Entering the UK Excellence Award makes you truly excellent

Sue Bagguley, Head of Business Excellence, Siemens Industry Automation & Drive Technologies, 2011 UK Excellence Award Winner

There are countless reasons why I would encourage any organisation on an excellence journey to enter the UK Excellence Award, but my number one would be the quality of the assessment process and feedback.

I can't think of anywhere else you could go to find an opportunity to have a group of highly professional, qualified people come and look at your organisation and give you an in-depth analysis against a framework which makes you truly excellent; all this for a reasonable financial investment.

Using the feedback to inform the development of the organisation strategy and aligning our strategic journey with the EFQM Excellence Model has ensured we have seen a return on that investment. Our balanced scorecard reflects that great performance.

A second good reason for entering would be that, once in the process, you are exposed to a whole host of companies who are just like you - on a journey with lots of great practice to share and a willingness to learn from each other.

What's also amazing is that you don't have to be selling the same products and services to draw comparisons with each other. A great example of that was seen at this year's Winners Conference where all the presenters made reference to the importance of values and behaviours in their journeys. Our words may have been different but the way we embed this in our culture is exactly the same, with the same challenges in making it successful.

On a final note, winning awards (while not our primary focus!) sends a clear message to our people that they do a fantastic job, in a great company, which is recognised at the highest level. It's a huge people motivator and supports our culture of always believing we can be even better!

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