The model of Corporate Excellence

The EFQM model of Corporate Excellence is a practical tool that allows organizations and companies to establish an appropriate management system, measuring where they are on the path to Corporate Excellence, identifying possible shortcomings, and defining improvement actions.

Quality, applied to the field of business, has a long history. It was a French gunsmith who, in the 18th century, thought of the possibility of manufacturing standard parts and assembling them afterwards.

From that moment on, the process was extended through chain production (Henry Ford), defining the specifications of the pieces, creating inspection departments for quality and process control, and, in the middle of the last century, the implementation of quality assurance mechanisms, Total Quality Management, and, finally, Corporate Excellence. In the 90s, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) established the foundations for the European model of Excellence.

Among the multiple advantages of applying an Excellence model, it allows an organization to establish a uniform language and way of thinking, as well as serving as a diagnostic tool, detecting improvement points where the relevant corrective actions should be implemented.

The EFQM model of Excellence is based on the ongoing control of nine business criteria.

The first five are called Facilitating Agents: Leadership, People, Strategy, Alliances, and Processes.

The following four are the various Results: in people, in clients, in the company, and in key business results.

All these criteria are coherently ordered. Leadership allows for the management of people within the organization, definition of strategies, and consolidation of alliances with clients and providers for the continued improvement of processes.

You cannot expect to achieve key results on an ongoing basis, and less so if you have not previously established the basis for employee, client, and company results.

CEDEC has collaborated with thousands of European companies in the implementation of business mechanisms consistent with this model. We always consider that an excellent company is that which the owners wish to have.

But regardless of business objectives, CEDEC considers that the concept of Corporate Excellence implies that:

• The client is what’s most important
• The whole organization is involved in client satisfaction
• The whole organization is involved in ongoing improvement
• Change forms part of business life
• There is a coherence between people’s goals and the company's goals
• Participation and creation are encouraged
• Managers delegate
• Management is conducted with objective data, indicators, forecasts, and alternative scenarios.