News New Future Formula at EFQM Business Excellence Award event in Munich
New Future Formula attended this year's EFQM Business Excellence Award event at BMW Welt in Munich. BMW Welt - show room is the largest tourist attraction in Bavaria with more than two million annual visitors: high-end cars and an architectural marvel of a building – an impressive stage for the event
"Share what works" - EFQM's motto is lived out among the best
In the last days of October, executives from many European countries met in Munich for two days to recognise and learn from some of the best performing organisations in Europe. EFQM Business Excellence is considered the strictest model for sustainable business development in the world. The model has been used for more than 20 years. More than 30,000 European businesses operate according to the Business Excellence principles. This year, one of the main focal points has been to see whether the model could stand the test through the worst financial crisis in recent history. It did. Despite the economic turmoil and decline, this year's award-winning companies have generated superior and sustainable results - some of the best in the history of EFQM. An EFQM Business Excellence Award is not won on a whim, but rather on many years of hard work and total commitment by the entire organisation. And this evening quite understandably, there are loud celebrations every time the winning CEOs raise the trophies. Live video feeds to the companies in the respective countries enable the employees at home to share the spotlight and be recognised for their efforts. This night is first and foremost dedicated to the Award winners. They serve as role models for the rest of us. They take the spotlight while the rest of us look for signs that we are also heading in the right direction. And the winners are eager to tell about how they succeeded and about all the obstacles, the inertia and moments of despair along the way. However, they always conclude that this is just the beginning.
Slovenian businesses want to be among the top European competitors
The award ceremony is not just for the winners. It also reflects and radiates the impressive dedication to working with EFQM Business Excellence which is found everywhere in Europe. We spoke to the head of EFQM in Slovenia who told us how they in Slovenia have created a living local EFQM forum where businesses using EFQM and achieving excellent results are recognised once a year in the presence of the prime minister. More than 400 companies attended this year's award ceremony. Slovenian businesses are dedicated to the Business Excellence principles. They want to be among the best in Europe despite being a small country.
EFQM is part of the curriculum of all Kazakhstan universities
We also spoke to a professor from Kazakhstan, and he told us that EFQM Business Excellence is part of the curriculum at all institutions of higher education. The entire public administration in Kazakhstan works according to the EFQM Business Excellence principles. The professor eagerly told us how citizens from near and far in this enormous country are readily and quickly serviced by the public sector and how many possibilities of corruption have been eliminated as well as how they are willing to further pursue EFQM to improve even more.
EFQM is for all kinds of organisations
At NFF, we are dedicated to disseminating EFQM Business Excellence as much as possible. We often hear CEOs say that EFQM is only for the big companies - previous award winners such as Grundfos, Siemens and Bosch. This is not true. The examples from Slovenia and Kazakhstan clearly show that the model and its tools can be applied to both small and large organisations from both the public and the private sector. Our New Year's wish for 2012 is for more companies to consider how they can benefit from EFQM Business Excellence.
