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Increased service delivery and business results following a move to new premises proves that it is possible to undergo significant change and build upon previous ISO9000:2000 and EFQM Excellence Model success.
Many thousands of businesses are developing their previous quality management systems around the latest ISO9000:2000 standard whilst the EFQM Excellence Model has successfully helped thousands of UK organisations. What can businesses do to build on these approaches? ValueMapping is an innovative tool that helps the business to refocus on key value adding issues and integrate best practice from these existing approaches.
“ValueMapping is the sharpest tool that I have seen in years especially for small and medium sized businesses” says Hugo Burnett-Godfree of Business Link Bedfordshire and Luton. In 2002 six businesses supported by the dti used the approach in Bedfordshire and Luton ranging across the manufacturing and service sectors. The businesses were from less than 10 to over 150 staff in size. ValueMapping has now been used by a number of Business Links around the country to help local businesses develop their strategic plans around the current needs of the business and build upon what has been achieved to date. One such business was Turners Optometrists, of Bridgewater Somerset, who received Business Link support in 2002.
Turners felt that it was time to move on from purely assessing against the EFQM Excellence Model and the scheduled quality system audits to harness the creativity and innovation potential of its people one of its biggest assets. “We had reached a stage where new life needed to be breathed into our management systems and for the business to focus on the key issues following our move to new premises” says Janet Hatt, Practice Manager at Turners.
Turners had been the overall award winner in the South West Excellence Awards and a finalist in the UK Business Excellence Awards but felt that it needed to build upon the EFQM model and drive the business based upon the needs of its stakeholders and its recent move to new premises. This was one of the benefits of the ValueMapping approach in that it started by assessing the needs of the people with an interest in the business; customers, staff, suppliers, owners, banks etc. Both sides of the needs coin were explored, not just what the stakeholder needs but what the business needs from them. The company then mapped out the specific strategy and support solutions that would help it to meet these needs and used the ValueMapping approach to represent this visually. The approach was beautifully simple and enabled Turners to link its new value driving solution to the structure of the EFQM model.
Turners had recently taken on new members of staff and in particular a manager to help with day to day decisions. The approach has helped the staff to understand the key roles and responsibilities that will support the current business strategy. They had worked a lot with Investors in People and the I.I.P systems linked smoothly with the new approach and were brought back to life through it.
There have been significant gains to date. Sales turnover and profits are up while the staff are more focused than ever on the issues that really matter. Even the staff handbook is accessible through the integrated ValueMapping system on the company computer network. Linked to the visual strategy and value driver maps that Turners uses are performance measures that track only the measures that really make a difference. Anyone can drill down through the system to see the results to date and make informed decisions based upon fact. Turners has made extensive use of internal quality measures as well as independent surveys of customers and staff. This valuable knowledge has been captured within the system and linked to the strategies that will drive the business forward.
“ValueMapping has turned paper based and slow to change business plans and procedures into a dynamic, interactive and easily updatable tool that all employees can access” says Janet Hatt. “Its visual aspect helps to clearly show the way forward and we have been able to build on previous systems without making them obsolete. This is an organic approach that grows with the business and really delivers”
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