| Assume
some of these improvement measures have been implemented,
and that they have had a measurable positive effect on your
business. As a manager, how do you know whether the improvement
is enough to make your business competitive? The answer is
to benchmark. Benchmarking
means comparing your business with others in relative terms.
To make this easier, various organisations have produced
generic standards of quality which businesses can assess
themselves against, regardless of whether they are in the
same field (i.e. service providers can therefore compare
quality with manufacturing companies, or research laboratories,
etc.).
Example
Organisation - EFQM
The European Foundation for Quality
Management (EFQM) was formed in 1988, and includes over
600 member businesses and organisations from the private
and public sectors. The FFQM have produced a Model consisting
of nine categories corresponding to key business areas.
The 9 categories are divided into 2 groups, as follows:
The first five - Leadership, People
(i.e. staff), Policy And Strategy, Partnerships And Resources,
and Processes - are known collectively as enablers. These
are the factors which allow businesses to create quality
products.
The remaining four are the results
which the business produces - People Satisfaction, Customer
Satisfaction, Impact on Society, and Key Performance Results.
EFQM assists businesses to train
their staff to objectively identify strengths and weaknesses
in their business and assign a score in each of the nine
categories. Data for the assessment is gathered and analysed
using the techniques discussed earlier in this article,
especially staff and customer surveys. This assessment then
provides a starting point from which further improvements
can be made and measured, and the scores recorded can be
verified by independent EFQM assessors and compared against
scores from other member businesses.
If the verified scores are sufficiently
high, and have shown a significant improvement over a short
period, the business may enter itself into competition for
the European Quality Award administered by the EFQM. The
competition is run every 2 years, and includes categories
divided by size of business and public / private sector
concerns. Achievement of the EQA would boost the profile
of any business, to such an extent that it would be a role
model to other companies and organisations wishing to raise
the quality of their business.
|
