaching were successfully delivered.

LEVENBERT and the Saudi Ministry of Health has successfully developed, launched, and communicated the Saudi e-Health Transactions Program’s brand: “Rabet”. The development and communication of the brand took place over a journey of 24 months and stretched to reach out to more than 2300 governmental health service touchpoints in the Kingdom.

“We have provided MOH with unparalleled services during this project” Mr. Ahmad Al Raie, LEVENBERT Consulting CEO said. “We have strived to develop a brand that will make the difference for the MOH e-Health Services in Saudi, a brand that will involve MOH staff, stakeholders, and customers together; and will make them share the same values and understanding of e-Health benefits to the community.” Al Raie added.

LEVENBERT’s deep understanding of true customer service, customer-centric organizations, and marketing services for the governmental sector has enabledthe consulting firm to work hand in hand with the MOH as a partner to build such brand. LEVENBERT has devotedits best-in-class marketing and branding consultants for this very important project.

From his side, Mr. Saad Al-Ajlan, Director of Marketing and Electronic Communications at MOH – eHealth Project has stressed the importance of this project for the Saudi MOH by saying “We aimed at benefiting from the world’s leading examples in e-Health Branding and Marketing initiatives. We have teamed up with LEVENBERT Consulting as we believe they are really capable of transferring the know-how to our team who will keep on promoting the brand for the coming years”, Al-Ajlan explained.

It is worth mentioning that the project consisted of eight separate, yet integrated phases; where the brand was designed, developed, and tested before it was launched in 2015.

LEVENBERT Strategy Team has successfully delivered a corporate strategy for the “Riyadh Area Municipality” – (2032: Riyadh-Al’insan-Walmakan).

The Riyadh Municipality Strategy Project aimed to develop the first-ever, 20-year corporate strategy for Riyadh Municipality and its 62 sub-municipalities operating in different cities of the Riyadh Province.

The project objectives were totally achieved by the end of the project, where the consulting team has successfully achieved a number of milestones including the formulation of a 20-Year Corporate Strategy for the Riyadh Municipality, preparation of an implementation road map for the strategic initiatives, preparation of a detailed work plan for Year 1, establishing an Office of Strategy Management, and building the capacity for the Strategy Management Office staff.

When the strategy is fully executed over the coming 20 years, Riyadh Municipality shall be regarded as a “High-performing, Human-Centric, and Self-Sustainable Municipality”. This vision represents the 3 strategic priorities of Riyadh Municipality.

The project that lasted for 12 months was completed through a number of steps that included Preparation and Mobilization, Raising Awareness, Current State Analysis, Benchmarking, Gap Analysis, Scenario Development, Strategy Formulation, and Implementation Plan Development. This was followed by establishing the Office of Strategy Management and building the capacity for its staff.

Several benefits of employing LEVENBERT for this project were realized by Riyadh Municipality. We believe that the most important ones were LEVENBERT’s ability to create a strategic planning framework and approach, involve all management levels of RAM in the strategic planning process, engage different stakeholders in the strategy formulation, create a strategy orientation and awareness amongst staff, and enable RAM to explore new horizons for growth and sustainability.

LEVENBERT Consulting has successfully concluded its ISO 9001:2008 qualification project for its premiere client the “Saudi Telecom Company – STC” in Riyadh. The project was carried out over 6 months to qualify STC’s Contact Center Systems Technology Department for the ISO 9001:2008 certification. As a result, the Quality Management System of the said department was approved by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Limited (LRQA); after a successful audit that was carried out by the world’s leading assessor.

The qualification project has included several phases to build the Quality Management System at the Contact Center Systems Technology (CCST) Department, and to ensure its readiness for the assessment process.

“This project comes as an extension of our fruitful cooperation with STC” Mr. Ahmad Al Raie, LEVENBERT CEO has commented. “We have been offering our valued partner – STC with unparalleled services since 2004; we have developed and totally turned around their Contact Centers, Service and Fixes Centers, Sales Centers as well as their Customer Service Departments” Al Raie added.

On the other hand, Mr. Ahmad Tahlak, President and Chairman of LEVENBERT has ensured LEVENBERT’s quest to help and support STC’s efforts to become the best example of a Customer-Centric Organization. “We make sure at LEVENBERT to offer a comprehensive, end-to-end, cutting-edge Consulting and Turnkey Implementation solutions to our clients” Tahlak said.

LEVENBERT’s consulting and implementation services are now considered crucial to the success of leading organizations that look for the development and certification of their quality management systems.