The Fundamental Concepts of Excellence

Adding Value for Customers

Excellent organizations consistently add value for customers by understanding, anticipating and fulfilling needs, expectations and opportunities.In practice, we find that excellent organizations:

• Know who their different customers groups are, both existing and potential, and anticipate their different needs and expectations.
• Transform needs, expectations and potential requirements into attractive and sustainable value propositions for both existing and potential customers.
• Build and maintain a dialogue with customers, based on openness and transparency.
• Strive to innovate and create value for their customers, involving them, where appropriate, in the development of new and innovative products, services and experiences.
• Ensure people have the necessary resources, competencies and empowerment to maximize the customer experience.
• Continually monitor and review the experiences and perceptions of their customers and respond appropriately to any feedback.
• Compare their performance with relevant benchmarks and learn from their strengths and opportunities for improvement in order to maximize the value generated for customers. 

 
Creating a Sustainable Future
Excellent organizations have a positive impact on the world around them by enhancing their performance whilst simultaneously advancing the economic, environmental and social conditions within the communities they touch.In practice, we find that excellent organizations:

• Secure their future by defining and communicating a core purpose that provides the basis for their overall Vision, Mission, values, ethics and corporate behavior.
• Understand their key competencies and how they can generate shared value to benefit wider society. 
• Integrate the concepts of sustainability within their core strategy, value chain and process design and allocate the resources required to deliver these goals.
• Consider “People, Planet and Profit” as a reference when balancing the sometimes conflicting imperatives that they face.
• Encourage their stakeholders to participate in activities that contribute to wider society. 
• Allocate resources to provide for long-range needs rather than just short-term gain and, where relevant, become and remain competitive.
• Design their product and service portfolio and actively manage the full product lifecycle in a responsible way.
• Are able to demonstrate that they measure and optimize the impact of their operations, product lifecycle and services on public health, safety and the environment.
• Actively advance the economic, environmental and social standards within their sector.

Developing Organizational Capability
Excellent organizations enhance their capabilities by effectively managing change within and beyond the organizational boundaries.In practice, we find that excellent organizations:

• Analyze operation performance trends to understand their current and potential capabilities and capacities and identify where development is needed to achieve the strategic goals. 
• Develop an effective and efficient value chain to ensure they can consistently deliver on their promised value proposition.
• Develop a culture that continually seeks to improve the effectiveness of collaboration and teamwork throughout their value chain.
• Ensure that financial, physical and technological resources are available to support organizational development.
• Establish shared values, accountability, ethics and a culture of trust and openness throughout the value chain.
• Work together with partners to achieve mutual benefit and enhanced value for their respective stakeholders, supporting one another with expertise, resources and knowledge.
• Establish appropriate networks to enable them to identify potential partnership opportunities to enhance their capabilities and ability to generate additional stakeholder value.

 
Harnessing Creativity & Innovation
Excellent organizations generate increased value and levels of performance through continual improvement and systematic innovation by harnessing the creativity of their stakeholders. In practice, we find that excellent organizations:

• Establish approaches to engage relevant stakeholders and use their collective knowledge in generating ideas and innovation.
• Establish and manage learning and collaboration networks to identify opportunities for creativity, innovation and improvement.
• Recognize that innovation can apply to products, processes, marketing, organizational structures and business models.
• Set clear goals and objectives for innovation, based on an understanding of the market and opportunities, supported by appropriate policies and resources.
• Use a structured approach for generating and prioritizing creative ideas.
• Test and refine the most promising ideas, allocating resources to realize them within appropriate timescales.
• Transform ideas into reality within timescales that maximize the advantages that can be gained.

Leading with Vision, Inspiration & Integrity
Excellent organizations have leaders who shape the future and make it happen, acting as role models for its values and ethics.In practice, we find that excellent organizations have leaders who:

• Inspire people and create a culture of involvement, ownership, empowerment, improvement and accountability through their actions, behaviors and experience.
• Champion the organization’s values and are role models for integrity, social responsibility and ethical behavior, both internally and externally, to develop and enhance the organization’s reputation.
• Set and communicate a clear direction and strategic focus; they unite their people to share and achieve the organization’s Mission, Vision and goals.
• Are flexible; they demonstrate their ability to make sound, timely decisions, based on available information, previous experience and knowledge, with consideration of their potential impact.
• Recognize sustainable advantage is dependent on their ability to learn quickly and rapidly respond when necessary. 
• Promote a culture which supports the generation of new ideas and new ways of thinking to encourage innovation and organizational development. 
• Are transparent and accountable to their stakeholders and society at large for their performance and ensure their people act ethically, responsibly and with integrity. 

 
Managing with Agility
Excellent organizations are widely recognized for their ability to identify and respond effectively and efficiently to opportunities and threats.In practice, we find that excellent organizations: 

• Use mechanisms to identify changes in their external environment and translate these into potential future scenarios for the organization.
• Translate their strategies into aligned processes, projects and organizational structures, ensuring changes can be implemented with appropriate speed throughout the value chain. 
• Develop a meaningful mix of process performance indicators and related outcome measures, enabling the review of the efficiency and effectiveness of the key processes and their contributions towards the strategic goals.
• Use data on the current performance and capabilities of their processes, as well as appropriate benchmarks, to drive creativity, innovation and improvement.
• Effectively manage change through structured project management and focused process improvement.
• Rapidly adapt their organizational structure to support the achievement of the strategic goals.
• Evaluate and develop the technology portfolio to improve the agility of processes, projects and the organization.

Succeeding through the Talent of People
Excellent organizations value their people and create a culture of empowerment for the achievement of both organizational and personal goals.In practice, we find that excellent organizations:

• Define the skills, competencies and people performance levels required to achieve the Mission, Vision and strategic goals.
• Effectively plan to attract, develop and retain the talents required to meet these needs.
• Align personal and team objectives, and empower people to realize their full potential in a spirit of true partnership.
• Ensure a healthy work / life balance in the reality of 24/7 connectivity, increasing globalization and new ways of working.
• Respect and embrace the diversity of their people and the communities and markets the organization serves.
• Develop people's skills and competencies to ensure their future mobility and employability.
• Encourage their people to be ambassadors of the organizations' image and reputation.
• Motivate people to become involved in improvement and innovation and recognize their efforts and achievements.
• Understand the communication needs of their people and use appropriate strategies and tools to maintain a dialogue.

 
Sustaining Outstanding Results  
Excellent organizations achieve sustained outstanding results that meet both the short and long term needs of all their stakeholders, within the context of their operating environment.In practice, we find that excellent organizations:

• Gather stakeholders’ needs and expectations for input to the development and review of their strategy and supporting policies, remaining alert to any changes.
• Identify and understand the key results required to achieve their Mission and evaluate progress towards the Vision and strategic goals. 
• Define and use a balanced set of results to review progress, provide a view of long and short-term priorities and manage the expectations of the key stakeholders.
• Deploy strategy and supporting policies in a systematic manner to achieve the desired set of results, with clearly defined “cause and effect” relationships.
• Establish targets based on comparisons of their performance with other organizations, their current and potential organizational capability and their strategic goals. 
• Evaluate the set of results achieved to improve future performance and provide sustainable benefits to all their stakeholders.
• Deliver high levels of stakeholder confidence by adopting effective mechanisms to understand future scenarios and effectively manage strategic, operational and financial risks.
• Ensure transparency of financial and non-financial reporting to relevant stakeholders, including appropriate governance bodies, in line with their expectations. 
• Ensure that their leaders are provided with accurate and sufficient information to support them in timely decision making.