Business excellence is not only performance, local management guru says
View(s):Business excellence is not just performance but there are other essential criteria like conformance and contribution, according to one of Sri Lanka’s most versatile management gurus.
These could be summed up by ‘Do well, do good and do right’, noted Prof. Uditha Liyanage, Director, Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM). He was speaking this week in Colombo as the Chairman, Panel of Judges, National Business Excellence Awards 2013 (NBEA) at the media launch of the NBEA 2013.
NBEA 2013 is organized by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka and this is the 10th consecutive Awards Ceremony which is scheduled to be held in November this year.
Prof. Liyanage said that the century-old question has been whether an organization is excellent or successful while earlier it was the performance, managing production cost and risk.
He said that there was large scale production to keep the cost down and to reach the global market, which then became the norm. In this production process, technology was also brought in. When the market got crowded, promotions and advertising was used to sell the products. The companies that have excelled, he said, were those companies that had the mechanism in place to promote to make the customer to buy.
He said that when this process was not sustainable, the strategic era which was to improve production and marketing came in which can make organizations successful and excellent. Thirty years ago, Prof. Liyanage said that there was another important development, where performance was good but not good enough. Then another dimension was added, he said and that was conformance.
Doing well is fine, he said, but the new dimension was to do it right and it was all about corporate governance – sticking to the rules, good behaviour and good practice.
Then over the last 15 years, the third dimension has been added, he said, adding that it is now – first the performance, then the conformance, and contribution. He said that organizations are based in the society and if they do not contribute tangibly and effectively to the wellbeing of its employees and to the community, then it is not performing properly.
Prof. Liyanage said “Contribute to the society through which the organization operates. And this is the emergence of the corporate social responsibility”.
K.A. Kiththi Perera, Chief Enterprises and Wholesale Officer, Sri Lanka Telecom, speaking as the NBEA 2012 Gold Award Winner conceded that in 2012 the Sri Lankan economy experienced a slow growth. But despite the slow growth in the country, he said SLT has shown a consistent growth. He said that their growth contributed to the increased intensity of the competition in the telecom industry in the country during the year.
(QP)
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