Benchmarking for best practice


	Welcome to the BPIR blog Latest news: Survey on Business Improvement Initiatives – Can you help? August 14th, 2009 Hello all, I’m Musli, a PhD student at the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER), Massey University (BPIR.com’s founding organisation). I’m conducting a survey on business improvement initiatives. This survey is part of my doctoral study, which is supervised by Dr. Robin Mann and Dr. Nigel Grigg. As you know, there are numerous business improvement initiatives that can be used by organisations to improve quality, productivity and sustainability towards achieving excellence. The initiatives can be approaches, systems, tools and/or techniques, such as, Six Sigma, Lean, ISO9000, ISO14000, Business Process Reengineering, and Benchmarking. The right initiatives to be used may vary depending on several factors, for instance, the current maturity level of the organisation, organisation type and size, and the capabilities and responsibilities of the workforce. Moreover, there is also a lack of clear understanding by people regarding when, where and how to implement the initiatives. In order to help organisations to select suitable initiatives according to the contexts, this survey attempts to identify where the main business improvement initiatives should be used according to the following areas: leadership and social responsibilities, strategy and policy, customers, processes, workforce, and, partnerships and resources. All practitioners, managers, executives, consultants and/or academicians who have a good understanding and experience on business improvement initiatives are invited to complete the on-line survey - click on link below: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/140713/initiative I hope you can participate. If you have completed the questionnaire and request form, you will be sent a copy of the survey findings through email, once it is ready. Please complete the survey by 28th of February 2010. For further details, please refer to the front page of survey instrument Your kind participation would be much appreciated. Thank you very much. Best regards, Musli Mohammad PhD Student Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER) Write a Comment Posted in Research projects & findings \| No Comments » Culture for Continuous Improvement August 13th, 2009 There is some exciting research going on at the COER (Centre of Organisational Excellence Research) at the moment. Past research shows that culture plays a key role in sustaining continuous improvement in organisations. Continuous improvement, in turn, is often viewed as critical for organisational efficiency and waste reduction. However, the effect of culture in the specific context is less well understood. Several levels of culture such as the national culture, corporate culture and organisational sub-cultures, are present simultaneously. Which ones are important, and under what conditions do they become important? What needs to happen to ensure that the existing cultural diversity results in continuous improvement? Which role does – and, in fact, can – management and organisational leadership play? This doctoral research is seeking answers to these questions using a multiple-case methodology. For participating organisations, this presents an opportunity to benefit from cutting-edge research and at the same time help advance the scientific understanding. Participation in the study is free of charge. If you are interested in having your organisation participate, please get in touch with me for further information - either by email ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or by leaving a comment. Jürgen 'Phil' Wagner PhD Student Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER) Massey University Write a Comment Posted in Research projects & findings, Quality Management \| No Comments » Findings from a global survey on business improvement and benchmarking December 17th, 2008 Hello all Thanks to all those BPIR members/supporters that participated in the Global Benchmarking Network's survey on "Business Improvement and Benchmarking." In total over 450 people responded from over 40 countries. It was the most comprehensive survey to date on the use of business improvement tools and, in particular, on benchmarking. Key insights were revealed into this increasingly popular technique and how organisations were applying it and using it to improve their performance. Key findings were: Mission and Vision Statements and Customer (Client) Surveys are the most used (by 77% of organisations) of 20 improvement tools, followed by Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (72%), and Informal Benchmarking (68%). Performance Benchmarking was used by (49%) and Best Practice Benchmarking by (39%). The tools that are likely to increase in popularity the most over the next three years are Performance Benchmarking, Informal Benchmarking, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and Best Practice Benchmarking. Over 60% of organizations that are not currently using these tools indicated they are likely to use them in the next three years. When Best Practice Benchmarking is done well significant benefits are obtained with 20% of projects resulting in benefits worth $250,000. Respondents indicated that the external help/service that they most want (out of 8 services) is access to a best practice database! This is obviously good news for the BPIR.com and means we are on the right track with our collection of 1,000's of best practices. BPIR members can read the full report here, once logged in, and non-members can read Excerpts from a Report on the Global Use of Business Improvement Tools and Benchmarking. Join now to read the full report. II hope the report's findings will assist you all in undertaking benchmarking more effectively. Best regards Robin Dr Robin Mann, Commercial Director and Part-Owner, BPIR.com Limited. Write a Comment Posted in Benchmarking, Research projects & findings \| 1 Comment » rss Entries or Comments