Describing themselves as “part of the soul of BMMI”, the B-intercept team invited the Corporate Communications department to their little corner bat cave in the BMMI Sitra HQ, to inform us, and all of you, of exactly who they are and what they do.

There are many misconceptions behind the team, but they were eager to diminish these and give you a little insight behind the scenes.

On top of their usual daily tasks, the two major jobs the team works on is the Maintenance Service Requests (MSR), which is anything associated with facility maintenance requests, and the Helpdesk, which is the IT related issues.

They work like a call centre operation and redirect the order or request to the right department or supplier. The team of seven work like the middle men between the user and the contact, giving us updates and following up. The system is automised and users are automatically updated with emails, but this systemized method is all organised by the B-intercept.

Ali Hassan, Mohammed Arbaz, Ali Moosa, Ali Kazerooni, Mohammed Kamran, Abbas Mallalah and Yousif Abdulaziz make up the B-intercept. They play an integral role in ensuring that everything is running smoothly and that the company’s assets are safeguarded and maintained.

Many of them work on shift basis to ensure someone is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This team is dedicated and motivated and although they are on their own in a little dark room, they love to interact and collaborate with other departments.

“Sometimes we have to liaise with different departments. For example, if a freezer is down in Alosra with no space in any of the other freezers while maintenance is being done, we need to contact the beverages department for a vehicle and arrange a driver to send it to a location with storage suitable for the products,” said Ali Hassan. “It’s good to get in touch with other people in the company and it’s a nice way to interact with them. It’s just a shame it only happens when there is an issue.”

The team also ensure that employees are safe when travelling, and that if any disasters happen there is an evacuation plan in place. So far the team has done an excellent job, but obviously there is always room for improvement. For the first time in BMMI history, the team passed the audit with flying colours! No major or minor non conformities were recorded and this was a huge accomplishment for the team. It hasn’t always been easy though, over the years, the department has grown and become more efficient.

“B-Intercept was born out of a need to improve our security management and crisis response. B-Intercept today does much more than just Security, amongst other duties the function evolved to serve as Helpdesk for IT, Facility Management and Alosra Customer Service,” said CFO & EVP, Ammar Aqeel AlHassan. “This allowed BMMI not only to save cost, but to improve standards of operations and expand our businesses with ease. This is not the end game though, we have new exciting plans to further expand the use of B-Intercept.”

Vice President of IMS, Administration & Security, Suttish Boodoo, was also in agreement about the integral role the team plays in emergency preparedness. “B-Intercept and the team play an instrumental role in emergency preparedness and response to major incidents in order to enhance BMMI's resilience to crisis situations,” he said. “The Crisis Management Centre’s (CMC) procedure and related command and control structure is in place with excellent facilities. Not only will this enable us to handle any emergency, but it also provides us with a tried and tested route to follow for any emergency. During the last Business Continuity certification, the auditors were so impressed with the functionality of B-Intercept and rated it as noteworthy and best practice in the region.”

Some members of the team, such as Kamran and Arbaz, who have been part of the team for many years, have seen some major changes. However, Abbas, who is only one year into the company, mentions that even in this short amount of time he has seen developments being made. “The Interactive Voice Response system was recently introduced and is a great way to organise requests and prioritise them,” he said. “But the problem is people are still not using it. It makes it easier for the user and for us. This telephone menu system allows identification, segmentation and routing of all callers to the most appropriate person within any department or team. It’s an effective tool that will improve speed in customer service, help identify urgent calls, as well as increase efficiency within the company.”

The biggest difficulty is users complain about things that are not in their hands. “We are the point of contact with other departments so we get all the blame and the complaints. We try to give an update. Sometimes the supplier doesn’t have something in stock and it is not in our control,” added Abbas. “This system centralises services within BMMI through the control room, and self-service, make sure everything is measured and recorded.”

They don’t just get internal calls, they sometimes get calls externally and most of the time its complaints from frustrated people. But the team have learned how to deal with most of the situations. Of course, just like any other job, it can get chaotic, but the main thing is these men have a good time and enjoy what they do. They all come from different backgrounds, with some majoring in accounting, another with a pilot license and plenty of other with IT backgrounds, so they ensure they use their skills to help one another.

“We do our work but we have fun while doing it. As a team we inspire each other and we make jokes. We have a bond. Entertainment is important,” said Ali Hassan. “We hope that we are living BMMI’s Winning Heart culture, because our team’s dynamic is great. We just want everyone else in the company to know and understand what we do.”