Companies that contest the annual President’s Fiji Business Excellence Awards are winners by virtue of their participation, chairman of the awards Mark Halabe said.

Speaking after the 22nd annual awards at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva, he said the secretariat received a lot more applications than the 11 organisations that won awards.

“But because of the inability of the companies to even open during the COVID-19 we lost quite a few companies over the year,” he said.

“It’s not the event that matters; it’s the companies that participate that are the winners, with whatever level they get.”

“If you use that (Business Excellence) framework within an organisation, your ability to get to a higher level of excellence, locally and globally, is assured.”

Mr Halabe said there were seven chapters of the framework that qualified participants to world class level.

“To have Fijian organisations at world class levels is what I want to see every single company in Fiji get,” he said.

“We are competing with the world, so we need to get to those levels.”

“We need to benchmark ourselves against the best.”

“This structure, these awards, certainly give us that point.”

“I know it works.”

“My company has won certain levels.”

“My company’s successful.”

The President’s Fiji Business Excellence Awards are organised by Fiji National University’s National Training and Productivity Centre.

Fiji Second To Singapore
Fiji is the only country second to Singapore in achieving the Sustainability of Business programme, President of Fiji, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere said.

He was chief guest at the awards ceremony.

“Only Singapore has achieved such a milestone, and it gives me great pride to acknowledge that Fiji is only the second country to achieve such a feat,” he said.

The awards celebrate the achievements of private and public sector organisations that have attained exceptional levels of business excellence.

“To date, a total of 272 awards have been presented to around 131 applicants,” Ratu Wiliame said.

“To all our leaders in the various sectors, regardless of your situation or structure, you need an innovative organisational system to survive.”

“The Fiji Business Excellence Awards is part of a global family of awards recognised internationally as the most rigorous business awards programme in the world.”

More Than Once
Future Farms was the second company to be recognised more than once with the President’s Business Excellence award, since the annual event was introduced 22 years ago.

The company, known also as Rooster Poultry, and the iTaukei Land Trust Board scooped the 2021 President’s Business Excellence category award.

Future Farms general manager, Stanley Raniga, said the win would be talked about for many years.

“The highest business excellence award in the land for a second time is testament and an independent endorsement of that pledge,” he said.

“Getting one of these is not easy.”

“The Fiji Business Excellence Framework is based on the United States Malcolm Baldrige Award model, and is comparable with the European and Singapore models, making the Fiji Business Excellence framework world class.”

Future Farms operates out of Ba and is a fully owned subsidiary of BSP Life.

President of Fiji Ratu Wiliame Katonivere (eighth from left) with iTaukei Land Trust Board chief executive officer, Tevita Kuruvakadua, during the presentation of the President’s Business Excellence Award at the Fiji Business Excellence Awards, which were held at the Grand Pacific Hotel, in Suva, on December 10, 2021. Photo: Leon Lord

Confidence For Landowners
The iTaukei Land Trust Board (TLTB) was the second company to win the President’s Business Excellence Award.

The win at the Fiji Business Excellence Awards was proof of its hard work, said chief executive officer, Tevita Kuruvakadua.

He said the award would boost the morale of stakeholders.

“This will give landowners a lot of confidence,” Mr Kuruvakadua said.

He said stakeholders demanded a lot from TLTB.

“We are on the right track,” Mr Kuruvakadua said.”

“Our staff worked really hard all these years to reach this level.”

“Our win tonight shows that we have been doing a lot of hard work that our stakeholders do not realise.”

“The model over the years has built our people to realise they can grow out of their own shell.”

“It will provide a different image to our stakeholders.”

“We have proven that we can turn things around, and give something better for them.”

Fiji Business Excellence Prize
Post Fiji Pte Limited and the Office of the Auditor General won the Fiji Business Excellence prize.

Post Fiji chief executive officer, Anirudha Bansod, said the win meant the processes put in place by the company were working well.

The award gives them more optimism to contest next year’s President’s Award, he said.

“Within two years, we have rectified so many gaps from the processes,” Mr Bansod said.

“This shows that our governance and standards are pretty high.”

Auditor-General Ajay Nand said his office would return to contest the next annual awards.

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