RAK Ceramics scoops website Golden Prize at seventh UAE Excellence

RAK Ceramics, the world's largest ceramics manufacturer, has scooped the Golden Prize for Best Official Website in the Industrial category at the 7th U.A.E. Excellence Awards, which took place at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, Dubai, on October 21st. "RAK Ceramics has been able to maintain its market-leading position in the global ceramics industry through the cutting-edge information technology it employs on a daily basis. This approach of developing leading IT solutions has played a key role in catering to its customers worldwide," said Abdallah Massaad, CEO, RAK Ceramics. "This award acknowledges our advances in website design and functionality which is a reflection of our ever-evolving digital marketing strategy," he added. The U.A.E. Excellence Awards recognises pre-eminence in web design, development and web ownership skills, with the annual occasion used as a platform to showcase the creativity of websites in the United Arab Emirates. At this year's ceremony, RAK Ceramics scooped the Golden Prize in the Industrial category for best website concept, creativity, navigation, content, aesthetics and interactivity. The judges were impressed by the company's recent website revamp that has seen the site become more user-friendly, visually-appealing, offering greater ease of navigation and advanced technical features. "RAK Ceramics has pushed the developmental curve with its recent website offering, which now contains a greater degree of relevant technical information and more user-friendly navigation features. The website has a unique special ?Recommended Concept' sub-link, which has pre-designed interior options for living room, bathroom, kitchen and exteriors using our latest tiles," said Abdulla Mahmood, General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Communications, RAK Ceramics. "Furthermore, the website has interactive tools and provides a greater number of value-added services to customer catering to our evolving digital age," he added. RAK Ceramics' website caters to customers from over 160 countries and generates over 150,000 daily hits on its portal. The website is an interactive tool as it allows visitors to ask questions and make recommendations. Using its extensive website as a basic platform, RAK Ceramics introduced a separate mobile website to cater for smart phone users. The RAK Mobile Web has become extremely handy for mobile customers that are searching for quick information about RAK Ceramics' products. One of the recent highlights of RAK Ceramics' digital marketing upgrade is the recent launch of the RAK Smart design application, which is an invaluable aid for interior design projects that allows users to customise their tiling solutions with its advanced technology. It also enables customers to access a library of RAK Ceramics' collections and pre-sets. RAK Ceramics has also been reaching out to digital era customers through various social media channels, where it has already developed a substantial number of followers on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and through Youtube links. RAK Ceramics continues to set a benchmark in the ceramics industry through the continuous upgrading of information technology with the implementation of the advanced SAP Enterprise Resource Planning software solutions. RAK Ceramics' status as the largest ceramics manufacturer comes from its global production figures of 117 million square metres of ceramic and porcelain tiles and 20 million pieces of tableware produced each year. The combined amount accounts for around USD 1 billion in global sales. In 2012, the company achieved the milestone of having supplied 1 billion square metres of tiles and 50 million items of bath-ware worldwide.