Strengthening Capabilities

In today’s fast-changing and interconnected world, enterprises are actively pursuing sustainable growth for long-term survival. Regardless to industry, size, structure or stage of development, organisations need to enhance their business management capabilities to be successful.

Business Excellence is about adopting a holistic approach to strengthen the management systems and processes of an organisation for growth and productivity improvements. The business excellence initiative helps organisations do this by assessing and improving their performance against the requirements of an internationally benchmarked business excellence framework.

A survey on the impact of the business excellence journey was conducted by Associate Professor Sum Chee Chuong of the National University of Singapore in 2009. It confirmed that the business excellence journey enables the organisation to constantly review its processes and systems, encourages the cultivation of a continuous improvement mindset, fosters greater teamwork, and improves management systems and practices. These have had a positive impact on the organisation’s sustainability. In addition, it found that CEOs felt that the business excellence framework is a strong reference point for strategic planning, and serves as a catalyst for organisational change.

In addition, a recent study by the London School of Economics, Standford University and McKinsey of 5750 companies in the United States, Europe and Asia found that good management practices have a significant impact on productivity. Improvements in management practices can account for up to one-third of the different in productivity between firms. The business excellence framework provides a structured approach for organisations to strengthen their management systems and processes, and so increase their productivity.