I hope you have had a great start to the New Year and your plans and wishes for 2012 come true.
 
Here at COER we are gearing up for an outstanding year (we are always positive!) – the highlight is expected to be the World Business Capability Congress, December 5-7, 2012, Auckland, New Zealand.  If you have not been to New Zealand before then this is an excellent opportunity to combine a world-class conference with a visit to one of the most beautiful and stunning countries on earth!!!
 
The theme for the Congress is:  “Driving Excellence> Innovation> Productivity> Export Growth”
 
We are now “Calling for Papers” – this is your chance to speak at a major international conference and share your experience, best practices or your leading edge management research. Submit your Abstract/Bio right now…
 
This is an opportunity for
 
a) Academics to present peer-reviewed conference papers and get them fast-tracked into leading journals (such as • Q-NewZ Magazine • TQM Journal • Measuring Business Excellence Journal • International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management • International Benchmarking Journal • International Journal of TQM and Business Excellence)
 
b) Business employees, managers, CEOs, consultants to present and share best practices (perhaps for the first time at a major conference)
 
This Congress is combining the International Benchmarking Conference, New Zealand Organisation for Quality Conference, and the New Zealand Business Excellence Awards.
 
The Congress organisers are the Centre for Organsiational Excellence Research and  New Zealand Organisation for Quality with key partners the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (New Zealand Business Excellence Awards), Asia Network for Quality, Asia Pacific Quality Organization, Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development, BPIR.com Limited, Economic Development Agencies New Zealand,  Global Benchmarking Network,  Institute of Management Consultants New Zealand, Ministry of Economic Development and New Zealand Institute of Management.
 
To help to make the Congress even bigger and better we are now calling for Sponsors. If you think your organization may benefit from exposure to 1,000’s of decision makers please let me know.

Dr. Robin Mann
BPIR.com

Next year in December New Zealand will host a premier business improvement-orientated congress. New Zealand Organisation for Quality (NZOQ) and Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER) are organising the World Business Capability Congress Incorporating the 27th NZOQ Conference, 7th International Benchmarking Conference and New Zealand Business Excellence Awards in Auckland.

The main theme of the congress is “Driving Excellence> Innovation> Productivity> Export Growth” and in line with that theme the conference organising committee is seeking contributions from organisations and individuals about Developing Business Capability, Leadership, Strategy, Customer and Market Focus, Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management, Human Resource Focus, and Process Management. The best papers will be considered for the Best Paper Award, and fast-tracked for publication in one of the local or international journals.

Abstracts for papers will be due by 1st of April 2012 and the early registration deadline will be 1 July 2012. The congress website is available at WorldBusinessCapabilityCongress.com and more details on abstract submission and registration is posted there, please visit the website periodically as it evolves and more details become available, also you can also download the congress flyer from here .

The World Business Capability Congress 2012 is a not to be missed event, make sure you include this conference in your diary and travel plans for 2012.

Ahmed Abbas
BPIR.com

 

Co-founder of BPIR.com Limited, Dr Robin Mann, was awarded the Harrington/Ishikawa Medal for 2011 at the Asian Pacific Quality Organisation’s Dinner in Singapore, 17 October. This award is given annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of quality in the Asia Pacific region.

 

 

Dr Robin Mann walking on stage to receive the Medal from Dr James Harrington. Also, representing the APQO were Shan Ruprai (Australia), Chuck Aubrey (United States), Dr Ahmad Mohd Magad (Singapore), and Dr Miflora Gatchalian (Philippines).

Business Excellence Chile specialise in business excellence, benchmarking and strategic management consultancy, They are a member of the Global Benchmarking Network and BPIR’s partner in Chile. Their first English newsletter is published below. It includes an interview with Orlando Olivera the General Secretary of the National Quality Award.

 

 

Click to enlarge

Recently, Bain & Company, a leading business management consultancy company, revealed the most popular 10 tools from its Management Tools and Trends Survey for 2011. This year the most popular tool to improve business performance was Benchmarking. Benchmarking has consistently been in the top 5 tools since 1993 and no. 1 tool since 2008.

Being no. 1 since 2008 means that whilst the world economy was suffering from a global recession executives and businesses selected benchmarking as their tool to overcome recession symptoms.

To conduct informal or formal benchmarking projects organisations need to rely on a source of information that is trustworthy and enables organisations to quickly learn from best practices.  We believe that the BPIR.com serves this need.  For any given process there are performance measures, benchmarks, best practices, self-assessment tools, expert opinions, articles, case studies and more available to guide you through any improvement project. Plus, if you want further information, new contacts, benchmarking partners or assistance then network with 1000's of other members - read their profiles, the improvement tools they use, their best practices and contact them. Why not visit our membership plans and start benchmarking today!

To ensure your benchmarking projects are successful and breakthrough improvements are obtained why not get certified training on benchmarking? For information on certified training courses click here.

Following to the 5^th Global Benchmarking Network (GBN) conference which was held in Kuwait in Dec 2010 and organised by GBN member Gulf Lead Consultants (GLC), GLC covered the topic in their January issue of GLC newsletter.

The newsletter starts with defining what is benchmarking and then highlighting the challenges of benchmarking, benchmarking types & methodology and finally the value of benchmarking.

Benchmarking has been popular for at least twenty years. However, if the wrong items are benchmarked or the result is inaccurate, bad data is actually worse then no data because it leads the organization to pursue the wrong goals, move in the wrong direction or at minimum, wastes resources.

Examples of Bad Benchmarking

There are some obvious examples of benchmarking errors but some are more subtle. While the following examples draw heavily from the customer contact environment, the lessons apply to all benchmarking.
A company decided to focus on the best (lowest) metrics for average speed of answer (ASA) and talk time. It ended up devoting headcount to answering quickly but then rushing people off the phone. Further, the mechanistic responses resulted in incomplete answers, frustrated employees and higher turnover that caused even more demand to throw partially trained employees into the breech which resulted in even worse answers.
Closer scrutiny of the data found that the companies that were benchmarked had less complex calls due to a different mix of products and a different approach to welcoming new customers.

Qatar has fast emerged as one of the world’s leading financial centres, and as a way of sharing their success the Qatar Financial Centre Authority (QFCA) launched QFinance. QFinance.com provides articles, dictionary, quotations and blogs written by more than 300 finance and business experts from around the world. They contain helpful ideas, tips, techniques and insights on how to successfully build your business and make it grow. It is “the ultimate financial resource” on the web.

One of the improvement tools used successfully in the finance industry is benchmarking , and Dr. Robin Mann, Head of the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research at Massey University, offers a valuable addition to QFinance in this area. In his article, “Everything You Need to Know About Benchmarking,” he explain the key points in benchmarking, and how it has the potential to improve overall business performance from management, to sales, to various organisational processes and business practices.

The Global Benchmarking Network is embarking on a project to look at the future of Benchmarking up to the year 2030.
 
This project will answer the following questions – What will Benchmarking look like in 2030 – and in between? What are the tools, methodologies and technologies that Benchmarkers can use now to help organisations and economies to improve their outcomes?

Please accept this invitation to participate in the survey, the survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Once you complete the survey, you will immediately gain access to the Global Benchmarking Network “Benchmarking 2030 Interim Report” showing our initial research findings. Further findings will be presented at the 5th International Benchmarking Conference, 5-6 December 2010, Kuwait, kuwaitbenchmarking.com . The final report will be published in 2011.

Click here to participate in the survey and get the free report.