Fiji National University’s Fiji Business in Excellence Awards this year attracted 21 applicants to participate in the extensive year-long process.

The organisers say this is the highest number of organisations participating in the FBEA since inception.

The awards, organised by the Fiji National University’s National Training and Productivity Centre, will be presented at the Sheraton Fiji Resort on Denarau Island next Saturday.

NTPC director, Kamlesh Prakash, said: “So it is indeed historic and very encouraging to witness such impressive participation from our business community.

“Certainly our challenge is to maintain the momentum in our reach out and promotion.”

All arrangements for the Fiji Business in Excellence Awards have been noted to be progressing well a week before the awards event.

The awards have been dubbed as the “Framework for Business Excellence”

The Fiji Business Excellence Awards is a year long process and its framework contains international best practices that are based on the Principles of Quality Management.

Organisations that apply for the Awards benchmark their organisations against these best practices and may gauge where they stand in terms of business excellence.

The Fiji Business Excellence Awards is not a competition between winners and losers, but a recognition process to reward organisations that are doing exceptionally well in their business.

Applicants do not compete against each other, but benchmark against the Fiji Business Excellence Awards Framework.

What is judging based on?

Judging is based on an internationally-acceptable framework which is based on the Baldrige criteria so essentially the evaluations done here are comparable to that done in US or in any other part of the world for that matter.

What is the theme for year?

There is a theme colour- ‘Red: Glitter and Glamour’. The idea is to celebrate the growing business excellence in Fiji so you will see a sea of red at the Sheraton on Denarau!

What is NTPC’s main objective for organising this?

The main objective is to stimulate interest from among the leading organisations in the country including the SMEs in business excellence and to encourage them to participate in this journey. The other key objective is to recognise business excellence organisations in the country and to support them towards becoming world class organisations in the country..

Please elaborate on the feedback from the business sector regarding FBEA and how it has changed over the past years?

Business Excellence is seen as an excellent tool for all organizations to achieve growth, profitability and sustainability.

The FBEA journey for many organisations has helped them clarify their vision and mission and undertake strategic planning and understand their customers and improve their business processes, workforce and operations requirements so as to generate the kind of results they desire.

By getting access to best practices and seeing the work organisation of other superior companies in the country and abroad, the benefits are manifold.

This is as all get to have an unparalleled access to knowledge on how a wide variety of organisations from different sectors and industries are managed and how they address challenges and learn and adapt best practices of other organisations to improve their performance.

The business sector, especially the exporting companies, on the excellence journey have informed us they have been able to secure the Australian market for instance.

This is based on their demonstration of quality practices based on international frameworks like the Baldridge that the whole world understands and this have given many companies the edge over other competitors.

Other organisations have informed us that the FBEA framework has helped develop the soft skills and other competencies of their staff at all levels and there have been colossal improvements in teamwork, internal communications and staff are now more empowered.

Likewise, the organisations that have attached their staff as evaluators have reaped tremendous benefits in getting them trained as professional business excellence assessors who inturn have brought about numerous tangible improvements at their own workplaces-much to the delight of the employers.

Any advice for the business sector?

The Fiji Business Excellence Awards are a step that Fiji has taken to see that the universal accepted principals of Quality Management are provided in a framework that all organisations in Fiji can use for their benefit so that more organisations make this framework a part of their very fabric the economic and social returns to both individual entities and the nation at large will be substantial.

Do you have any other comments?

Research shows that business excellence frameworks are relevant for long-term competitiveness and sustainability and so it is critical for Fijian organisations to understand this and take advantage of this.

Likewise, the literature on the subject has amply demonstrated that Business Excellence Organisation tend to survive better than those that do not adopt the Business Excellence framework so from this perspective there is ample justification to trial BE in your organisation and see if it works for you.

My favourite example is Vodafone Fiji Limited who started their quality journey some two decades ago with QCCs and ISO9000 and consolidated on its improvements to be recognised at the President’s Award level for the Fiji Business Excellence Awards in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013.

This year they were recognised as an exemplary company of world class quality and won the prestigious Global Performance Excellence Award from the Asian Pacific Quality Organisation (APQO) for small service business.

For Vodafone to be among twenty organizations from eight Asian and Pacific Rim Countries and being recognised at the global level is indeed a huge achievement for Fiji.

This shows that building strong foundations of quality can lead to more success stories in future and I encourage all organisations in Fiji to become aware of the FBEA and join us on this journey.

Note: 
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