AS businesses become more competitive in the globalised world, companies are confronted with more and more challenges to expand and sustain their operations.
The term “business excellence” refers to the systematic use of management principles and tools in business management with the ultimate goal of improving performance and competitiveness.
These practices have evolved into models on how a world-class organisation should operate.
In Malaysia, the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) has developed a local model called the “Business Excellence Framework” (BEF), which is used to assess and recognise the per for mance of organisations under the Quality Management E xcellence Award, which was first introduced in 1990.
The framework consists of seven strategies namely leadership, planning, information, customer, people, process and results.
To create greater awareness about this, MPC regularly conducts activities to disseminate information and educate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on the importance of employing these values.
Recently, it organised a “Business Excellence CEO Forum” for a selected group of SMEs.
The event gave companies which had successfully managed their organisation al resources and performance towards sustainability the chance to share their knowledge and experiences on excellence in business practices.
Addressing participants, MPC director-general Datuk Mohd Razali Hussain expressed hope that the forum would inspire senior management of companies to enhance their understanding on key issues and challenges which could affect business excellence and ways to overcome them.
The MPC is ready to assist companies keen to adopt the BEF.
To gauge their readiness or determine where they stand vis-a-vis the framework, they have to complete an online questionnaire with a scoring system.
To encourage more companies to adopt the framework, support programmes such as capacity development, advisory and recognition, both at the individual and organisational levels, are provided by MPC.
Razali said the MPC had also established a “Business Excellence CommunitY” comprising individuals and organisations with a common interest to adopt, practice and propagate the criteria embodied in the framework.
Under the business excellence programme, organisations are assessed and certified using various levels of performance excellence.
Those who have achieved a commendable level are recognised with business excellence certifications while those that have reached outstanding level are given business excellence awards.
The Malaysia Productivity and Innovation Class, Quality Management Excellence Award and Prime Minister’s Industry Excellence Award are key milestones of overall performance on the BEF.
The forum also provided experts an avenue to share their experiences and provide insights on ways organisations manage their business excellence journey.
The knowledge, it was hoped, could help change the mindset of local companies in relation to business excellence.
Among the speakers were Alfa Laval Malaysia Sdn Bhd managing director Daniel Ng and Bapak Abdul Halim from PT Krakatau Steel, Indonesia.
Ng elaborated on the people aspect in his presentation titled “Harnessing People Potentials for Higher Business Performance at Alfa Laval”.
“For a business to grow, we strongly believe that people in the organisation have to grow as well.” Ng touched on the various ways employed by Alfa Laval, a company headquartered in Sweden which develops products used in industrial processes, towards attaining business excellence.
He said the company practised four values — action, courage, teamwork and profit — and how the management had worked together with its employees to attain those values.
“You can’t be a good leader if you can’t engage your people.
We engage our employees through an annual performance dialogue and employee feedback survey.” The two methods had been used over the last eight years, with Ng declaring them a success as they provided employees with an avenue to express their views.
“The employees appreciate that we have given them a channel to voice out any issues affecting them.
They are supportive of this as it can also help their advancement in the company.” To back up his claim, Ng said the company had achieved an employee satisfaction index of 97 per cent.
Employees, he said, were given four to six key objectives and two core behaviours to work on yearly.
Their performance would be reflected in the yearly bonus payout.
“Efforts to develop people in your organisation must be continuous.
Each company has its own work culture and strength, so what’s important is to adopt, implement and improve on these methods.”