Kay Ogunbowale - Student ID: 15622462 A.

INTRODUCTION Businesses operating in the 21st century are increasing faced with difficult terrain with their customers playing critical roles in ensuring the survival or extinction of the organisations. Pilbeam & Corbridge (2010) buttressed the above point by explaining that increasing customers sophistication and ability to get alternatives are some the key drivers for organisation growth hence the focus on intangible values such as: Brand, reputation, quality, efficient processes etc as pointed out by Oakland (2003). Hence the focus on aligning the overall corporate strategy of the organisation with the quality strategy to ensure that the organisation creates and deliver quality products or services that would meet the needs of their customers. Martins & Terblanche (2003) were of the opinion that an organisation can stimulate growth and solid performance by focusing on innovative concepts that would revolutionize their products or services. Critical to an organisation implementing innovative concepts is the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) methodologies that would drive the organisations drive for growth or performance. This study would consider the implementation of the BEST model in Philips Electronics and application to Shell Nigeria while considering the business excellence and quality preposition from Adebanjo. BRIEF INTRODUCTION ABOUT PHILIPS ELECTRONICS

Philips Electronics is one of the biggest electronic gadgets such as TVs, lighting, washing machine, Steam irons etc. with about 240 production facilities scattered and staff base of about 200+ scattered around the world. The company was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips in Eindhoven and overall several decades of commitment to research and innovations have seen them owning several patents and research that have enabled the organisation to achieve phenomenal growth with a significant share of the electronics market. The company is managed by the board of management which sets the tone for the company by providing directions and long-term strategy while the policies are implement by the Group Management Committee made up by the operational managers, chairman and some members of the board. The organisation in order to remain competitive while improving their processes, products, systems etc. embarked on business improvement project to implement TQM methodology that would enable them to achieve world class. This methodology is called Business Excellence through Speed and Teamwork (BEST). ASSESSMENT OF THE BEST MODEL The core of this methodology is based on Business Excellence, Speed and Teamwork which was implemented to complement the Philips Quality Management system. The model helps an organisation in making its customers as priority, develop employees, and maximize shareholders value, integrated supply chain network with commitment to continuously learning driven by systematic improvements and a highly developed team

working that encourages seamless communication amongst all the relevant stakeholders. Therefore Philips Electronics implemented the BEST model through the use of four cycle of Plan, Do, Check, Act in a continuous loop at both operational and strategic level. This cycle ensures that the organisation are able to implement their strategy, continuous improvement of the operational processes, constant monitoring of processes and results while acting to ensure that the opportunities identified are translated to actions to maximize the gain. The alignment between the improvement and business ensures that the model and organisation enjoys sound business results. These are: Balanced business scorecards (BBS) Process survey tools (PST) PBE assessments (PBE) Headquarters audits (HQA)

The above tools are further complemented by Knowledge Management, Professional and leadership competencies. All these combined enables Philips Electronics to achieve world class and business excellence. EVALUATION OF THE BEST MODEL AGAINST THE BUSINESS EXCELLENCE AND QUALITY PREPOSITION Adebanjo (2001) was of the opinion that corporate excellence has been the front burner of most organisations in their quest to remain competitive

and as a way of managing the businesses hence the development of excellence model in order to ensure that the organisation survives any economic situation. He is also of the opinion that business excellence and quality should go hand in hand so that organisation could reap the benefits accruable which is different from the school of thoughts that believed that the Business Excellence and Quality should be separated. Linking this to the BEST model, we can see that this model enables an organisation to harmonize the quality system and Business Excellence to achieve outstanding results.

APPLICATION OF THE BEST MODEL USING SHELL NIGERIA AS A CASE STUDY Using the Shell Nigeria especially the SAP BI team which is a sub-unit of the Finance dept. responsible for System based improvement for the organisation. This sub-unit is currently been managed by the SAP Business Improvement Manager and he is responsible for setting objectives that are in-line with the strategic objectives of the organisation. Using the BEST model: PLAN the sub-unit could benefit from planning its objectives and properly communicate it to all the subordinates. DO Implementation and translation of the strategic objectives into operational goals that drive the adding of value to the entire organisation while processes could be managed more efficiently

CHECK Continuous monitoring of the plan to make adjustments where necessary and to ensure that the unit stays on track ACT implement the changes or improvement identified in the Check process to ensure that the organisation realize the opportunities that are identified. CONCLUSIONS The BEST model has the potential to move an organisation into world class if properly implemented though care should be taken to get the proper buy-in of all the relevant stakeholders else they risk wasting lots of money, time and energy etc.

REFERENCES Adebanjo, D. (2001) TQM and business excellence: is there really a conflict?, Measuring Business Excellence, 5 (3), pp. 3740. Martins, E.C. & Terblanche, F. (2003), "Building organisational culture that stimulates creativity and innovation", European Journal of innovative Management, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. pp. 64-74. Oakland, J.S. (2003) TQM: text with cases, 3rd ED. Oxford: ButterworthHeinemann. Other sources would be tapped from University of Liverpool online Library, internet, etc.