Total Quality Management Vol. 19, No.

11, November 2008, 11731188

Review of the Australian Business Excellence Framework: A comparison of national strategies for designing, administering and promoting Business Excellence Frameworks
Nigel Grigg and Robin Mann
Centre for Organisational Excellence Research, Institute of Technology and Engineering, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand This paper shares ndings from a major study focusing on how Business Excellence Frameworks (BEFs) are designed, reviewed, promoted and deployed within and across nations. This paper presents a general overview of the study. The project was commissioned and funded by SAI Global, the present custodians of the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF), with the objectives of enhancing the ABEF and increasing the use of the framework within Australia. The methodology consisted of a literature review, a series of focus groups, surveys and key informant interviews, and involved input from 16 countries. This paper focuses on: (1) the design and validity of frameworks such as the ABEF; and (2) how a BEF custodian such as SAI Global creates awareness of the framework, assists organisations in its deployment, and recognises and rewards organisations that achieve excellence as assessed against its criteria. Although focusing upon the Australian award and context, the ndings draw upon a range of international sources and hence are of relevance to all BEF custodians. The ndings from the project are expected to inform national Business Excellence strategies and will be of interest to all organisations that use BEFs to improve their performance. Keywords: Business Excellence; international comparison; excellence framework design and administration

Introduction Business Excellence (BE) frameworks (hereafter referred to as BEFs) and national quality awards can play an important role in elevating organisations towards performance excellence. As such, they can be viewed as a key mechanism for raising the economic prosperity of a country. Cauchick-Miguel (2004) reported that 76 countries administer a national BEF, although the present authors recently estimated (in 2006) that this gure had by then increased to at least 82 countries. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) believes that at least 30,000 organisations across 25 countries are using the European Excellence Model (EFQM, 2007). The EFQMs gure was based on the number of EFQM members, the members of its national partners, and those organisations that they know are utilising the model in their business. The custodians of BEFs (a term which is used herein to refer to the organisations or bodies entrusted to promote and administer a national BEF) face various challenges in promoting and engaging organisations in BE. In 2005, SAI Global (previously Standards Australia), the present custodian of the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF), commissioned a research project with the aim of addressing these challenges and helping to achieve higher levels of

Corresponding author. Email: N.Grigg@massey.ac.nz

ISSN 1478-3363 print/ISSN 1478-3371 online # 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14783360802323669 http://www.informaworld.com

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engagement of BE in Australia. To the authors knowledge, the resulting study on which this paper is based represents the rst project that has been sponsored by a BEF custodian that not only investigates the appropriateness of the design of a BEF to a particular business environment (in this case Australia) but also endeavours to identify best practices in relation to successfully administering and deploying a national BEF.

The Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) Current structure and design The ABEF was developed in 1987 as one of the worlds rst BEFs together with the US Baldrige award framework. Figure 1 shows the design of the framework, which at the time of writing encompassed seven main categories: leadership; customer and market focus; people; strategy and planning; innovation, quality and improvement; knowledge and information; and success and sustainability. Within these categories there are 22 scoring items collectively totalling, as with all other excellence models, 1000 maximum points. Additionally, the framework is based upon twelve core principles. In terms of scoring mechanism, an organisations performance against each item of the framework is assessed against four dimensions, where the items are evaluated by exploring how the organisation puts plans and structures into place; deploys those plans and structures; measures and analyses the outcomes; and learns from its experience. These dimensions form a cycle of Approach, Deployment, Results and Improvement (ADRI). Unlike most other models, therefore, the results and enabler criteria are not explicitly separated. Instead, each main criterion contains items that relate to enabler activities and results.

Figure 1. ABEF structure and project scope.

ABEF promotion and administration To promote the ABEF, the Australian Quality Council (AQC) was formed, as a not-for-prot, membership-based organisation, which operated until 2001. The AQC provided BE services and an awards programme that recognised those organisations that excelled as assessed against the framework criteria. Throughout much of this period, however, the AQC found it a challenge to operate on a sound nancial basis. This situation eventually led to SAI Global buying the rights to the ABEF and the Australian BE awards. SAI Global is Australias

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leading provider of standards, and a signicant provider of assurance services and professional services, including consulting and training provision. When SAI Global took ownership of the framework, they focused on managing the transfer process as smoothly as possible so that the ABEF would not lose its value or the goodwill of its many stakeholders (particularly BE evaluators and clients). Therefore, minimal changes were made at that time to the annual awards and evaluation processes. This initial period enabled SAI Global to become familiar with the processes involved in administering a BEF. After two years it became evident that a thorough review was required not only of the design of the ABEF but also the processes used to engage organisations in using the framework. This led to SAI Globals decision to contract the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research to undertake an independent review of the framework and provide recommendations on the way forward. After consultation with users and evaluators of the ABEF, a title for the project was agreed as Beneath the Surface: A project to review and enhance the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF). Literature review: previous research on Business Excellence Most research into Business Excellence and related frameworks falls into one of three categories: (1) assessment of the hard and soft benets against the costs (nancial or otherwise) of using BEFs; (2) framework structure validation (e.g. using statistical methods to validate or challenge the hypothetical interrelationships between criteria and items); and (3) studies relating to the efcacy of national framework implementation. Indicative literature in relation to each category is summarised in the following paragraphs. Benets of BE Research on the overall benets of using BEFs generally indicates that organisations with a BE approach obtain signicant operational and nancial benets. Hendricks and Singhal (2000) studied the long-term effects of implementing effective BE programmes. Using the winning of US Baldrige awards as the criterion to select organisations, their research shows a strong link between BE and nancial performance. The study found that US BE award winners experienced increased income, sales and total assets during their respective post-implementation periods as compared with their controls. A similar study sponsored by the European Foundation for Quality Management and British Quality Foundation of 120 award winners found that the winners outperformed comparison companies similar in size and operating in the same industries over an 11 year period (Centre of Quality Excellence, 2005). A Doctoral study by Hausner (1999) of the University of Wollongong, Australia, examined the performance of 15 manufacturing rms that had participated in the Australian Quality Awards (not only award winners) between 1992 and 1997 and demonstrated improvements against a range of key performance indicators (KPIs). Hausner requested 15 rms to list the 10 most important performance indicators, and provide quantitative data in respect of those KPIs over an eight year period (1991 to 1998). He found a strong positive correlation between KPI improvement and total BE score, and hence concluded that striving for improvements against the ABEF is of interest to all stakeholders as organisational success is tied to the effectiveness of its management practices as reected through the ABEF. In another doctoral study, Mann and Saunders (2005) identied a strong correlation between Enablers and Business results when studying Baldrige self-assessment results. Their data indicated that organisations with excellent approaches to leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus and process management are more likely to achieve excellent business results (composed of customer satisfaction results, nancial and market results, human resource results and organisational effectiveness results).

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Framework design validation Framework design and the interrelationships between framework categories and items, has been statistically tested and validated by various researchers using techniques including simple bivariate correlation (e.g. Mann & Saunders, 2005); ordinary least squares (Samson & Terziovski, 1999); path analysis (Flynn & Saladin, 2001) and Covariance Based Structural Equation Modelling (Handeld & Ghosh, 1995; Lee et al., 2003; Pannirselvam & Ferguson, 2001; Wilson & Collier, 2000; Winn & Cameron, 1998). Other research involving indirect approaches to operationalise quality management through the Baldrige CPE (Criteria for Performance Excellence) includes studies by Dellana and Hauser (1999); Dow et al. (1999); Handeld et al. (1998) and Pannirselvam et al. (1998).

Framework promotion and administration A number of published studies and reports (APO, 2001; Booz-Allen-Hamilton, 2003; Hermel & Ramis-Pujol, 2003; Ronalds, 2004) have identied issues and perceptions relating to the efcacy and implementation of frameworks that are likely to be impacting the uptake of BE in some countries, these are summarised below.
.

The evidence available to verify the value of BE frameworks is perceived by organisations as either insufciently comprehensive or ineffectively communicated. The underlying detail (for example, the scoring mechanism/weighting of categories and items) of BEFs has not been empirically proven. This provides a basis to undermine their credibility. BEFs assist in delivering long-term stretch goals and building competencies. However, few organisations (for example, only 18% of NZ rms; MED, 2002) set goals for more than one year. Achieving a return on investment may take a few years after using a BEF (Hendricks & Singhal, 2000). This however appears to be contradicted by the recent BQF and EFQM study which indicated that benets can be obtained within one year of winning an award (Centre of Quality Excellence, 2005). There is a lack of understanding of how BEFs are positioned against competing improvement methods. Awareness and use of BEFs in industry sectors outside large business are likely to be modest without targeted criteria and specic support. Lack of local (country specic) success stories from which peer advocacy can be leveraged. Some BEF custodians do not have the resources to effectively promote and support the framework. The plethora of regional and nationals awards that are not aligned to BE tend to confuse businesses. There is a perceived lack of unied approach by governments, public institutions and management/trade associations to promote the BEF.

Recent global developments in Excellence Model administration Such issues have led to an increasing recognition by BEF custodians of the need to pool resources and learn from each other to maximise the impact of their frameworks to ensure interest in BE is maintained and continues to grow. This new focus on collaboration and networking is demonstrated through the work of the Global Excellence Model (GEM) Council, which was

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formed in 2000. This network brings together the key custodians of unique BE models that cover a continent or large geographic area. Member countries and regions include Europe (EFQM); Australia; USA; Japan; South Africa; Singapore; India and Iberoamerica. The group meets each year to discuss how they can improve their frameworks and supporting systems. These meetings serve as useful inputs to their strategic planning processes especially when major reviews of their frameworks are occurring. Most award custodians undertake minor reviews of their frameworks on a yearly basis with major reviews being conducted every three to ve years. Examples of major reviews include the EFQM Above the Clouds project, which is a major review of the design of the European Excellence Model; a 2004 review of the Japan Quality Program, marking 10 years since its introduction; Mexicos 2004/5 review of the Mexican National Quality Award; and NISTs 2003 review of the Baldrige National Quality Program, which included the commissioning of the Booz Hamilton leadership attitude survey (Booz-Allen-Hamilton, 2003). Through sharing this information, BEF custodians keep up-to-date with worldwide initiatives and improve their systems. This has also led to, particularly with the awards process, a greater standardisation of approach as the custodians have all learnt from the better practices of each other. Beneath the Surface project: methodology The remainder of the paper will now focus on Australias project, Beneath the Surface: A project to review and enhance the Australian BE Framework (ABEF). This is the rst major review of the ABEF since it was created in 1987, although minor adjustments have usually been made on an annual basis. The methodology is described followed by the main ndings to date. Aims and objectives The aims of the project were to recommend:
. .

An improved framework and framework development process; Effective ways in which SAI Global can increase framework awareness and use within Australia; An improved recognition/awards process.

The aims of the project address the key functions of a typical BEF custodian. Typically, BEF custodians perform one or both of the following two roles: framework development, and framework deployment. These roles can be further rened as illustrated in Figure 1. This diagram shows that the development process leads to the design of the framework itself, and that the deployment process consists of creating awareness of the framework, assisting organisations in its use, and nally recognising those organisations that achieve excellence as assessed against its criteria. Successful framework development and deployment should lead to a signicant improvement in the management practices and performance of a nations organisations. The model development objectives are to develop a framework with the following characteristics:
. . . . . . .

Being globally and locally responsive to a changing business environment; Internationally comparable; Reects best practice; Improvements as assessed against the framework will lead to long-term business success; Supported by research evidence; Simple to understand; Its design facilitates the use of multiple types of assessment.

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Under model deployment, objectives relate to:

. . .

Awareness: to create maximum awareness of the framework; Application: to assist organisations in understanding and applying the framework; Recognition: to provide recognition to role model organisations and promote best practices.

Research project stages A consultative research approach was adopted for the project to help ensure that the objectives of SAI Global and other stakeholders were met, and that maximum buy-in to the project and its ndings were obtained. The methodology consisted of desktop research (stage 1), focus groups (stage 2) and surveys/structured interviews (stage 3). Each of these stages and methods aimed to collect relevant information for one or more of the processes shown in Figure 1. A brief overview of each of the research methods will now be given. In stage 1, desktop research consisted of a general review of international research on worldwide trends in BE, performance improvement, protability and long-term sustainability to see if the current design of the framework ts the current understanding of what makes a successful organisation in todays business environment for example, to see if new categories or items were required or if the score weightings should be changed. A particular focus was given to analysing business literature/research from Australia so that that the framework could be designed to reect Australias business environment. Desktop research also involved studying the websites of BEF custodians. This provided valuable information on the BE services offered by BEF custodians and the current design of other BEFs enabling comparisons of model criteria, items and core principles. In stage 2, focus groups were conducted comprising of people that had a sound knowledge of at least one development or deployment process. In total, there were six focus groups with a typical size of 12 people. Five of these consisted of volunteers who were either ABEF evaluators or users of the framework (including award winners). These focus groups were held in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney so that representation from key geographical regions was obtained. The sixth focus group comprised the ABEF steering group who had previously led the development of the framework. All participants were asked for their views on framework development, design, promotion and awareness, application and the recognition process. In relation to each they were asked to identify strengths, opportunities, and solutions/recommendations. The resulting information was important in identifying priorities for the project and, in some cases, providing instant solutions to key issues. The focus groups were deliberately undertaken before the surveys in order to inform the survey design process and maximise the content validity of the resulting questionnaires. In stage 3, three surveys were undertaken. The rst was a telephone-based Awareness Survey (AS). The purpose of the AS was to assess the current awareness of the ABEF in Australia and, for those organisations that were aware of the ABEF, whether they used it to improve their performance. The measures of awareness and use would serve as benchmarks so that in the future the impact of SAI Globals strategies could be assessed. Further questions were asked on why the interviewees used or did not use the ABEF. This information was considered useful for identifying the current challenges facing SAI Global. One previous study on awareness levels had been conducted in 2000 (Busteed & Vogel, 2000) and recorded a high level of awareness and use with between 70 90% of organisations being aware of the framework and 40% actually using it. From discussions with SAI Global and workshop participants it was felt that these gures were far too high. The reasons for such high gures were thought to be related to the fact that the survey focused on the top 500 organisations, and, secondly, that a postal survey was used, which may have introduced bias since it was possible that those organisations

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with a greater interest in BE and the ABEF would be more likely to complete it. Finally, it was unclear from the report precisely to whom the survey was sent in these organisations. To reduce the likelihood of bias for the AS it was decided that a telephone survey conducted on a (stratied) random sample of Australian organisations represented the most statistically valid and reliable means of obtaining awareness data. Telephone contacts were obtained from a Kompass directory, the target contact being the CEO or a member of the senior management team. In most cases these were named in the directory and in the other cases the researcher asked the organisations receptionist to speak to a member of the senior management team who was available. The interview was designed to take a maximum of ve minutes to complete. Quantitative and qualitative questions were asked, responses recorded verbatim and a statistical and textual content analysis carried out. The researchers were given a target number of ve interviews to complete within each state and organisation size category. Table 1 shows the resulting sampling plan and the number of responses achieved per cell. The organisations were selected at random from the population within each resulting cell. The sampling plan would prove useful in identifying patterns in BE awareness and use.1
Table 1. Number of organisations interviewed by State and organisational size. Organisation size (number of employees) State Australian Capital Territory New South Wales Northern Territory Queensland South Australia Tasmania Victoria Western Australia Total 110 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 41 (13.4%) 11 20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 21 50 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 51 100 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 101 150 4 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 41 (13.4%) 251 500 5 6 2 5 5 5 5 5 38 (12.4%) 501 1000 5 5 0 5 5 0 5 5 30 (9.8%) .1000 5 5 3 5 5 2 5 5 35 (11.5%) Total 40 (13.1%) 41 (13.4%) 30 (9.8%) 41 (13.4%) 40 (13.1%) 32 (10.5%) 40 (13.1%) 41 (13.4%) 305

40 40 40 (13.1%) (13.1%) (13.1%)

The second survey, the User Survey (US) was designed to be completed by individuals who were most familiar with the design of the ABEF or SAI Globals services used to promote its use. The survey respondents were BE evaluators or organisations that were current users of the ABEF. The purpose of this survey was to obtain high quality, in-depth feedback on how to enhance the ABEF and SAI Globals associated BE services. In order to maximise the validity of responses the instructions for the survey emphasised that respondents were only to complete the parts of the survey on which they had knowledge. A guide for the time taken to complete each section of the questionnaire was provided to the respondents so that they could decide in advance whether to complete the whole survey or focus on specic areas. In total it was estimated that the survey would take up to two hours to complete if all the questions were answered.

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SAI Global sent the survey via email to all evaluators and users of the framework, and it was also hosted on their website. In total, 46 surveys were completed. This was a high response rate (46%) considering the respondents were predominantly evaluators, from a total of only 100 evaluators in Australia. Responses revealed often strong and even passionate views on the framework. The third survey, the BEF custodian survey, was designed to identify better or best practices in terms of how BEF custodians develop and deploy BEFs. This survey was most important as it would enable SAI Global to benchmark its key processes against other BEF custodians and obtain innovative ideas on how SAI Global could improve its services. Prior to sending out the survey, the commitment of the GEM Council members to completing the survey was obtained this helped to persuade other countries to participate. The main incentive for BEF custodians to complete the survey was that they would be given a copy of the ndings. Many BEF custodians stated the high importance of the research and that they would be using the ndings for strategic planning purposes. The survey questions addressed all BEF custodian processes but no questions were included on the end-design of the frameworks (as this information was obtained from their websites). The survey was expected to take an estimated two hours to complete. This survey was followed up with telephone interviews to clarify the information and obtain further information on those practices that were rated as innovative or a better/best practice by the BEF custodian. An initial 15 BEF custodians were invited to participate based on the authors knowledge of which countries appeared to be most successful in deploying BE. This sample group comprised custodians of international awards such as Baldrige and EFQM, and tailored national awards such as the ABEF itself. All the custodians invited participated, with two exceptions due to their difculty in meeting the tight deadlines. However, three other custodians volunteered and so, in total, 16 custodians took part. The custodians2 that participated represented: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Europe, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States. Findings In this section we present an overview of some of the initial ndings. These ndings have been categorised by the key development and deployment processes. For reasons of space only brief selected results can be shown. Overarching issues Overarching issues are issues that impact to some extent on all BEF custodian processes. One of the areas investigated was the ownership status of the BEF custodians. As Figure 2 shows, SAI Global is the only privately operated company, while SPRING Singapore and the US Baldrige National Quality Program are the only two currently funded directly by their government. The impact of the ownership structure was perceived by some users of the ABEF to be important. The concern that they stated was that SAI Globals requirement to generate their own revenue may mean that they do not commit sufcient resource to building awareness of the framework, as this activity does not have an immediate impact on the bottom line. By contrast, others stated that SAI Globals nancial muscle and general expertise in business improvement, as Australias leading standards/business improvement service provider, would enable them to achieve greater awareness of the ABEF than the previous not-for-prot custodians of the ABEF. A closer examination of all the BEF custodians revealed differences in their structures in terms of revenue generation. Figure 3 shows the average breakdown of revenue streams within BEF custodians. One key nding was that half of them had seen their income rise in

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Figure 2. Ownership status of BEF custodians.

Figure 3. Revenue streams of BEF custodians (average percentage of income from various sources).

the last three years from product/services sales. The area that had seen the largest decline was in membership income with ve BEF custodians indicating a reduction. The number of staff working within each BEF custodian varied enormously from 1.5 full time employees in the Czech Republic and three full-time employees in New Zealand and Ireland to 34 for the BQNP and 26 for the EFQM. Obviously, the number of FTEs impacts greatly on what can be achieved in each country. Of interest was a breakdown of revenue by employee size. This shows large differences from country to country as shown in Figure 4. The names of the countries remain anonymous due to the condentiality of the information. An attempt was made to examine whether there was a relationship between the various business structures and national levels of BE awareness and deployment within each country. No statistical relationships were identied. Further observations on this are discussed in the penultimate section of the paper. Framework development process The rigour and frequency of the framework development process varied. Most custodians undertook minor reviews of their framework on a yearly basis. Major reviews were considered yearly

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Figure 4. BE custodian revenue per staff member.

by Japan, and conducted two-yearly by the US, three yearly for Brazil and Mexico, and four yearly for Sweden (on average) and ve yearly for Canada, Singapore and the EFQM. The Beneath the Surface review was the rst major review of the ABEF since it was introduced. Other BEF custodians included in the study were users of either the EFQM or Baldrige model and therefore did not undertake the reviews themselves. Over 90% of ABEF users and evaluators felt that annual reviews resulting in even minor changes was overly frequent, and that less frequent changes would be sufcient if fully justied and explained. A major reason cited for this was the confusion and lack of consistency that annual changes introduced. Forty-three percent of users favoured biennial review, with another 26% supporting triennial minor review (Figure 5). In relation to major review cycles, almost 50% of users support a quinquennial (ve-year) major review period.

Figure 5. Users opinion on how frequently the ABEF should be updated.

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The frequency of review is important since not only should it reect the changing business environment, but it also has an impact on: (a) Resourcing the process and funding the subsequent changes in documentation for the BEF custodian; (b) Evaluator training as evaluators need to be re-trained so that they understand the changes to the framework; (c) Client training and costs, which may be incurred by the client in producing new internal publications/documentation to reect the changes; (d) Benchmark comparisons of historical scores. This is difcult to do on an item by item basis if the items keep on changing. The processes used for major reviews varied in detail. Mexicos review methodology, shown in Figure 6, was considered to be one of the most rigorous and had many similarities to that of the methodology used for the Beneath the Surface project. When considering the various approaches to major reviews there was general agreement among custodians that the following stakeholder groups should be consulted; clients, evaluators, research experts on BE, other BEF custodians; research experts on economic/management trends; inuential associations/membership associations; government; businesses not using the framework and BE consultants.

Figure 6. Mexicos model development process.

Framework design There was considerable support for the current design of the ABEF. Seventy-eight percent of users were either very condent or extremely condent that the design is based on sound principles and facilitates a reasonable assessment of BE. Users specically reported it to be an intuitive, integrated and balanced framework with clear links between different business drivers, and appreciated its exibility for use in all types of organisations; large, small, for-prot and not-forprot organisations. There was support for the ABEFs principles as broad theoretical drivers for improvement that assist in encouraging appropriate behaviours, values and fundamental truths, its items as a basis for scoring, the ADRI dimensions and its generally non-prescriptive

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approach. However, 60% of users believed that the current design is a little too complex (40% believing the language is too academic). Surprisingly, based on the support for the framework, 61% reported that a switch to an international BE model (such as the Baldrige model) should at least be considered if the cost to administer such a model is signicantly reduced for SAI Global and the advantages of other international models can be obtained (for example, tailored BEF guides for specic industry sectors, such as produced by NIST). This nding will need to be investigated by SAI Global with the advantages and disadvantages of a change in model being thoroughly considered.

Framework promotion and awareness The awareness survey revealed that 90.5% of surveyed Australian organisations (276 organisations) had not heard of the ABEF. A chi-square (x2) test of association revealed that signicantly more public sector organisations were aware of the ABEF than private sector (23.1% versus 7.1% respectively). This data indicate that SAI Global has a major challenge ahead if it is to raise awareness levels substantially in the future considering that it has taken over 15 years (since the development of the ABEF) to reach this level of awareness. However, indications are that this level of awareness does not differ considerably from many other nations with over 50% of other BEF custodians indicating a similar level of awareness (Mann & Grigg, 2007). There is, however, an opportunity for SAI Global to learn from those nations that have reported considerably higher levels of awareness, such as Brazil, India, Singapore and the United States. Table 2 shows how BEF custodians perceive that awareness of BE has changed in their countries. This indicates that some countries like Brazil and Canada have, over recent years, increased awareness levels substantially. Brazil cites their increase due to the introduction of a number of regional and sectoral programmes/awards aligned to Business Excellence and the teaching of Business Excellence at universities. Canada cites their increase due to the introduction of programmes that complement Business Excellence like the Healthy Workplace programme. Encouragingly, users of the ABEF favoured SAI Global as the organisation to take the ABEF forward due to its nancial strength and ideal position as Australias leading standards/business improvement service provider. Asked to identify the most important promotional activities for SAI Global to concentrate on over the next few years, users came up with the top ve priorities (from 12) shown in Table 3. The count represents the number of respondents indicating that activity, and the percentage gure is the percentage of the user sample group (n 46).

Table 2. Trends of national BE awareness (perceptions of BEF custodians). Rate the extent to which awareness of BE within your country has changed over the last three years A B C D E Increased substantially Increased slightly Stayed the same Decreased slightly Decreased substantially 2 (Canada, Brazil) 10 (Japan, USA, Mexico, Czech Republic, New Zealand, India, Singapore, Scotland, Turkey, Europe) 1 (UK) 3 (Sweden, Australia, Ireland)

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Table 3. Top ve priorities for ABEF promotion identied by framework users. Rank 1 2 3 4 5 Which promotional activity should SAI Global concentrate on most over the next few years? Count Forming strong relationships/partnerships with the government to assist in the promotion of the ABEF Marketing of the ABEF to CEOs/senior managers Forming strong relationships/partnerships with industry/membership based associations to assist in the promotion of the ABEF Forming strong relationships/partnerships with tertiary institutions to assist in the promotion of the ABEF Articles and publications promoting the benets of Business Excellence 18 16 14 13 8

1185

% of sample 39.1 34.7 30.4 28.2 17.4

Framework application On the basis of the user survey, the following top ve priority activities (from 19, in Table 4) for SAI Global were obtained in terms of helping organisations derive the maximum benet from the ABEF.
Table 4. Top ve priority activities for helping organisations derive benet from the ABEF. Rank 1 2 2 How can SAI Global assist organisations to obtain the most benet from the ABEF? Provision of an information resource that provides case studies, best practice, and benchmarks from award winners/leading organisations from all around the world Business Excellence mentoring (e.g. access to ABEF evaluators/experts for advice) Programme that assists organisations in integrating together tools such as six sigma, knowledge management, quality systems, balanced scorecard, benchmarking, and management standards within a Business Excellence approach Case studies highlighting the practices of organisations that have scored highly against the ABEF Networking meetings for CEOs/senior managers of Business Excellence users Count 15 13 13 % of sample 33 28 28

3 3

9 9

20 20

SAI Global will be aiming to learn from other BEF custodians that provided effective services in the above ve areas. Table 5 shows which BEF custodians rated their services highly in these areas (with the exception of a Programme that assists organisations in integrating together tools as this was not included in the BEF custodian survey). It names the countries that rated their services as good or excellent but does not disclose the names of the countries that rated their services as poor or average. Framework recognition process It was noticeable that all BEF custodians rated their framework recognition processes considerably higher than their other processes. Recognition processes include processes such as a launch event for the award, evaluator selection process, evaluator training, provision of a guide to explain the BE model and criteria, evaluator site visits and consensus meetings, feedback reports, the judging process and an awards ceremony. These processes have generally been

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Table 5. BEF custodian self-rating of BE application services. How would you rate your own service provision in this particular area? Application services Online service/database of BE information BE mentoring (e.g. access to BE evaluators/experts for advice) Publications on BE showing best practices, etc. Networking meetings for BE users Not provided 1 6 2 2 Poor 7 1 2 0 Average 3 6 8 4 Good 3 (USA, India, Europe) 2 (Turkey, Ireland) 2 (Brazil, India) 7 (USA, Brazil, New Zealand, Singapore, Turkey, Europe, UK) Excellent 1 (UK) 1 (India) 1 (USA) 1 (India)

rened over many years through considerable best practice sharing between BEF custodians using mechanisms like the GEM Council. ABEF users indicated support for the general prestige of the awards ceremony, and for the feedback reports received by applicants. However, many felt that the awards dinner was somewhat exclusive, in attracting only award winners and evaluators. In addition, non-prot organisations would have difculty in being able to afford to go. Hence, there was a lost opportunity in terms of marketing the framework. Additionally, it was felt that the awards in general could be marketed more extensively. Suggestions received included improving feedback reports (for example, providing best practice advice), raising the prole of the awards, providing multiple, sectoral, awards and providing assistance for organisations to attend the awards. Conclusions The challenges faced by BEF custodians worldwide are similar and are being addressed through initiatives such as the GEM Council and independent projects such as the Beneath the Surface project outlined in this paper. This paper outlined the way in which a major review on a BEF is being conducted, and detailed the research methodology being used. Findings from the project have indicated the level of awareness of, and support for, the framework and surrounding processes. Through this research, potential opportunities have been identied for SAI Global to improve the design of the ABEF and increase awareness and use of BE in Australia. It is intended that the data will be used to develop extensive benchmarks for BEF custodians, and that custodians across the world will benet from the results of this study. It is anticipated, moreover, that the methodology described will be used extensively by custodians in improving their own frameworks and supporting services.

Notes
1. The researchers found it difcult to obtain responses from larger organisations in the Northern Territory and Tasmania as there were few or none listed in the Kompass directory. 2. Countries or regions were selected on the basis of whether they have an organisation responsible for administering their BEF. Thus, for example, while Scotland is part of the UK, it was represented by the Scottish Quality Foundation, which is a membership-based organisation that only serves Scotland. The UK was represented by the British Quality Foundation, which has members from the whole of the UK (including Scotland). Both organisations promote the EFQM Excellence Model. Europe was

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represented by the European Foundation for Quality Management, a membership based organisation that is responsible for the design of the EFQM Excellence Model.

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