The Competitive Excellence Framework
Are you sure you can meet the challenges of today's markets?
The last few years have been tough for almost all businesses, even the successful ones. Your business probably included. You’ve got a great management team and you ensured your success by reviewing your business and taking effective action. You've had to react and adjust your businesses to the recent economic climate, to ensure your continued success.
But, as economies move out of recession, do you need to check that you can respond to the changes and opportunities in the often restructured markets you may find yourself operating in?
Tough cost constraints are, of course, necessary but maintaining the ability of your “front end” operations to respond, through your sales and marketing processes, is necessary to ensure long-term growth beyond near-term survival.
You’ve probably successfully reduced slack in your organisation but be sure to maintain your ability to rapidly and effectively to seize new opportunities, fend off unexpected competitive threats and deliver for yourself fresh competitive advantage through rapid time to market.
If it is it time to review those aspects of your business, maybe it’s time for a chat with Achieving the Difference
Achieving the Difference LLP® has constructed a framework of tools and techniques to ensure you gain and sustain a winning advantage in your markets. We call it the Competitive Excellence framework.
Marketing and Sales Fitness Review
At the core is a Fitness Review is based on and utilizing the European Foundation for Quality Managements (EFQM) Process Survey Tool (PST) for Marketing & Sales.This review helps you examine how your marketing and sales operations stack up against the world’s best. 
Some examples of the organisations using the EFQM Business excellence models and principles are Bosch, BMW, BT, Bull, Ciba-Geigy, Dassault Aviation, EDF, Electrolux, Fiat, Grundfos, KLM, Nestlé, Olivetti, Orange, Philips, Renault, Ricoh, Solvay, Sulzer, Trimo, and Volkswagen; each a leader in its field and a world class performer. You’ll be in good company.
The Process Survey Tools were developed from the basic Business Excellence model in the early years of the 2000’s. The purpose was to go beyond the original basic Business Excellence model and look at delivering improvement gains in more depth into key business processes. We at Achieving the Difference LLP® bring particular focus on your marketing & sales process.
The initial aim of the Fitness Review is to assess how mature your marketing & sales processes are compared to proven and benchmarked best practice. These benchmarks and assessment techniques have been built up from study of the leading companies that use the Business Excellence approach and come from a variety of sectors from across Europe and beyond. They include the example businesses listed above but around 15,000 businesses have deployed the model and that number is increasing.
As with all such models the value lies not so much with the analysis, but what you actively do to improve things for your business. Hence the key deliverable is prioritized, feasible action plans with targeted and measurable areas for real business improvement.
How does it work?
The Fitness Review is an in-depth self-assessment of your marketing and sales process, guided by our excellence experts:
- evidence-based internal review of your 12 key marketing & sales components
- you are trained in the techniques and facilitate your project
- comprehensive report with detailed feedback and areas for improvement
- your team gain through this approach enhanced competences and ownership of the results
We can also run it for you as an independent audit.
Improvement programmes
When you use the Fitness Review you’ll disclose your critical areas for action. Your success then comes from identifying, prioritising and then taking effective focussed action.
We will work with you to draw up prioritised improvement plans and support, where you wish us to, their implementation.
Running it at regular intervals enables you monitor the gains made over time and you can also use it to benchmark and compare your results with other organisations employing the Fitness Review.
Of course if you already know what needs to be done, Achieving the Difference LLP® can help you deliver improvements on the ground, running. We have a series of Business Improvement programmes focussing on the various elements of the Competitive Excellence framework which can often can be initially approached through a related workshop for you executives and senior managers. Our total approach goes well beyond the EFQM core model. For a listing of workshops and focussed improvement programs for your business that Achieving the Difference LLP® offers you, click here.
Managing the Customer Cycle
Though the Competitive Excellence framework uses the EFQM PST at its core, we have developed it beyond that. Critical is the analysis and management of your Customer Cycle. A well managed customer cycle defines a competitively excellent organisation. You will find a separate article on how our approach to Customer Cycle will enhance your business by clicking here
The winning difference that you can achieve, starting today.
If you want discuss how the Competitive Excellence framework will enable you to secure outstanding success in the new economic climate then we would be delighted to talk to you.
You can contact Peter, Clive or Richard by emailing or phoning:
Tel +44(0)1242 42 1000
