The application of business excellence to an organisation typically involves organisational change. To be successful change projects generally require the following;
- create a shared vision of the changed organisation
- separate the new vision from the past
- creating a sense of urgency for change
- set up and support a strong leader and project sponsor
- develop an achievable implementation plan and resource it
- put required structures in place to support the change
- communicate and involve people throughout the project
- reinforce and integrate change into management systems
As for any organisational change results will vary dependent on the size of the change being attempted. While benefits will be observable almost immediately it will take 3 years or more to see significant bottom line results from the application of business excellence.
Users of the Australian Business Excellence Framework were asked to assess whether or not their performance had changed as a result of following a business excellence approach. The Figure below indicates that all organisations except one reported benefits and the one that did not report any benefits had only recently began to use the ABEF. There was also a trend that those organisations which had used the ABEF for a longer period of time were more likely to indicate that their performance improvements had been greater.
MISSING IMAGE Graph of the benefits from using the ABEF (categorised by length of use)
Benefits from using the ABEF (categorised by length of use)
In summary the sooner that an organisation starts the sooner that significant benefits found by other organisations that apply business excellence principles will be obtained.
