INCREASE IN NUMBER OF EVALUATORS FOR FBEA
This year there has been a significant increase in number of Business Excellence evaluators from 128 last year to 150.
To date, almost 500 evaluators have been trained by the Fiji Business Excellence Awards (FBEA) Secretariat. This year FBEA marks 20 years. Applicants for the awards have included organisations from the public and private sectors, large and small enterprises, both local and international companies. To date around 238 awards have been presented to 116 organisations.
FNU Vice Chancellor Professor Nigel Healey said the awards process was aimed at improving quality and productivity in organisations. Professor Healey said FBEA was not a competition, but rather a recognition process to reward organisations that were doing exceptionally well in their business.
He said applicants do not compete against each other, but benchmarked against the Fiji Business Excellence Awards Framework.
“Your selection is for a very important cause, not only as evaluators of the Fiji Business Excellence Awards but more so as revolutionary proxies. Your role is believed to make a great difference to the organisations that you are going to evaluate.
“Remember that organisational improvement translates into Business Excellence and hence recognition as world class organisation,” said Professor Healey.
“Today’s enterprises are striving for success in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment.
“However, by introducing the foundations and key elements of Fiji Business Excellence framework, our enterprises can cut through silos and bureaucracy to become lean, responsive and efficient.
“Using the Fiji Business Excellence framework as a benchmarking tool, organisations can improve performance, learn from best practices and the success stories of others and get an external opinion on their organisational structure and performance.
“One of the most important issue facing businesses today is creating a culture of accountability, so that there is greater operational efficiency.”
This is the seventh year the FBEA secretariat is using the Baldrige Framework which is a shift from the Australian Business Excellence Framework which was used previously.