Leadership is a key to public's mood, morale, says Desmond Tutu

Dubai: The 2009 Leaders in Dubai Business Forum kicked off yesterday with an impressive line-up of speakers including Nobel Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The main focus of the day's discussions was good leadership and the importance of giving employees deserved recognition to make a company stronger and more successful.

"Recognition is the accelerator of business performance and the chief driver of employee engagement. Almost 79 per cent of the employees leaving a job are known to do so due to lack of appreciation. The average pay rise one gets out of shifting jobs is merely three per cent," Chester Elton, management expert and author said, describing the findings of his 10-year study of over 200,000 people.

The main discussion of Monday's forum was a talk by Archbishop Tutu, who said that leaders have a huge influence on the mood and morale of their people, whether political or in the world of business, such as Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler and South Africa's Nelson Mandela.

New mood

Archbishop Tutu mentioned the inauguration of US President Barack Obama as sweeping in a "new vibrancy in the air" which has led to a new mood taken over in international affairs.

On issues such as diplomacy, the US is extending an open hand rather than a closed fist to places like North Korea and Iran, nuclear disarmament talks with Russia and renewed commitments to climate change have all been due to a "change at the top".

Of the situation in the Gulf, Archbishop Tutu said: "I often feel a jealousy when I visit Dubai [and] Qatar and see what the leaders have done with oil revenues. My heart aches when I think we have, in Africa, countries equally oil-rich and yet they are languishing in debilitating poverty because of corruption at the top. We look at Nigeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe and we see how leaders can devastate their lands and contrast it to what is seen in some of the oil-rich countries of the Gulf."

The archbishop ended his talk by saying a situation where employees don't feel valued in their corporation will have repercussions in the form of shoddiness, disgruntled employees and a drop in productivity.

"Look at Madoff, look at Enron, look at the economic meltdown which in a large measure [was] caused by the unscrupulous bankers who were willing to cut corners. Look at Nestlé buying milk from Mrs Mugabe's dairies. The bottom line is absolutely crucial, but how you get to that bottom line is even more crucial," Archbishop Tutu said.

Following his speech, the Archbishop presented three awards, including the Corporate Social Responsibility award to The One, businesswoman of the year to Safa Abdul Rahman Al Hashem, founder and chairperson of Advantage Consulting Company and businessman of the year, Colm McLoughlin, managing director of Dubai Duty Free.

Dubai: The global mobile money transfer market is set to be worth $21 billion by 2011 with around 61 per cent of the world's population owning a mobile phone, according to Deutsche Bank and mobile payment services provider, Luup.

Deutsche Bank's Global Transaction Banking (GTB) division, a leader in payment clearing and settlements in all major currencies, is introducing mobile phone payments to its clients in 80 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Luup will partner Deutche Bank to make mobile payments easier, quicker and more efficient.

The new mobile payment service will allow the bank's GTB clients to offer millions of consumers an instant and secure payment and money transfer service from any mobile device in any mobile network.

This is the first time a major commercial bank has offered a cross-border mobile payment service to its baking and corporate customers.

"Mobile technology moves on apace and we believe that now is the time to take a solution to the global market. Around 61 per cent of the world's population has a mobile phone and the penetration of mobile continues to increase while the use of cash continues to decline globally. Investing in technology and focussing on making banking and payments easier for clients and their customers is at the core of what we do," said Daniel Marovitz, global head of products at Deutsche Bank's GTB division.

Thomas Borstrom-Jorgensen, chief executive of Luup, said the agreement will offer up new markets, new channels and new revenue streams.

The technology will also provide access to the three billion strong global unbanked population, Borstrom-Jorgensen added.