As a leading private higher training institution in Lebanon, Lebanese American University (LAU) is a business enterprise with a wealthy past inside the coaching of the subsequent era. With seven colleges and 20 centers and institutes among its Beirut and Byblos campuses, LAU welcomes over eight 500 students from seventy-eight one-of-a-kind nationalities through its doors. Khalil Feghali, Senior Procurement Associate/Assistant Director of Procurement at LAU, believes his employer has advanced appreciably through the launch of its new buildings seeing that he joined the Beirut campus in 2009.
“The university has grown extensively given that I first came on board; we have had four essential capstone projects built, and our workplace has purchased all of the furniture, furnishings, and system for each of these buildings,” says Feghali. “In 2010, we introduced Frem Civic Centre in Byblos; 2013 saw the Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury Health Sciences Centre open; in 2017, we unveiled the Engineering Laboratories and Research Centre and last year, the new Library building, that’s absolutely a landmark constructing in phrases of architecture and the surroundings, opened its doorways for the primary time too. Today’s addition to the Byblos campus is the brand new Central Administration construction in its final stages and closer to completion.”
The college partnered with 39 pharmacies and 24 hospitals in Lebanon, consisting of the Houston Methodist Hospital and four Walgreens websites inside the US, to gain knowledge of and experimental schooling opportunities for pharmacy college students. As such, the university keeps partnerships with enterprise leaders and different sponsors and growing students’ instructional and education opportunities even as opening up studies collaboration alternatives for school participants. LAU operates with an ambitious roadmap, aiming to position itself as the leading local group of higher-gaining knowledge across the Middle East and North Africa.
Feghali factors to the impact of his business enterprise on Lebanon’s training quarter general. “2017 examine showed that LAU contributed $897mn into us of a’s economy for 2015-2016,” he explains. “Now, having gone through a rigorous procurement policy and properly-designed procurement approaches, in addition to the integrity and the exemplary paintings ethic of its procurement body of workers, have all enabled a significant contribution. Our reputation has increased as an identical opportunity client that treats all bidders for delivering contracts fairly and similarly during the years.”
With procurement essential to the growth of international businesses, Feghali observes how procurement has become a crucial strategic function that stands at the forefront of operations. “Our goals were to contribute to achieving the college’s goals via three things,” affirms Feghali. “Firstly, we must get the most in fees from acquiring products and offerings. Next, we ought to streamline the acquisition technique to permit the reduction of costs and the possibility of mistakes in it. Finally, we need to manipulate the expenditure of funds by ensuring compliance with the university’s procurement policy and procedures, price range, and file retaining necessities.”
“Supply chain transformation affects all factors of our procurement operations inclusive of the degree of cooperation and coordination with inner clients, the quality of our relationships with providers, and the aligning of the personnel behind the vision and ensuring they paintings collaboratively to broaden the crucial role of companion with inner clients,” he says. “The organization has to preserve evolving to improve efficiency, reap standardization, and for succession planning. Finally, procedure upgrades will need to be carried out to enforce standardization, reap statistics integrity, facilitate overall performance dimension and speak the results, thereby permitting us to get the maximum from the generation in the area.”
Due to the manner digital transformation is defining how all establishments worldwide behave operations, there was an aggressive force from several organizations globally to introduce a new generation faster than the competition. In the case of LAU, the college has implemented systems and the Oracle iProcurement modules during the last few years. “Since we started using the machine three years ago, lots of instructions were discovered, and we’ve continuously reviewed how to make our offerings higher,” says Feghali. “We should improve information gathering to automate commodity segmentation and portfolio analysis for the products and services we buy.”
Although leveraging the new era is essentially considered a fine change by groups, the significance of introducing software and techniques that decorate its current offering can’t be disregarded. “We’re delaying any advent of the recent era, in phrases of spend evaluation gear or contract control structures, due to the fact there’s plenty more we can do with the existing gadget,” explains Feghali. “Until we feel comfy that we’ve achieved as much as possible with our current version, we can hold off on alternative options until later. It’s vital to work with inner clients to assist in changing their notion of the procurement feature right here at LAU and convince them of the brand new cost proposition the procurement office can supply.”
With innovation considered a vital priority at LAU, the college released the LAU Fouad Makhzoumi Innovation Centre, inaugurated in April 2019, with pillars – entrepreneurship and academia – to be the hub for entrepreneurial innovation. The Centre will be an accelerator and beautify academic and training activities through ordinary global meetings, lecture series, scholarly workshops, and worldwide studies to foster creativity and innovation. “The college places great importance on the education of its employees and values their non-stop improvement and the upgrading of their abilties,” says Feghali. “In 2017, an observation indicated that, from 2011 to 2015, the quantity spent on getting to know or training employees turned into within the $30 thousand and thousands figure. It’s crucial to us.”
