There are many organizations that have obtained the certification of their system according to the ISO 9000 standard (mostly its version from the year 94) and ask themselves: «have we already complied? Are we already excellent? ».
It is very human to think that certification is the end of the process: an important effort has been made, the processes have been redefined to a greater or lesser extent, a training plan has been developed, the news of the certification has been sent to the customers and suppliers, the third party audit has been carried out in a positive way, etc.
But the reality is very different. Obtaining the ISO 9000 certificate is only a small part on the road to excellence, although it is very common that it is the starting point to start this long journey.
Quoting the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)
"Truly excellent organizations are measured by their ability to achieve and sustain outstanding results over time for their stakeholders."
According to this reasoning, it is clear that certification according to ISO 9000 is a part of the path to Excellence, but obviously it cannot be the only member. It is important to note that in the revision of the year 2000, the ISO 9000: 2000 standard already includes many more concepts that bring the organization closer to excellence.
Furthermore, it is known to all that the quality system certification can be obtained in different ways depending on whether the certification is a part of the path to Excellence or is an end in itself. If an organization seeks certification as its sole purpose, it is possible that instead of starting the path towards Excellence, it will move further away.
The best thing is that the certification has been achieved as a consequence of a much broader approach in which the certification according to the ISO 9000 standard has been taken as one more component and not as an end in itself. You can read more about this in the ISO 9000 Problems and Solutions article .
In fact, at present, certification according to the ISO 9000 standard is no longer an advantage over competitors since there are more than 350,000 certificates in the world and more than 13,000 in Spain.
Therefore, an important concept is that with ISO 9000, the company has started a long road that will never end, since continuous improvement must be a concept present in the organization day by day.
A modern company must use all the tools and philosophies that modern «management» offers: strategic direction, modern human resource management, total quality models (EFQM, Ibero-American Model of Management Excellence, Malcolm Baldrige,…), New Technologies Information, economic-financial management, customer relationship management, the Internet, supplier relationship management, balanced scorecard, etc.
But how do you start?
As in almost any company project, it is important to define a starting point from which to define action plans.
In this sense, the tools offered by the EFQM Excellence model or any of its counterparts can be very useful: The Ibero-American Model of Management Excellence at the Latin American level, The Malcolm Baldrige at the United States level, etc.
The EFQM defines self assessment as "a comprehensive review, systematic and regular activities and results of an organization compared to a model of business excellence."
In this self-evaluation, all areas of the organization will be analyzed, from leadership to results, through people, politics and strategy, alliances and resources and processes to define strong and weak points.
Based on this definition of strengths and weaknesses, action plans are defined to correct weaknesses and improve strengths.
The EFQM Model is based on the Eight Fundamental Principles of Excellence:
- Orientation towards ResultsCustomer OrientationLeadership and Coherence in the ObjectivesManagement by Processes and FactsDevelopment and Involvement of PeopleLearning, Innovation and Improvement ContinuouslyDevelopment of AlliancesSocial Responsibility
An important advantage of the EFQM self-assessment is its quantitative nature, that is, it can be compared against other organizations, against previous evaluations of the same organization or between different business units within the same organization.
Another important feature is that compared to other tools such as the more rigid ISO 9000, the self-assessment can be used in the terms that are most interesting for the company in question (unless the final objective is the presentation to the European Prize).
It is also important to point out the methodological component provided by the EFQM, which points to different methodological approaches (simulation of presentation of the prize, self-evaluation by forms, self-evaluation through the improvement matrix, self-evaluation with questionnaires, self-evaluation by work meeting and joint involvement of the self-evaluation) so that in each specific case the most suitable one is used.
Regarding the use of EFQM, the dissemination that this model has achieved in the European context is very wide. In a research work on 151 leading European companies that have applied the self-diagnosis process, the majority of companies considered, practically at the same level, the following aspects as main reasons for their use. Firstly, because it allows to accelerate the process of continuous improvement and management. Secondly, because it increases the effectiveness in identifying the improvement, and, thirdly, because it increases knowledge about quality.
Already in 1999, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) analyzed, in a study, the degree of use of self-diagnosis on a hundred leading European companies. 66% of the companies declared having used this process. The vast majority through the EFQM model.
With this global vision provided by the EFQM model of Excellence or its counterparts, the company does manage to forge a solid path to excellence that is not basically focused on processes and products (as happened in ISO 9000 version of the year 1994), but It includes all the concepts of the organization, as previously discussed.
In conclusion, the important thing is to have a global vision of the path to excellence and to have it as a process of continuous improvement, making tools such as the one provided by the EFQM Excellence Model and its counterparts extremely useful.
