Ahli United Bank Accelerates Innovation, Honours Top Staff Pacesetters
Ahli United Bank has held an award ceremony to honour the winners of the first edition of innovate@AUB, an initiative aimed at engaging all employees in driving innovation across its lines of business and empowering them to ideate and test new solutions to support organic growth and to better deliver on customers’ needs and expectations.
AUB’s Group CEO & Managing Director Adel El-Labban announced and congratulated the six winning finalists at the event, which was held at AUB’s headquarters in Bahrain in conjunction with parallel ceremonies beamed live by video conferencing from sister banks in Kuwait, Egypt and the UK.
Launched earlier in the year, ‘innovate@AUB’ is an ongoing and open opportunity platform for all AUB staff to present new ideas and approaches which have the potential to transform the way AUB does business and serves customers. The program is designed to inspire and engage fresh, out of the box thinking and to recognise and reward employees who submit original, practical proposals which result in a better process, product or service offering by AUB.
Participation in the program was substantial and broad-based. The first edition attracted over 90 entries from across AUB’s regional network, with six proposals making it to the winning podium. Successful proposals were rigorously evaluated based on their originality, practicality, strategic fit and potential impact.
The winning entries involved a number of practical and innovative proposals for process improvement, business growth, enhanced customer service and improved risk management, such as the introducing of a more robust tool to gauge customers’ satisfaction, the implementing of a fully digitized process for a key retail product, the setting up of collaborative inter-departmental platform to address customers’ needs as well as various upgrades to leverage the power and convenience of the AUB’s electronic channels.
Addressing attendees at this pan-Group event, Mr. El-Labban said: “As an idea-driven bank, it is exciting to recognise forward-thinking colleagues who are driving positive change and moving AUB forward. All participants are winners through their pro-active contribution. The six prize winners of this pilot round should serve as an inspiration to all colleagues to be part of this sustained effort to contribute ideas, big or small, and to influence useful changes in a practical, well-considered manner”.
“This initiative is part of AUB’s ongoing plans to remain financially agile and digitally relevant as we continue to build on our strengths in adapting to the ever-changing banking landscape and in staying ahead of the competitive and technological curve”, said Mr. El-Labban.
