Opening Remarks by Directors of Best Practice Management, Mr Ronnie Ng and Mr Sidney Yuen

The Best Practice Management Group was celebrating jointly with our winners the success of its 8^th annual Best Practice Awards competition on 7^th November at the Langham Place , Mongkok, Ballroom, from 9 am through 5 pm.

The Best Practice Awards recognize the best of the best within their won chosen categories by celebrating achievement. In addition, the awards applaud staff accomplishments, affirm success through professional recognition and appreciation and allow management and their colleagues to be recognized by the community. Based on feedback, we have expanded with two new categories to reflect the importance of leadership by example and employee involvement in this year's competition.

The culmination of the awards process brings us to this fantastic ceremony, which would not be possible without our sponsors. We would like to thank them for their support. They are Langham Place, Mongkok, GS International Group, Taifook Securities Group Ltd., The Kowloon Motor Bus Co. (1933) Ltd., Hysan Development Co. Ltd., AIA-JF, NCSI Hong Kong Ltd., HSBC, PCCW Ltd., The Interactive Channel Company and the Hong Kong Economic Times. This is certainly one of the most prestigious events. For the first time, we have two grand winners in the same award category and for the first time, we have a winner outside of Hong Kong and we are seeing more overseas companies participating in our awards competition. Finally, we are very pleased to have our TV sponsor, the Interactive Channel Company producing a short video clip of the Best Practice Awards2007 award presentation ceremony. (TIC's 'Health & Lifestyle Channel' is simulcast over i-Cable Channel 27, HK Broadband Channel 506, and throughout the world on www.tictv.com"

Finally, our personal thanks go to our guest of honor, the Honorable Sin Chung-kai, SBS, JP, Member (Information Technology Functional Constituency), Legislative Council, HKSAR. We look forward to making this event bigger and better than ever before.

The Winners of Best Practice Awards2007 are:

We'd like to thank the following companies for sponsoring the Best Practice Awards2007

Synopses of Presentations

1. Best Practice in Training and People Development:
When HSBC embarked on its "leading international business" initiative, it focused on multinational clustomers and used its global network to create a structure for managing relationships with these clients.

Margaret Leung, global co-head, commercial banking, through a video presentation, said that the bank developed a global relationship manager training program that brought about "a culture change across the bank's relationship management teams and has played an important role to drive cross-border relationship management."

"US$2.4 million return of investment for 15 programs was delivered."

Anthony Rushton explained that the success was brought about by the "involvement of senior management, an all-encompassing course that enhanced the knowledge of the GRMs, and the delegates' enthusiasm to make it work."

HSBC solicited candid feedback from the bank's global customers on how they felt the bank was handling their relationships, asked the GRMs to identify key drivers and blockers affecting the effort to increase the bank's business, and looked at the organizational goals the bank wanted to achieve through its initiative. Delegates from Asia , Europe , and the Americas attended the course.

New tools have been introduced to aid GRMs in the management of cross-border relationships and new solutions such as Global Links, Smart Forms and Commercial were instituted.

According to Michael Tung, it is important for Schenker to stay attuned to its customers' needs and adapt to their ever-changing supply-chain models.

He explained that the company is guided by core values: teamwork, customer focus, passion, integrity and continuous improvement. Schenker's services follow international quality management standards and the company implements a quality control system.

The company also values technology advancement and employee development. Its training and development programs are available on a global, regional and country level to fit staff development needs. Schenker is also a founding member of the Supply Chain Innovation Centre.

Moreover, Tung said, "We have been emphasizing a lot on being an environmental sustainable logistics provider."

Schenker is part of DB Logistics group based in Germany . Last year, the freight and logistics provider integrated with BAX Global.

Lim Meng Teng explained the company's vision is to be "a world-class provider of aesthetic medical solutions". Its mission is "to unleash the potential of staff to world-class excellence."

Neo Derm employs four major initiatives to help achieve its mission. First, it uses a balanced scorecard that has "turned frontline staff into strategy drivers". Second, the company also promotes the use of Six Sigma in process management, which has generated more than HK$40 million. Third, it conducts regular performance management and reviews. It has online "dashboards" to keep track of the performance of all its frontline staff. They were put in place to help promote transparency and personal accountability. It also implements customer satisfaction or experience management through regular surveys.

Aside from various staff engagement activities, Neo Derm employees take Sundays off when it is customarily a peak day for customers.

Neo Derm's measures have helped it double revenue from 2005 to 2006.

"They can be the little projects with big hearts", said Tung. Such is Hysan's winning entry -- the Ethnic Youth Enhancement Scheme (EYES) -- which was launched in the summer of this year. Hysan together with the Hong Kong Christian Service (HKCS) designed a program to train a group of youngsters, aged between 16 and 21, from ethnic minority groups to teach them practical skills.

Ten sessions were organized where speakers were asked to talk about their professions or specializations. Hysan invited several speakers who not only excel in their professions but are themselves members of an ethnic minority. The objective was to help the participants be more confident in facing their difficulties and to be more aware of their opportunities.

Tung explained that projects such as EYES don't have to be costly. They require volunteers to invest their time, but it's an enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

Simple is an acronym for seamless contact flow management (through Skills-Based Routing), instant one-stop appointment booking (Appointment Booking System), masterful customer information management (Customer Relationship Management System), personalized investment and planning (Retail Investment System), leading straight-through processing (Customer Application System), and effective customer relationship building.

The different systems were put together not only for effective customer relationship building but were also designed to simplify the work processes of its employees and increase their productivity and job satisfaction.

The Simple platform has improved customer satisfaction in branches and call centers with a growth of 12 percent and 27 percent respectively from 2005 to 2006. Sales and referral counts grew by 52 percent and 66 percent respectively in the same period.

HKBN's special duty unit (SDU) is a new system the company has implemented to enhance sales and service operations. With additional skills training, SDU agents are assigned specific customers, providing one-stop service for both customer management and product sales. The agents are encouraged to be more proactive, instead of merely reacting to callers' needs and problems. Customers can contact the direct telephone line of their respective agents or enjoy the convenience of video-conferencing.

Thomas Mok said the traditional call center was just a "cost center" but now it has the ability to generate more revenue, thus increasing staff salaries. The improvement has also resulted in a higher ability of the department to resolve customer inquiries and increased customer satisfaction.

The bank holds talent review days twice a year involving functional heads where they identify high-potential talents or employees who are high-performing and "have the potential and aspiration to rise to the minimum of the next reporting level in senior management position". The exercise is based on a model of employee potential that focuses on aspiration, ability and engagement.

Its integrated people-development framework is comprised of three main areas: learning by doing, through education and training, and learning from others (mentoring and exposure to senior management).

Lam explained the results of this initiative. Sixty percent of the senior management team is groomed from within Hong Kong while 80 percent is groomed among Citibankers from within and outside Hong Kong . Sixty percent of its high-potential staff have expanded responsibilities, promoted, or taken up new assignments in the last year. The retention of high-potential staff is at 90 percent.

8. Best Practice in Enterprise Governance:
NWSH's corporate structure covers infrastructure (roads, energy, water and ports) and service and rental (facilities rental, contracting and financial services). It operates in Hong Kong , mainland China and Macau and has 42,000 employees.

Its enterprise governance model revolve around four co-related core values -- optimize economic results, shareholders' interests, environmental and social interests and sustainable development. Ten areas guide management practices, the formulation of processes, systems and policies. These are: directors' professionalism, shareholders' welfare, fiduciary duty, compliance, risk management, accountability, employee relations, corporate social responsibilities, business ethics and internal control.

The model aims to sustain business growth, enhance integrity, achieve social goals, balance various stakeholders' interests, and cascade its corporate governance culture and best practices.

Maria Chung explained that the role of chairman and CEO are separate in the company. Each NWSH director has expertise and proficient experience. The company has open communication and 2-way dialogue with shareholders. It values proactive risk management based on its companies' financial, operational and legal aspects. It implements an accountability system through management audits. Employee relations are given importance through regular communication, various activities, and employee recognition. It also has a strong corporate social responsibility program, setting up a corporate volunteer team.

NWS Holding's efforts have paid off, seeing its stock price rise from $1.85 in February 2003 to $29.10 in October 2007.

9. Best Practice in Leadership by Example:
Philips DAP, Greater China is a sales organization of 400 employees spread over Hong Kong and China . Simon Wong emphasized the importance of building on the company's culture by practicing, among others, transparency through trust and open communication and the promotion of the entrepreneurial sprit among sales staff.

The company holds an annual conference where the management team answers all the questions of staff to increase transparency and allow management to promote its standpoint, according to Wong. Thorough communication on directions is also practiced. Management also does regular visits to the different offices to gather staff opinion on the company, their work and career development.

Continuous leadership training and opportunities for employee development are provided and performance awards are given to staff each year.

The success of its leadership practices is evident in the company's managers having an average of 7.5 years of service with the division. The company has nine major products as market leaders in China.

10. Best Practice in Customer Experience Management:
CLP Power entered into a Scheme of Control Agreement with the HKSAR as an electricity supplier.

Chow Tang Fai explained how the company "always put the customer first". It carries out customer service benchmarking globally. It tries to understand customer needs by listening through feedback channels such as customer satisfaction surveys, a mystery shoppers program, focus groups and also through community representation.  It set up a Customer Consultative Group with the Consumer Council and formed 14 Local Customer Advisory Committees for customer insights.

Through these channels, the utility company found that customers value supply reliability, speed of emergency services and clarity and accuracy of bills which the company in turn offers. Peace of mind of customers and value-added services are achieved through low tariffs.

CLP offers various application methods for customers, flexible bill and payment options, and different customer-service channels for account maintenance.

Tailor-made solutions are for energy efficiency and conducting regular emergency drills are also offered to industrial customers.

It developed a program called STEP that stands for system, technology, environment and people.

Customer satisfaction rating has continuously improved. "We will not be complacent and we will continue to adjust our services to adjust to the needs of the customers," said Chow.

Chow Tang Fai, Director - Marketing and Customer Services Business Group, CLP Power Hong Kong Limited.

11. Best Practice in Outsourcing:
Scicom stands for "the science of communication". It is a Kuala Lumpur-based company servicing 14 countries in Asia and operates call centers in Malaysia , India , and the US . Its vision is "total customer delight", and customers are categorized as clients, customers of clients, and internal customers.

The company sees strong recruitment and comprehensive training as integral to its success. Agents' performance is reported daily using metrics which include cost per call and customer satisfaction. Aside from a performance allowance, it has a rewards and recognition program for high-performing employees. Its philosophy is "No one comes to work to do a job; they come to work to learn how to do the job better."

For one client that's a global leader in its industry, Scicom gathers customer feedback which is then channeled to the client's research and development unit, allowing it to be more responsive to customer needs and improve products, said Willie Lim.

A client satisfaction survey is also conducted for all clients twice a year to validate its performance.

Willie Lim, Senior Vice President of Operations, Scicom (MSC) Berhad

12. Best Practice in Technology Development:
HSBC uses integrated computer programs collectively referred to as HSBC Universal Banking System (HUB) to support banking and investment activities worldwide.

The bank was challenged with keeping the software upgraded and running smoothly as it was getting expensive to maintain, with every site different and every problem potentially unique.

The bank designed a means of upgrading its software efficiently and quickly, and called it the HUB Gold Suite where instead of upgrading parts of HUB as needed, the programmers would upgrade the entire system each time, explained David Mather.

Because each HUB upgrade is a complete package and is uniform across all sites, much of the testing can be done even before installation and the wastage involved in having two or more sites spend resources on doing the same tests is eliminated. The release packaging cuts down on the time required for very installation.

Gold Suite also allows HSBC to make newly developed software available in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

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