About EWB

Project Aim

To conduct a global benchmarking study on the design, deployment and impact of National/Regional/Sectoral Business Excellence programs.

Scope of the Project

This study is designed to assist BE Custodians. The project aims to be the largest ever study on BE with a goal to compare and assess the effectiveness of National/Regional/Sectoral BE frameworks in 30 or more countries. A Benchmarking Report, sharing the project’s findings, will be produced for the use of BE Custodians with the rules on data confidentiality and the report’s dissemination decided by the Custodians as part of the study. The GEM Council are the project sponsors (approved in principle by the GEM Council with a formal review 29/30 August 2018 at the next GEM Council meeting) and will oversee the project.

Method of the Project

Due to time-line and resource constraints the research method will be by literature review and survey form completion by BE custodians with follow up phone/video link interview. In addition, it is intended that specific stakeholder surveys will be developed and issued to BE custodians to collect data directly from BE stakeholders such as assessors and users of BE frameworks. It is intended that a Benchmarking Report will be produced within one year from first inviting the BE custodians to participate.

Background of "Excellence without Borders"

BE frameworks are used as a key and common approach for capability assessment and organisational development with 61 countries administering a national business excellence award. A number of BE frameworks exist with the EFQM Excellence Model and the Baldrige Excellence Framework being the most popular. These frameworks are managed nationally, regionally or sectorally by BE Custodians. BE Custodians are organisations (private or public) that own, instigate, administer or support BE Frameworks and associated BE programs within their country or geographical region. They have responsibility for the oversight, development, deployment, measurement and management of such BE Frameworks.

A BE Custodian’s role typically consists of:

  1. Developing framework variants and assessment methods based on stakeholder/user feedback e.g. Regional, National, Sectorial, Professional and Category award programmes that aim to encourage greater participation in BE.
  2. Providing support to users to assist them with framework deployment e.g. training resources and education sessions, consultancy and mentoring assistance, establishment of ‘benchmarking’ and best practice sharing groups, and assisting individuals and organisations to obtain government sponsorship and funding.
  3. Collecting data on the success of BE framework design and deployment so that continuous improvements can be made.

It has been identified that the success of BE varies between countries. Custodians use a variety of measures to gauge success including the number of organisations who are a member of their organisation, turnover of membership (new memberships, cancellations etc.), number of participants and winners of BE Awards Programmes, and a range of financial measures.

A significant opportunity has been identified to research how BE Custodians are developing, deploying, and then measuring the success of their BE frameworks. Such a study is expected to lead to positive outcomes for all stakeholders.

Two studies of a similar nature have previously been undertaken by COER and Massey University in 2005 and 2010. These studies, for the BE Framework Custodians in Australia – SAI Global (with 16 countries participating), and the Asian Productivity Organisation (5 countries participating), have set a benchmark for this new, larger global study.

Objectives of Excellence without Borders

The PRIMARY objectives for this project are to:

  1. Identify how BE Custodians:
    1. Design their BE frameworks;
    2. Deploy their BE frameworks (consisting of “awareness” – how custodians create awareness of the framework; “application” – how custodians are assisting organizations in applying or using the framework; and “recognition” – how custodians recognise and reward those organizations that achieve excellence as assessed against the framework);
    3. Support the design and deployment of their BE frameworks; and
    4. Measure the success of their BE frameworks.

SECONDARY objectives which will be dependent on the quality of the data obtained and the depth of analysis will be to:

  1. Determine best practices in how BE Custodians:

    1. Design their BE frameworks;
    2. Deploy their BE frameworks (consisting of “awareness” – how custodians create awareness of the framework; “application” – how custodians are assisting organizations in applying or using the framework; and “recognition” – how custodians recognise and reward those organizations that achieve excellence as assessed against the framework);
    3. Support the design and deployment of their BE frameworks; and
    4. Measure the success of their BE frameworks.
  2. Determine the impact of BE globally (from the results reported by BE Custodians).