Dimensions of business excellence
Business excellence is a continuously evolving process and no organisation can be thought of as -excellent performer in all four dimensions. Moreover, when one element is sacrificed at the expense of another, overall performance suffers. So, the expression, -business excellence? must be defined as excelling in the dimensions of its customers, employees, products/services, and profit / return on shareholder equity, over time. An excellent organisation stays so as its environmental conditions change.
Who sets the standard for excellence? Excellence is a yardstick, close to which, you can measure the organisation. But who would say that one yardstick is better than another? Against whom or what do you compare the performance? Industry benchmarking can be misleading. For example, an excellent performer in an industry generally does poorly in one or more of the dimensions.
For those who would like to see their organisations turn out to be excellent, the nature of excellence says something about how to attain it. Reaching excellence is something to be led from the top, not something natural that springs up from the underneath. Nevertheless, a leader cannot impose excellence; he can only generate the conditions under which it can develop.
The leader must generate a convincing vision for excellence. The organisation must have an apparent understanding of why it exists. The organisation has to define the significance it creates with the Customers valuing relationships, importance of people; unique feature that distinguishes from the rest, this vision precedes process creation and skill development, because the answers to these questions dictate the nature of the processes and the types of skills requisite.
In the end, excellence arises from leadership, not competition. Like a winning football team, excellence is shown in competition. The competition doesn't generate excellence, only the results of leading with excellence as a value.