Almajdouie Group has been recognised as Saudi Arabia’s most innovative company in the business sector for 2010.

It came first in a survey, “Saudi Innovation Index - Ebtikarna 2010” conducted across the kingdom to determine which companies excelled in innovative practices. Innovabia, which describes itself as the first dedicated innovation service company, joined hands with AlEqtisadiyah newspaper to prepare the list and announced the winners.

The Saudi Innovation Index 2010 had Almajdouie Group (automobile) in first place among five main winners. There were three companies in a sub-domain sector.

Almajdouie Group was followed by Henkel Arabia (industry-home detergents) in second place. Saudi Electricity Company (power and energy), Saudi Telecommunication Company (telecommunications) and Inma Bank (banking) made up the remainder of the top five. Sub-domain winners were Zamil, Al Jazeera and Al-Watania.

Abdullah bin Ali Almajdouie, president of Almajdouie Group, spoke at a celebration at the Sheraton in Dammam to mark the win. He said employees played a crucial role in a company’s success, “and we must involve all employees to bring in improvements at their workplace by tapping minds and exploring ideas and solutions.”

Present were Almajdouie Group managers and executives as well as members of the group’s innovation programme called Spark which encourages the innovative culture with a view to introducing efficiency and cost savings. Since 2003, when Spark was launched, more than 25,000 ideas have been generated by employees resulting in savings of SR15 million ($4 million).

Abdullah Almajdouie said: “An organisational culture that supports and encourages finding solutions through new ways of thinking and looking at problems and through benchmarking practices of other companies for improving one’s own systems could be said to be having the hallmarks of successful innovation.”

Saudi Innovation Index-Ebtikarna 2010 is the first initiative of its kind in Saudi Arabia. Ebtikarna means “my innovation”

Innovabia’s chairman Abdul Jabbar Al Abdul-Jabbar said the company’s aim was to groom the Saudi business community to compete successfully locally and internationally.