Finding a business partner

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Siddiqi claims approximately 98% of IHG Dubai Festival City’s suppliers are Dubai based.

IHG Dubai Festival City materials manager Akbar Siddiqi says sourcing products locally is not difficult but forging long-term business partnerships with suppliers is the primary challenge.

How have you progressed to your current role?

I started my career in accounting, and made the move into procurement almost immediately. I've been a part of the hospitality industry for 35 years, all the time with InterContinental. Throughout my career, I've had the privilege of being a part of pre-opening teams for restaurants, hotel renovations and new hotel openings.

With the IHG Dubai Festival City properties, we had the responsibility of opening not one, but three hotels, looking at a total of 1024 rooms and suites.

Being able to open on schedule was definitely a testament to a great team effort, with other departments helping out in preparing Bill of Quantities (BOQ), selecting products and receiving them.

What were the major suppliers to InterContinental DFC prior to launch?

Our major suppliers were DEPA for interior and furnishing, Sevens for kitchen, Sealy and Restonic for mattresses, and Al-Futtaim Technology for software.

Every company has a different methodology of choosing suppliers, and their own perspective on what makes a supplier good. Some of these decisions would be made on quality, and some on the price tag.

Our policy is to channel these different viewpoints into a coherent and consistent method of selecting suppliers that produce the best supplier base in order to meet our company objectives, which are reliability, quality and price.

What are the most difficult products to source for the hotel and why?

I don't believe there are any major difficulties in sourcing items. Everything is available locally. Our location in the Middle East also gives us easy access to suppliers in the international market.

The Dubai market has changed tenfold in recent years. It has become a ‘global village' of sorts, where products of your choice are easily available.

Overall approximately 98% of our suppliers are Dubai-based, and only 2% international.

What are your key responsibilities and challenges?

In today's market, purchasing has evolved to a key area of responsibility, providing organisations with a competitive advantage.

My key responsibilities are to procure the right goods at the right price and time.

Our primary objectives as a procurement department are: to obtain the best quality at the lowest price; to manage investments while maintaining adequate supply; and to maintain the hotels' competitive advantage. The fiercely competitive market is a constant challenge in itself.

Procurement is talked about often, about quality and cost. Doing it better means less cost and more profit. The challenge is to keep the price low and achieve our bottom line targets.

Since opening InterContinental DFC just over a year ago, how have you changed the way you source products?

Just-In-Time (JIT) is a process to schedule purchases with suppliers.

We have targeted and developed a network of suppliers that can consistently deliver quantities to match our immediate requirements, at the time when we need them (not earlier or later), while meeting our quality standards. This allows us to drastically reduce our stock holding, and at the same time, become more responsive to customer needs.

What measures do you take to save on materials? Does sourcing locally help?

Getting the right price can often impact a company's success. What constitutes the ‘right price' can change over time and so our approach to pricing is continually reviewed. Sourcing locally is vital as long as it is from the source or agent.

What sort of aftercare service do you expect from suppliers?

Every company requires after sales services to support its core activities. The specification for after-sales service is called Statement of Requirement (SOR).

Being in a hospitality industry, it is crucial to select suppliers who are reliable, capable and proven to be good business partners.

With many companies, the responsibility for developing the SOR lies with the user.

A good vendor can provide an invaluable service to the user by offering his or her knowledge and expertise in defining a SOR.

Our expectation from each of our suppliers is to be business partners, rather than just a supplier.

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