What are Business Excellence and Quality Management and why do they matter?

Business Excellence is a holistic management approach, touching almost every aspect of an organisation in a systematic way, aiming to continuous improvement. Looking to the Oxford dictionary, “to excel” is referred to as “to be exceptionally good at something”. In Greek there is the word “ARISTON” which simply means... “the best”. So, this is an approach to lead an organisation to excellence, to become ARISTON, to become the best, following a continues improvement process.

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) has played a leading role in Europe regarding business excellence. Since its establishment in 1988 has developed many approaches for deploying excellence in organisations i.e. driving them to become the best in their field. The well-known EFQM Business Excellence Model and the prestigious EFQM Excellence Award are two of the ownerships of the foundation that are greatly recognised in Europe and worldwide. Business excellence in Europe is more or less synonymous to EFQM. In other regions have similar establishments like the Malcom Baldridge Award (USA) and the Deming Award (Japan).

Now, in parallel there is another, convergent path; that of Quality Management mostly represented by ISO standards (Interational Standards Organisation). ISO9000 series being the most famous. They deal mainly in ensuring quality in production and/or delivery of a product/service, and gradually assimilated to excellence models.

My personal journey to the Business Excellence world started in 1999 when I had my first contact with the EFQM and its Model. Cyta’s Larnaca Customer Services, which I have been working, was the first business unit in Cyprus to use the model for self-assessment. Later (May2000) I have been trained in Greece by qualified consultants, as an internal assessor of the model. In 2003, I had my first official assessment training at the EFQM headquarters, in Belgium. Since 2003 and every year I participated to the EFQM Excellence Award as an assessor and since 2005 the EFQM trusted me to lead an assessment teams as a Senior Assessor (the award was at first called EQA - European Quality Award- and then changed to EEA - EFQM Excellence Award. Similarly the assessor leading the assessment team was at first called Senior and later an ATL - Assessment Team Leader).

Very briefly, what happens every year is the announcement of the Award by EFQM. Organisations apply to it and the EFQM forms teams to assess them on site with respect to its Model. The teams prepare a Feedback Report and provide a score. Later on the EFQM Jury decides on who is winning what.

Excellent organisations put people first.

Reversing the Pyramid.

In business, we often say that we “put people first” or that we “turn the pyramid upside down” or simply that we value so much our employees. Then the question is what kind of people we put first and on WHOM we support the reversed pyramid and how much our valuable employees contribute to the sustainable future of the business?

Who is THE Boss!

OK. We are not that liberal and not so much of a modern style business! We are not so fond of the reversed pyramid, we are more of a classic style organization, we are of a like of “THE boss” organisation.

The individual

Under any circumstances, the individual as a balanced personality is the structural block of a successful team, of a sustainable organisation, of a prosperous society. It’s all about the individual, each and everyone in an organisation who plays a smaller or a bigger part. By investing to the individual we ensure the long run success of the group. So, this is the proposal; invest to the one to hold the pyramid especially when you want to turn it upside down.

Excellent organisations

TOP CLASS organisation will be a business that each and every one is exceptional, has a personal plan and all contribute to the whole.

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