Why UAE Dates Industry is not an Economy Contributing Industry - Case Study Example

Running head: Why UAE dates industry is not an economy contributing industry Name: Institution: Date: Dates are fruit like in nature and are liked by many for their high nutritional value; it is products of the date plum mainly found in the Middle East with different regions growing them within the United Arab Emirates. Full grown dates (Phoenix dactylifera) are known to grow to heights as high as 25metersin height and will grow in heavy clusters suspended under date palm leaves. Consumption of dates depends with the consumers; consumption varies from partially ripe to ripe while others prefer the dry and crunchy sun dried dates. For a company to be said to contributing to any economy to any given country's economy, the industries advantages should outweigh its disadvantages. Advantages may include: development of an area or region while disadvantages may include pollution to the environment. Different types of machinery are used to pack and to process the raw date into various ranges of products made from dates. From that point on, the other aspects of the date’s industry business operations are done manually meaning that the rate of production is very low unlike if it were to be done using machinery. This aspect of the dates industry within the UAE makes the dates industry not contribute to the UAE economy wholly. John (2000), clearly saw this trend and asserted that apart from the dates industry using advanced communication devices to help correspond in some industries, their ICT is not optimized at all or is rather minimized. Estimates show that among the workforce, only a percentage of 5 had any formal training in any IT course while a handful in the same group had ever attended any user training course. According to Rajab (2009), the date’s industry is notoriously known for the lack of highly skilled manpower meaning that the industry employs high-school graduates or even those who graduate lower than high school level. It is estimated that a small fraction within the managerial top in the date’s industry are university graduates with very few holding doctorate degrees. This has been a major drawback to the date’s industry in that it makes the industry not contribute to the economy wholly and fully since their production levels will be low as well as their marketing strategies. The solution to this drawback would be to import expatriates or to try and train the current population on emerging issues The issue of lack of planning within the industry is another drawback to the UAE; the government in its factory is ambitious in that it has not only increased numbers in their production lines in the international market but it has gone ahead and computerized its systems while integrating all of its departments and their business operations. Comparing this to the private sector, it is evident that not only are they note interested in optimizing the IT sectors, they do not have a definite plan to do so in the near future. The same applies for to the issue of collaboration between the industries and their business suppliers since to them the purchase of dates is very simplified to producer bringing his/her dates to the market and then the industries then buying. The government on the other hand saw this drawback and it has then made plans to make the relationship between their industry and their customers better through the IT integration. This being a good plan comes into a population that is highly IT illiterate and thus the venture would still not be economically beneficial to the UAE. The other issue that comes into scene is that the issue of planning to integrate IT is sabotaged by the fact that none of the industries is conscious of any software package enabling better collaborations between customers and suppliers plus their factories. Collaborating closely with IT professionals, these organizations, in phases, will design and develop various integrated software applications to capture and build their organizations' information systems resources. The proposed IS/IT plan must identify appropriate technical architecture that is suitable in supporting the organization's business strategy. SCM is the integration of elements creating value in the manufacturing, supply, and/or distribution process, from the stage of raw material extraction through processing to consumption. Thomas and Griffin (1996) saw that the introduction of SCM into the date’s industry would highly improve the industry in that they would thus be able to get all the benefits and an added competitive advantage through other SCM research and/or advocators. The absence of SCM in the UAE within their date’s industries may be attributed to the independence of operations between customers and suppliers since they only use the basic trading techniques minus an operations link. If the date’s industry is to economically help uplift the UAE, then the industries need to break from its conservative and independent style of operations with the integration with customers already up to date with the IT sector. The other issue is that of the lack of agreement between the factories and their packaging providers on the joint business processes between them. If and when the two are able to merge and the packaging provider understands content of the purchase order sent by the factory, then the industries turnover will be highly increased and thus make an impact to the UAE economy. While the same is possible, it can only be through an agreed communications system between the two, this can be done maybe through the use of web services as they are able to integrate various business logics mutually across networks. Business logics like integrated online buying systems that entail clients entering their orders directly into a set sales order system and/or real time credit card evaluation system can be offered as a web service by the date’s industry thus increasing their sales and having a positive impact on the UAE economy. According to John (1999), this can also be achieved through a collaborating with the IT professionals, this will enable the organizations, in phases, design and build up a range of integrated software applications that will help capture and build the organizations' information systems resources. Proposed IT plan must identify appropriate technical architecture that is suitable in supporting the date’s industries business strategy thus leading to contribution to the UAE economy (Mark, 2001). In addition, in-depth appreciation on capabilities in providing maintenance support and controlling of both software and its related hardware must also be considered. Most off-the-shelves packages will force organization to adapt to the software functions instead of vice-versa. Dates factories end-users must be involved in the whole transformation in order to cushion the impact of changes in their work environment. While their IT literacy has to be improved through appropriate training plan, their acceptability to the new system of doing things will also determine the success or failure of such initiative. According to Zaid (2000), it is said that dates could hold an answer to the global fuel crisis in that it can be used to create a cheap and affordable biofuel which would also be readily accessible due to their high sugar levels. The technological knowhow is in existence and the only issue is that the concept lacks investors willing to sink in monetary funds into the project despite the fact that tones of dates go to waste every year especially during the high season in the UAE. The wasted dates could be processed into biofuel enough to meet the needs of the UAE transport industries. The fact that dates can produce more biofuel per hectare with regard to sugar beet or sugarcane and are not yet utilized makes the date’s industry to be off less economic value to the Arab world. Desertification is an emerging issue in the world today and since the Arab world is mainly desert land, it would be wise to conserve these areas with date palm trees that would help diminish the solar radiation felt in the dessert through reflection of the sun’s rays. According to Mohamed (1998), planting an increased number of date trees would help combat desertification, in the creation of jobs and the offsetting carbon emissions emitted by the hydrocarbon industries, this venture would make the date’s industry very profitable to the Arab world as it would create patches to also grow other food crops and thus a positive contribution to the UAE economy. The UAE and its universities have set up a research institute (Palm Research Institute) that has been able apply advanced DNA structure that help identify species of date the date palms in their molecular laboratory. According to Wahab (2008), this would greatly help in the plantation of dates to help combat desertification greatly. What makes the date's industry in the Arab world to also be of negative influence to the economy is the fact that the farmers have had a long time problem with red palm weevils. The governments are trying to help combat the weevils through a national campaign through pest control efforts, the cooperation of ministries with the other local, federal bodies plus the private sector. This will have a positive impact on the UAE in that the farmers will now have increased productions and thus creation of jobs from farmers, factory workers to businessmen in and out of the Arab world. Conclusion To the UAE date’s industry, their most enormous challenge will be to implement a paradigm shift in an economy that is traditionally conservative in their business practices. Instilling a computerized environment away from once a heavily manual labor intensive operation will be a big challenge in itself. In addition, elevating workers' IT literacy will be an uphill task. With an imbalance in educational distribution among its worker with only 5 percent IT trained, and the remaining with only high-school certificate or less, training even a fraction of such a labor force will be costly and time consuming (William, 2000). While some industries are confident and willing to invest in IT, the true cost of ownership both tangible and intangible costs of such initiative must be made known and managed from the beginning. In addition, the projected cost and benefits analysis must be drawn up and made aware to the top management. Initial IT coasts may be very high depending on the hardware and software to be installed in any given industry, the other consideration may be that of getting trained personnel to manage the IT sector effectively at a reasonable cost which brings into scene the question of industries wanting to have as minimal an expense as possible while they want returns (Khadija, 2010). 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