BUSINESS ADVOCATE COLUMN NOVEMBER 2012

The recent Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards was an opportunity to showcase some of Northland’s more successful businesses. Obviously there is a criterion around which these businesses were measured and on this occasion it used was the Baldrige Criteria. This is a relatively common business excellence measurement tool and one that looks across a broad range of performance areas and then seeks confirmation of this through a number of indicators. While this provides a very useful measurement of a business’s performance it may not necessarily be as useful for measuring success. That is unless it is rigorously applied against the vision and strategic plan of the business owner and that there is an acceptance from the evaluator that not all business owners have the same vision as to what success is. Success cannot be measured without a business first having set clear goals and unlike many large corporates, the nature of Northland businesses mean that many of these goals are going to closely aligned to the personal aspirations of the people and families who own these businesses. For many business owners, their personal goals and their business goals will need to be considered together as each will influence the other. Having asked where the business owner wants to be in their personal life at some date in the future will inform them as to what goals they need to set within their business if they are to get there. It could be argued that while it is valid to assess a business’s performance against its economic bottom-line and the systems and processes it uses, an enterprise may be successful in spite of these indicators if the owner’s goals are being achieved. It is the individual business owner who has made the investment, taken the risk and has an expectation of some reward. The personal nature of these aspirations and associated rewards means that it is not appropriate to judge whether they are right or wrong although there may be opportunity to question how practical or achievable they are. The attractive nature of the owner’s aspiration and their future desire is what energises and motivates them to take action. It gives a reference point against which they can focus, adopt innovative ideas and develop a level of resilience that is so important. Of course having set your goals, using good businesses practices as advocated within the Baldrige Criteria or other business excellence frameworks will make those goals more attainable. Although relatively high profile, the gala evening and announcing of winners is a very small part of the overall entrant experience. For most of the entrants it is the culmination of all they have learnt and practiced in their business life to date. Often they would have planned to enter for well over a year and in many cases they may have been considering entry for many years but were waiting for their business to be ready to enter. In truth, most businesses a constantly changing and developing to meet the challenges of a dynamic economy and market which demands that businesses innovate and evolve or else fail. The time critical nature of the entry process and the prescriptive framework used to evaluate the entrant business demands the business leader to rigorously examine how they do business and to consider whether their results confirm they are doing things the right way to ensure business success. We are always incredibly grateful to our sponsors of which there are many who contribute in a wide variety of ways to this event. It is a massive understatement to say we could not hold this event without their support because the reality is over the last three decades it is the unfailing support of these people who allow us to showcase the best in Northland business. In particular it is gratifying to see how focussed these supporters are on ensuring that the event spotlight remains on the entrants first and foremost. As always the event is a work in progress with minor refinements being made year to year to ensure continuity while at the same time ensuring we can respond to feedback to improve the process of entering and the entrant experience. Along with this is the need to ensure that all entrant businesses can use the process to examine how they do business and develop robust and sustainable enterprises.