The Australian Business Excellence Awards are recognised as Australia’s premier business awards and have been celebrating business success in Australia for nearly 20 years. They present an opportunity for a broad range of businesses and organisations from across Australia to celebrate and showcase their excellence against internationally recognised business principles.
The theme for 2009 is Recognising Excellence. A truly Excellent Organisation understands and acts on what it's stakeholders want achieved. A Sustainable organisation can effectively balance the delivery of these stakeholder outcomes.
Rock Climbing is a great analogy of Recognising Excellence. It requires balance, is powered by reusable energy, is reliant upon other stakeholders and yet to succeed in rock climbing skills and fitness must be continuously honed and the right balance of effort and finesse achieved. It also requires that an effective work life balance is maintained and that you have fun while continuously improving.
If your organisation is effective at managing sustainable performance then these awards will confirm the success of your strategies and methodologies.
All Australian-based organisations can apply, and are provided the opportunity to demonstrate Sustainable Excellence in organisational management. We will confirm your effectiveness using the Business Excellence Framework, a universal set of criteria which can measure any organisation's level of Excellence.
Benefits
Levels of Recognition
The Awards are open to all organisations operating in Australia. You can apply at Award or Category level.
Award Level
At each level of recognition, except the Excellence Medal, there may be more than one recipient. Levels of recognition are awarded based on the recommendation of the Evaluation Team and the decision of the Panel of Review. The score is only one of the criteria for this final decision. Other considerations include the extent of the applicant’s adherence to the 8 principles of business excellence, suitability of benchmarking by other organisations and whether improvement is uniform across the whole Framework and applicant organisation.
In 2008 we introduced recognition for Foundation in Business Excellence. Recipients of this commendation will demonstrate approach and some initial deployment and show some evidence of improvement. This is to recognise and inspire organisations that have commenced a journey of continuous improvement using the Business Excellence Framework.
Bronze Award - Bronze Award recipients will demonstrate Approach and Deployment that are well defined, planned, subject to review and show evidence of improvement in its Approach over time. Results will be comparable with external organisations. Approaches have been in place long enough to show results in key areas and the organisation is learning and willing to share its learnings. Typical evaluation scores range from 501 – 600.
Silver Award - Organisations at this level should be able to demonstrate not only performance against the Framework at the previous levels but also a philosophy of management that reflects the principles that underpin it and other Frameworks around the globe. The best practice culture will have been in place long enough to sustain continuing improvement and be robust in the face of major change. Typical evaluation scores range from 601 – 650.
Gold Award - Organisations at this level should meet all the expectations for the other levels of recognition plus be able to demonstrate superior performance in at least 5 of the Categories in the Framework and also have scored at least 50% in each Item. The organisation is clearly demonstrating best practice and its activities will be benchmarks for others. Typical evaluation scores exceed 650.
Excellence Medal - The Excellence Medal will be awarded to the best applicant organisation amongst all the Applicants. There will be one Excellence Medal awarded each year.
Australian Business Excellence Prize - The Prize is the pre-eminent Award available for businesses in Australia. Only two organisations have achieved this level of excellence since the Awards’ inception in 1988. Organisations at this level have not only a mature approach to all facets of the business, but have demonstrated they are achieving results against their objectives and have in place a learning process to continuously improve.
Even at this high level of performance, the organisation constantly reviews and improves in every area to ensure high levels of excellence in everything they do. These organisations are among 'the Best in the World'.
Organisations previously recognised at Gold Award level are eligible to apply for the Prize. For more information about the Prize, contact the Awards Manager.
Category Level
Organisations receiving Category Awards will have achieved the highest evaluation score for that Category. The organisation recognised in each category will demonstrate a high level of performance in the subjects pertinent to that Category. There will be only one organisation recognised in each Category. The categories are:
Leadership - strategic direction setting, leadership, organisational culture and contribution to the environment and the community.
Strategy and Planning - planning process, understanding their business environment and their development and application of resources.
Information and Knowledge - collection and interpretation of data and information, their integration and use of knowledge in decision-making and how they create and manage knowledge.
People - how they involve their people, how they develop and ensure the effectiveness of their people and how they safeguard health, safety and well-being.
Customer and Market Focus - knowledge of their customers and market, how they manage their customer relationships and measure, manage and improve customers’ perception of the value they provide.
Process Management, Improvement and Innovation - their innovation process, their supplier and partner processes, the management and improvement of all of their processes and the quality of their products and services.
Success and Sustainability - the processes which the organisation has in place for measuring its success, and for measuring those things which will influence its sustainability.
Criteria
The evaluation is against all items in the Business Excellence Framework.
How to Apply
We invite you to join a list of excellent organisations that have been involved or have been past winners in the Australian Business Excellence Awards over the past 20 years.
To enter the Australian Business Excellence Awards:
Step 1: Review Guidelines and Criteria
Read through the Application Guidelines for your nominated entry level.
Step 2: Complete Application
Applicants at all levels are required to complete an application form.
Step 3: Submit Application
Completed Applications can be submitted via email to awards@saiglobal.com or on CD via post addressed to:
Awards Manager
SAI Global
GPO Box 5420
Sydney NSW 2001
Deadline
Applications will be accepted through 30 January 2009.
The Winner Is...
The winners will be announced at the 2009 Australian Business Excellence Awards and Better Business Conference on 3-4 June 2009.
In conjunction with the 2009 Australian Business Excellence Awards ceremony we will be running the Better Business Conference to find out further information, please click here.
Awards History
The Australian Business Excellence Awards are celebrating twenty years of recognizing excellence in Australian organizations. However winning is a bonus, the greatest value from entering the Awards is the comprehensive external assessment identifying your organisations strengths and opportunities for improvement. Following are a few points of interest:
Previous Winners
View the 2008 Australian Business Excellence Awards Winners.
View the 2000-2008 Australian Business Excellence Awards Winners.
Contact Us
For further information regarding the application process, please contact the Awards Manager on 1300 650 262.