Overview

The Business Excellence Framework (BEF) is an integrated leadership and management system that describes the elements essential to sustainable organisational excellence. The Framework has proven relevance to organisations of all types and sizes across any industry and can be used to assess and improve any aspect of your organisation including - leadership, strategy and planning, people, information and knowledge, safety, service delivery, product quality and bottom line results.

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Aim

The aim of the BEF is to create an organisational environment for continuous improvement in which:

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•  The organisation is outward looking, has a strategic understanding of its operating environment and is strongly focused on adaptability and sustainability. It understands the perceptions and expectations of customers, key stakeholders and the wider community.

• There are processes in place to formulate business strategies. These processes are continuously influenced by the external environment and are clearly communicated throughout the organisation.

• It is recognised that people in the organisation work in a ‘system’. Leaders and managers focus on improving that system while encouraging the resourcefulness and enthusiasm of others involved.

• A successful organisation continually improves its business processes through an understanding of their performance and capability; effectively using data and information for evidence-based decision-making, and fostering corporate learning.

• Behavioural changes are considered and organisational values and principles are consistently applied in order to bring about improvement in business processes.

• Benefits
  Your organisation can use the Business Excellence Framework to:

•  Achieve stronger financial performance

• Create visionary and inspirational leadership

• Drive innovation in products and services

• Focus on customer service and satisfaction

• Increase market penetration and revenue

• Create effective business planning processes

• Raise productivity and reduce operating cost

• Engage teams in the process of improvement and increase staff satisfaction

• Improve decision-making capabilities and increase capacity to manage change.

• Be recognised for your achievements in excellence and best practice in the Australian Business Excellence Awards. 

• Demonstrate to key stakeholders that your organisation has a structured and systematic approach to improving and achieving best practice and excellence.

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Structure

The Framework is based on enduring principles of organisational improvement and helps leaders maintain a comprehensive and systematic overview of the organisation by supporting a value and principle based business environment.

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The principles are interpreted according to individual business settings using seven ‘Categories’ and seventeen sub-categories, or ‘Items’. The broad Categories and more specific Items break down the complex structure of an organisation into tangible components which can be systematically monitored and improved. The seven business settings – Categories, are illustrated below:

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