Biz Group has evolved and changed as Dubai has grown over the last 24 years, adding relevant and innovative solutions as the market has demanded change. But, their founding principals have remained the same.
- They have always believed in in-house training solutions rather than open programmes which means they work directly on a client’s business challenges, matching and tailoring training to be highly relevant, practical and implementable.
- Their training consultants are solely contracted to Biz Group, ensuring they can guarantee quality delivery standards and manage large projects that require consistency despite multiple trainers delivering. It also enables them to continually invest in their growth and development
- Biz Group practice what they preach. They strongly believe that to help companies develop engaged, knowledgeable workforces, then they need to do that at the heart of their own company too. They invest in creating a happy and engaged workforce, with a strong learning culture.
In the year when Biz Group started (at the time named Biz Events), companies were expanding quickly and starting to experience miscommunication, disconnects with diverse cultures and lower engagement levels. There were very few team building solutions in the market and their clients were asking for help. Biz Group researched and found the #1 company in the UK, Catalyst. This was their first international partnership, securing the Middle East License for all Catalyst team building products and the start of a highly successful division for Biz Group. They have conducted team building for over 500,000 participants since their inception.
In 2009 the global downturn hit Dubai. Training and Team building is typically one of the first budget cuts for struggling companies and many of Biz Group’s competitors struggled to retain their teams. Biz Group made a conscious decision to retain all their talent, tightening their belts in other areas and making it through the year. This also changed the strategic focus for many of their clients. In 2001-2008 many companies were contracting international training partners, paying big fees and travel expenses, for the named institutions. Although they were bringing in the big guns, they weren’t always getting amazing results. Brand names didn’t mean they were Middle East relevant. The global downturn reduced training budgets and many companies investigated local suppliers & this gave Biz Group a chance to shine, plus make another pivotal strategic move. Biz Group reached out to international content providers and best-selling authors, offering to represent best in class international content in the Middle East region. Providing a bridge between proven recognised Intellectual Property (IP), but delivering it in a style and with relevant market knowledge. It was an immediate hit with clients.
Biz Group continues to provide this tailored blend of International IP and locally curated content.
One of the most recent evolution is capturing culture and philosophy around how you build an engaging and happy workplace, in a tangible model. General Manager, Bev Mileham is passionate about happiness and how to create a sustainable culture. Developing her thinking and passion into a model that other companies can replicate. The Happy and Engaging Place to Work framework, identifies 5 pillars and 20 focus areas, which can be prioritised into a unique road map for each company. Anyone looking to action their happiness and engagement agenda can use this checklist to sense check the current organisation health and map out a way forward. They use the same approach in Biz Group to ensure they are continually developing as one of the best places to work in the region.
Their values have been with them from the start and that is the root cause to their success and longevity. They have been a compass for decision making and if you cut open any ‘Bizzer’, you’ll find them running through their veins. Along with their core values driving their behavior at the heart of Biz Group, their Core Purpose drives the soul. The world of learning and development means they get to share ideas that can change the way people think and work every day. They take this responsibility seriously with the goal of not only improving how they work every day but really enriching their lives for the better. Their responsibility to enrich lives, doesn’t just include their client’s employees, and their own employees, but also how they distribute some of their profits to enrich the lives through education of the less fortunate.
Biz Group is ambitious about their long term goals. They recently hit a long term goal of impacting 1 million people & they just reset the goal to impacting 10 million in the next 10 years.
An interesting question at a time where the role of learning, development, leadership and HR is significantly changing. What was relevant for the last 24 years, might very well be obsolete in the next 3. Businesses are faced with disruption, chaos and uncertainty. Biz Group’s role is to help them manage this, developing talent that can meet the new expectations of customers and defend against ever changing competitors. They can’t do this with a traditional approach, so they are also evolving.
Employees no longer wait to learn something in a training workshop, they expect instant solutions on demand, and if their company can’t support that they turn to Google and You Tube. The #1 instant learning source for American Nurses is Siri! Biz Group recognized this trend 2 years ago and partnered with Axonify – one of the leading global Employee Knowledge Platforms. Bringing it to the region, ensuring Arabic capability and helping their clients make their learning strategies future proof.
Biz Group has created a unique combination – a thorough understanding of the market place and what business and employees are facing every day, relevant learning content that can help them tackle these challenges and state of the art technology to put the answers in their hands at the point of need.
The cultural diversity, pace of business and rapidly changing competitive landscape in the region, means the pressures on leaders are unique. Finding solutions to create cohesive leadership teams across departments and multiple layers of management is a Biz Group’s sweet spot. Their Leadership Journey approach, mapped to a client industry, competencies and business challenges, has a proven track record for changing leadership behavior.
As the business landscape matures and the role of the ME region grows in global importance, they are seeing an increase in Mergers and Acquisitions. Global statistics prove most M&As fail due to organisation cultural misalignment. The Middle East region will be no different and perhaps even more complex due to the cultural diversity. Biz Group’s experience in helping shape culture and bring it to life is currently playing important role in the success of some large scale mergers
