The journey to Excellence

Business Excellence and EFQM

A particularly important part of my professional journey is closely linked to Business Excellence and my long-standing collaboration with EFQM – the European Foundation for Quality Management.

This involvement became the primary source of inspiration behind the creation of the EXEMPLUM Project, which essentially translates the philosophy of organisational excellence into a personal development context.

It is therefore worth briefly explaining what these concepts mean.

In simple terms, Business Excellence is a holistic approach to managing an organisation. It does not focus on a single department or function, but on the organisation as a whole. Its purpose is the systematic improvement of all activities, enabling consistent and sustainable performance over time.

EFQM has played a leading role in Europe in shaping and promoting this philosophy. Since its establishment in 1988, it has developed frameworks and methodologies that help organisations improve their performance and move towards excellence.

The most widely recognised of these is the EFQM Excellence Model, along with the EFQM Excellence Award, one of the most respected organisational assessment frameworks in Europe. Similar frameworks exist in other parts of the world, such as the Malcolm Baldrige Award in the United States and the Deming Prize in Japan.

My Journey with EFQM

My personal journey into the world of Business Excellence began in 1999, when I was first introduced to the EFQM Model.

The customer service operations of Cyta in Larnaca, where I worked for many years in management roles, became the first business unit in Cyprus to apply the model for self-assessment.

In 2000, I was trained in Greece as an internal assessor, and in 2003 I completed the official EFQM Assessor Training at EFQM headquarters in Belgium.

Since 2003, I have participated annually in the EFQM Excellence Award assessment process as an assessor. In 2005, I was entrusted with the role of Assessment Team Leader, leading international teams responsible for evaluating organisations across Europe.

How the EFQM Excellence Award Works

Each year, EFQM invites organisations from across Europe to participate in the assessment process. Interested organisations submit an application, after which EFQM forms multinational assessment teams composed of trained professionals.

These teams visit the organisation and, over the course of approximately one week, conduct an in-depth evaluation based on the EFQM Model criteria.

At the end of the process, a comprehensive report is produced, highlighting:

• the organisation’s key strengths

• areas for improvement

This report serves as a valuable learning and development tool for the organisation.

Based on all assessment outcomes, the EFQM Jury decides which organisations will be recognised at the annual EFQM Forum, held each year in a different European city.