Business Excellence models have become one of the most important diagnostic tools in the fiercely competitive business world. Organizations need to keep continuously innovating, improving and differentiating themselves from the competition to ensure higher value delivery to customers leading to enhanced share of wallet, improved top and bottom lines and long term sustainability. All of these market place results cannot be achieved, unless the back-end processes are refined and breakthrough changes are made in the way of working. This is where the diagnostic tools help. They look at the organizations’ work systems and processes, identify what is happening well and where are the opportunities for doing better. Based on the diagnostics the organizations then can consider a set of improvement tools or methodologies which can be used for making improvements / changes. There are three key models used in the business world for driving business excellence, and these are (1) the Deming Model, (2) the Malcolm Baldrige Model and (3) the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) model. Out of these models, Malcolm Baldrige model is the most widely used model across the world. Many corporate groups have designed their own business excellence models based on the Baldrige model.

Methodology: 

Dip-stick Assessment is a methodology developed by TQMS, for the purpose of assessing the maturity of the key processes in the client Organization, using the Baldrige model, assisting the client the areas to focus on for improvements. The Dipstick assessment methodology follows following key steps:

· The Client organization prepares an “Organization Profile”, which is a short brief on the business environment and the key challenges faced by the client organization.

· TQMS consultants study the “Organization Profile” and seek additional data / information or clarifications on the business background if necessary

· TQMS Consultants visit the Client Organization and interact with a cross-section of the client employees (stratified sample) to assess the work systems and processes and the extent of use of them

· The consultants analyse the data so collected and arrive at the systems or processes that can be leveraged / consolidated and those which need to be taken up on priority for making changes / improvements

· The findings are formally presented to the client in an interactive session

· The consultants facilitate development of improvement action plan by client management team and help the client management in reviewing progress against these plans

Benefits: 

The Dipstick assessment methodology is very “lean” in terms of resource utilization. Business excellence assessment processes normally involve resources to the tune of 1000-1200 executive-hours for putting together the “application”. This effort is replaced by putting together the “Organization Profile” which needs less than 50 executive hours. The Dipstick assessment is conducted by the well-trained and experienced consultants from TQMS who benefit from the longer and deeper exposure to the Baldrige model. Also the normal assessment process may involve a period of 8-12 weeks end-to-end from initiating the “application” till presentation of the findings, whereas the Dipstick process takes 3-4 weeks to complete the task.