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1. Evolving the EFQM Model for Business Excellence
What does a successful business excellence framework look
like, and how does that need to be adapted to reflect the
changing business environment? In this Process Excellence
Network interview, Matt Fisher, Chief Operating Officer at
EFQM, describes the organization’s model for business excellence and discusses how
instability in the Euro-zone has been impacting excellence models.
PEX Network: Could you tell me a bit more about EFQM's model for business
excellence?
Matt Fisher: Yes, the model itself was developed in 1990, based on work that had been
done by Deming, the Japanese Quality Award, and the Baldridge Prize. It was actually
instigated by the European Commission suggesting to large organizations in Europe that
we needed something similar for European organizations to remain competitive in the
global market place. So the model was developed then by a group of experts led by
large organizations in Europe. And since then it’s been developed and adapted so it’s
now a generic model that can be applied to any organization regardless of size, sector or
maturity.
PEX Network: And what actually goes into that business model? What does it look
like?
M Fisher: Well the most recognizable part of the model is the nine-box framework.
There are five enablers, the things that you do within your organization, and there are
four result areas that you’re looking to achieve. And those result areas focus on the main
stakeholders within an organization.
So you’re looking at your key results - they’re your financials and non-financials, your
customer results, your people results, and society results. And then to drive those results
within an organization you need to look at your leadership, how you form your strategy
and implement your strategy, how you manage your people, how you manage your
partnerships and resources, and how you manage your processes, products and
services.
PEX Network: So it’s really a holistic approach, it sounds like.
M Fisher: Yes, it’s a holistic framework that gives you an overview and an in depth
insight into an organization, and I think one of the key differences between some of the
other quality models is the focus on strategy development and strategy implementation,
and going back to leadership. So it does allow you to look at the entire organization and
see things in the strategic context, and understand it from the strategic perspective.
And it avoids getting lost into the detail. I mean, obviously if you’re looking at a whole
organization and taking a holistic approach you need to understand what’s important,
and if you start with the strategies of the organization and the key challenges that they’re
facing, it enables you to focus on the right areas. And if you’re employing the model

2. within your own organization it allows you to make sure that you’re putting the focus and
the attention in the right areas.
PEX Network: So I understand that there have been some general changes made
to the model since its inception in the 1990s. Why do you make those changes to
the model?
M. Fisher: The model has to keep changing with the business environment, the
operating environment of the people who use it. There have been significant changes, I
think, to the global environment since 1990, and obviously for the model and even just
the language within the model to keep pace it has to be reviewed and updated. So we’re
now reviewing and updating it on a three-year cycle to make sure it keeps pace with
changes.
PEX Network: So what are some of the general changes that have been made to
the model over time? How would, say, the business excellence model look
different today than it did 20 years ago?
M. Fisher: Well it’s always had the nine boxes, but the content of the nine boxes and the
associated tools that go along with it and support it have changed. So the fundamental
concepts were introduced, there are eight fundamental concepts, which are then defining
the underlying principles of the excellence model. So there’s a value set, a system of
beliefs, and based on that, they provide red threads that run through the entire model, so
it’s the basic foundations.
And then there’s the RADAR logic, which is the equivalent of a PDCA cycle. So the radar
logic stands for Result - defining what you want to achieve - the Approach that you’re
going to take to achieving it, how you Deploy it, how you Assess whether it’s working or
not, and how you Refine and improve what you’re doing. So it’s a continuous
improvement loop.
You have three different components within the model, which work at different levels of
detail and different uses, actually, within the model itself. And in terms of what’s
changed, if you take the example, in 1990, when the model first came out, it had one of
the result areas called impact on society, and in 1990 that was revolutionary. I think now,
everyone understands a bit more about CSR, corporate social responsibility, and that’s
one area that’s evolved massively in the last 20 years in terms of thinking.
So now one of the eight fundamental concepts is taking responsibility for a sustainable
future. But it’s not just focusing on the results, that’s an output of something that you
have to do within the organization. It starts with leadership and the values that they set
and create within the organization, and how they create a culture, which supports the
strong corporate ethics and the focus on sustainability. How you integrate that into your
strategy so that CSR isn’t just something that you bolt on, something that’s a nice to do,
and when times get tough you stop doing it.
How do you actually put sustainability into the core of what you do as an organization,
how do you make sure that the products and the services you deliver for your customers
are sustainable? And in fact how do you make sure your business model itself is
sustainable, so the organization is going to have a successful result not just today, but
into the future?

3. PEX Network: In the Euro zone there has been a lot of financial turmoil of late,
does this impact at all on the way that companies approach operational
excellence, what are you seeing from your membership?
M. Fisher: One of the things we’re seeing is organizations moving back to a more
holistic approach. I think one of the things that we’ve seen previously was organizations
were applying their business excellence approach, whether this was the model or
anything else, to a specific business unit. And they would apply it in lots of business units
or factories or sales companies, and those sales companies would be performing very
well against whatever tool they were using.
But it’s like a process, it’s not just the process boxes that you have to look at, it’s the
arrows that move between them. And when you assess a value chain as opposed to just
a unit, the score, the result, whatever it is that you’re getting is not as good because
things drop between the gaps. So you have very, very well defined process boxes, but
it’s the arrows that move between the boxes where things fall down.
So what we’re starting to see is organizations developing frameworks for corporate
governance. If you use the model at the top level of an organization, you can form a
holistic view of the whole system and look at the end-to-end processes. And beyond the
end-to-end processes, it allows you to understand your connectivity with your partners’
suppliers and also out to customers. So you can understand those inter-connectivity’s,
you can start risk assessments on, where do we have financial risk? What is massively
important at the moment in the current economic climate for people to understand what
are those interactions, who is it that we need to influence, where do we need to have
those relationships? And how do we manage those relationships, who are responsible
for it?
Applying it at a corporate level where you’re looking for some standardization of
processes. This allows you to work out, where do we need to have a standardized
process, how do we feedback from the operating units who have to use these
processes? Whether they’re working or not, and making changes to them, and where is
it okay to develop their own processes within the framework?
So it can be used as a corporate governance tool, and that’s what we’ve been starting to
see over the last four or five years, and it’s partly a reaction to globalization and partly to
the economic downturn.
PEX Network: Does it stem also from an increasing awareness of the fact that as a
business you’re reliable, you rely on not just yourself but you’re actually reliant on
suppliers, on your customers, on a whole host of factors outside of your control,
to some extent?
M. Fisher: Yes, that’s definitely something that’s been driving the changes within the
model and changes when thinking within organizations. And its how do you manage that
complexity? The model provides a framework that helps you to understand where those
inter-connections are and where you need to manage them.
PEX Network: Are there certain trends or factors that are affecting business
excellence models?
M. Fisher: I think the business excellence environment, like anything in business, can be
a victim of fads. People pick up on a flavor of the month and they do it for a while, and

4. sometimes they get results and sometimes they won’t. Quite often it’s driven by one
person with a very strong view within the organization, and when that person leaves, the
program dies. I think that’s a big challenge for business excellence that we have to try
and get around.
I think the fact that the excellence model’s been around for 20 years and has some
pedigree in there; I think one of the reasons for it is that other tools can fit within it. So
you can use the excellence model in combination with Six Sigma or Lean approaches, or
ISO standards or any of the other tools that are being used can fit within the framework.
What it allows you to do is use the right tool at the right time in the right place in the
organization, because you’re getting that holistic view. I think that’s a very important
factor for the longevity of business excellence programs, is making sure that you’re
focusing on the things that will really have a difference to the organization.
PEX Network: Interesting. Now you’re going to be attending the upcoming Process
Excellence Network’s Benelux Forum in October, what are you looking forward to
at the forum?
M. Fisher: I’m looking forward to seeing how other organizations have been coping with
the changes that have resulted in the post-economic downturn climate. What is it that
people have started to do, looking at the experiences of how this has impacted on their
programs and what they’ve done differently? I think certainly from the organizations that
we work with here at the EFQM, the ones that have really had strong programs that were
aligned to their strategy have been able to keep those going, and in some cases these
organizations are emerging stronger from the economic downturn.
They’ve been able to focus on the right things, they’ve been able to use down time in
their facilities to focus on product development or working on new innovative ideas and
bringing those to the fore, that are now giving them a competitive advantage. So I think it
gives me the opportunity to speak to a number of different organizations and see what’s
going on, what they’ve been able to do and what their concerns for the future are,
especially as we have the new version of the model coming up, we’re working on the
2013 version at the moment. So understanding what’s changed within the operating
environment is very important for us.
Editor's note: This is a transcript of a Process Perspectives podcast Adapting Business
Excellence Models to Global Challenges.
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