Mission statement

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Every business aspires to be excellent, but only a few achieve that status. Even fewer sustain it. At the leading edge of new business thinking, Business Excellence EMEA brings you the real-life achievements of world class companies with operations in Europe, The Middle East and Africa. Our six foundations of business excellence provide a framework for our independent and authoritative editorial coverage. Our industry perspectives offer peer to peer insight into what your contemporaries are doing. Executives who have faced the same challenges that you face tell us what they did, why they did it, how they did it, and what their results were. The road to excellence can be long and hard, but if you can do one thing better today than you did yesterday, you are moving forward. Business Excellence will keep you movingÔÇöand we mean business. 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To fulfill its mission effectively and efficiently, a business must match its strengths to the business environment. An excellent business strategy integrates the organization's goals, policies, and activities into a cohesive whole, while remaining flexible enough to react to changing circumstances. Then, of course, it must be implemented and its progress measured. Our editorial coverage includes first hand accounts from senior executives on the strategic management process in their own companies.   Customer focus The failure of a business strategy is often linked to a failure to understand the customer. The true value of innovation is realized by understanding what your customers are looking for and offering it to them before your competitors do, at a price they can't resist. What does the customer want? How important are price, quality, innovation, on-time delivery, reliability? What about branding? How can you develop new products and services to increase market share? How do you attract new customers? How do you keep existing customers? What are the opportunities for after-sales service? Executives tell Business Excellence what they did, and how well it worked for them.  Supply chain Excellence in supply chain management is achieved when customer demands are fulfilled through the most efficient use of resources, including distribution capacity, inventory and labor. The best supply chains deliver what is needed, at the right time, to the right place, and in the right quantity, through collaboration of a coordinated system of organizations, people, activities, information and other resources. Business Excellence contains content covering the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, and their related logistics management activities.   Operational excellence Operational excellence occurs when a company matches its performance with its potential in its core activities. Under scrutiny here are the processes and techniques that bring competitive advantage by improving quality, reducing costs, eliminating waste and empowering the workforce. From lean to six sigma, from 5S to value stream mapping, continuous improvement is the theme, creating the culture change in organizations that facilitates excellence and keeps world class companies at the forefront of their industry.   Infrastructure While core activities are at the heart of the business, the backbone supporting these essential operations is the infrastructure, the support services the company relies upon to function efficiently. Here we are interested in finance, training and development, information technology, energy management and administration. Among other issues, we examine the role of the CFO in raising funds for expansion, the CIO in equipping the company with the information it needs to make the best decisions, and the role of HR professionals in recruiting and retaining the staff that will contribute their energy and ideas for the good of the business.  Green Business Just as lean thinking is finding its way into all corners of the business world, so now is green thinking. Green business has been transformed from an oxymoron to a mainstream concept in the last ten years, as the early adopters discovered that being green is actually good business. The concept of the triple bottom line that has been coined to accompany it widens the measurement of an organizationÔÇÖs success into economic, environmental and social elements. Our editorial will look for excellence and innovation in the way green business thinking is being applied to these elements to bring competitive advantage, attract and retain employees, become a preferred supplier, and reduce costs. ┬á┬á       ┬á Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ┬á