European Quality Awards Announced
Organizations representing Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom have received Europe’s top prize in organizational excellence: the 2003 European Quality Award. Each year, recognition is given to businesses that display exceptional levels of excellence in eight criteria: results orientation; customer focus; leadership and constancy of purpose; management by processes and facts; people development and involvement; continuous learning, innovation and improvement; partnership development; and corporate social responsibility.
The award is sponsored by the European Foundation for Quality Management. There are three levels of recognition available to applicants: award winners, prize winners and finalists. Recipients of the 2003 European Quality Award are:
Bosch Sanayi ve Ticaret AS, Turkey (operational units category); award winner and prize winner in leadership and constancy of purpose
Runshaw College, United Kingdom (public sector category); award winner and prize winner in leadership and constancy of purpose
Maxi COMCOMAT, Greece (independent small/medium enterprise category); award winner and prize winner in results orientation
Edinburgh International Conference Centre, United Kingdom (subsidiary small/medium enterprise category); award winner and prize winner in people development and involvement
Special prizes were presented to nine additional organizations that excelled in one or more of the following criteria: leadership and constancy of purpose, customer focus, corporate social responsibility, people development and involvement, and results orientation. These organizations represented the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Switzerland, Italy and Germany.
2003 showed a record number of prize winners, plus an additional six organizations that were recognized as finalists. The total of four award winners has only occurred twice in the award’s 12-year history, in 1999 and 2000. In 2001, concerns were raised when no applicants earned enough points to receive an award. However, the structure of the EFQM’s excellence model and criteria were enhanced to provide more in-depth feedback on key strengths and areas for improvement.
For more information on each of the award winners, prize winners and finalists, visit
www.efqm.org