Using business excellence models for supporting decision making in strategic planning and business improvements

Information gathered through self-assessment activities using business excellence models (BEMs), such as the EFQM or the Baldrige models, show the overall performance of organizations against several model criteria. This information is vital to managers and directors to support their decision making in core processes at the operational and strategic levels. There is evidence that some organizations find it difficult to produce reliable business information to support their business processes. Furthermore, there are few methodologies that effectively translate business information into effective plans and actions after conducting self-assessments. In this context, the effective deployment of BEMs when conducting self-assessments can significantly improve not only the reliability of business information, but the entire decision making process at the operational and strategic levels. Consequently, the appropriate integration of self-assessment outcomes into structured frameworks that incorporate analysis of internal and external business information (business intelligence) is essential. This paper explores the integration of core model criteria with business intelligence into strategic planning and overall business improvements. Based on emerging issues derived from an empirical study of sixty-six European organizations that have used the EFQM model, the paper identifies the core criteria and additional elements to accomplish this task. It then proposes a framework based on the EFQM model that incorporates business intelligence. The conclusion of this work emphasizes the necessity to structure an information system based on self-assessments to continuously support decision making in core business processes.