| Faster, Better, Cheaper, Different |
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| Until a couple of years ago, it was sufficient for organizations to make a habit of improvement. Our mantra was ‘faster, better, cheaper’. Earlier, the Japanese had demonstrated how improvement of organizational processes could double profits (and market share) without capital investment! |
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| Now, for survival, for sustainability, the mantra has changed. It goes as ‘faster, better, cheaper, different’. The implication is significant. Our focus is on building quality into processes with innovation as the driver. Think Nokia. Think Nano. |
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| To facilitate innovation, it is useful to benchmark best practices across industries and sectors. Apart from APQC the BestPrax Club has now also partnered with BPIR for benchmarking services. With this, we have a practices knowledge base that extends from the Asia-Pacific region through Europe and to the USA. |
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| I am pleased to inform you that the BestPrax Club is now a member of the Global Benchmarking Network (GBN). Dr Robert Camp, the benchmarking guru, is a founder member of GBN. |
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| So how do all these services integrate? I invite you to view our Napkin Sketch. |
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| - Suresh Lulla |
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| Managerial Breakthrough |
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| In April, we introduced you to a web-enabled self-assessment tool against 135 managerial practices – BestPrax Barometer. The Barometer is a faster, better, cheaper, and confidential way to conduct a Baldrige baseline assessment. The output of each assessed business element is a feedback report that highlights: |
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Strengths |
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Opportunities for Improvement |
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We invite you to experience the Barometer for real. Please click here to sample the Barometer. |
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1.12 Ensuring Ethical Behaviour |
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3.2 Selecting Customer Marketing Segment |
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5.5 Internal Failure Costs |
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| Solutions for Organizational Sustainability |
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| Sustainability is a function of balanced business results. Sustainability requires that organizations proactively innovate their strengths and continually improve upon their weaknesses. The former is a right-brain creative initiative, whereas the latter is a left brain logical one. |
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| BestPrax Club has solutions for organizational sustainability. |
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| Our Left Brain Just Got Bigger |
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| Early this year, Suresh Lulla, Director and Founder of BestPrax Club, was introduced to ‘Business Performance Improvement Resource’ (BPIR) by his research team. This led to an interesting dialogue between Mr Lulla and Dr Robin Mann, Commercial Director of BPIR. Both realized they had a common vision: To build a global clearing house for generic business practices. |
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| At a subsequent meeting in Dubai, Lulla and Mann exchanged backgrounds of their respective organizations and realized that it would be logical to form a mutually beneficial partnership. BPIR needed to populate its knowledge base with papers and caselets on noteworthy Indian practices. BestPrax Club, on the other hand needed to introduce Indian organizations to noteworthy international practices. The classification of managerial practices at BestPrax Club and BPIR match – both are based on practices embedded in the Baldrige criteria. |
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| Effective 15 May 2008, BestPrax Club became a partner of BPIR. |
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| Share, Learn, and Grow |
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| Dr Mann is the chairman of the Global Benchmarking Network (GBN). The GBN is an international platform that facilitates benchmarking between trusted organizations in twenty member countries. |
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| GBN’s Mission: A network of benchmarking competency centers, which promotes and applies that knowledge, enhances its communication, offers expert support, establishes ethical and protocol expectations, for Affiliates and their members, to demonstrate significant business results. |
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| BestPrax Club represents India as the twentieth member of the GBN. This exclusive membership opens the flood-gates for Indian organizations to benchmark and be benchmarked! |
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| Currently GBN is researching TQM practices in member countries. We encourage Indian organizations to participate in the study. |
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To know more about Benchmarking Studies, please click here. |
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To access the list of GBN members, please click here. |
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| Creativity |
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| The importance of quality and creativity is increasingly a global issue. Together, they deliver innovation. I have learnt that creativity is not a mere important topic in Japan. It is the only subject for Japan! Japan has mastered quality. Japan has mastered logistics. Japan has mastered many lessons. Now it is focusing on creating value through creativity. Delivering innovative solutions. As in the case of Sony and Toyota. |
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| Qimpro Convention 2008 – Excellence through Improvement and Innovation |
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| Qimpro Convention is India’s foremost platform for industry and academia to showcase noteworthy improvement processes and innovative managerial practices. It is a seven month competitive process that celebrates team performance in improvement and innovation. Nine short listed teams, in each category, by our panel will present their papers at the finals in Mumbai. |
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| (Finalists for the convention will be announced on 4 July 2008.) |
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7 August 2008: QualTech Prize for Improvement.
Keynote Speaker: Mr Navin Agarwal
Director, Vedanta Group |
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8 August 2008: BestPrax Compass for Innovation.
Keynote Speaker: Dr R A Mashelkar
President, Global Research Alliance, National Chemical Laboratory |
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8 August 2008: Awards Ceremony
Guest of Honour: Dr J J Irani, Director, Tata Sons |
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| A unique feature of the Convention will be 10 minute Power Workshops on specific managerial practices. |
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To access the list of participants, please click here. |
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| Managing Innovation: Industry Perspective |
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| Coloplast – Involving users in innovation as a part of the innovation process and obtaining feedback in terms of ideas and improvement enables the design and development of the innovation. Coloplast, a Danish medical devices firm, was established on these principles in 1954, when Nurse Elise Sorensen created the first self-adhering ostomy pouch to help her sister, who was suffering from stomach cancer. She approached several plastics manufacturers with her invention but all rejected it until Aage Louis-Hansen decided to give it a chance on being persuaded by his wife, a nurse herself. Hansen’s firm Dansk Plastic Emballage manufactured the world’s first disposable plastic ostomy bag. Sales exceeded expectations and patents were registered in several countries, resulting in the formation of Coloplast. |
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