In this issue, I will share my experience from the conglomerate and its operating companies. For the purposes of this article, I will articulate Agility, which is one of the eleven core values ​​and concepts used in the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria. As before, I will use case studies to show how some of the companies implement them.

Below are the Eleven core concepts and values of the Baldrige criteria: –

1. Visionary leadership
2. Customer-oriented excellence
3. Organizational and personal learning
4. Valuation of employees and partners
5. Agility
6. Focus on the future
7. Management for innovation
8. Management by fact
9. Public responsibility and citizenship
10. Focus on results and value creation
11. Systems perspective

Articulated agility

The agility of an organization’s response to rapid changes in the business has an advantage over those that do not. Obviously, this principle is easily understood in the business world. In today’s business environment, change is inevitable. It is so fast that the strategies and decisions made previously are no longer adequate or valid. Businesses face high demand for value-added products and services from customers. Example: these are short cycle times, instant access to information, quick response to inquiries, etc. To respond to these demands, an organization needed to be agile. That requires agility.

Agility requires a whole set of new ideas in business structure, bureaucracy, restructuring of work systems, employee multitasking, streamlined and innovative processes, employee empowerment, etc. to fight for agility in the organization. It is not about responding quickly to the customer or business environment; it’s about how to support it.

Agility is not just a philosophy of doing business to stay current, but they are key success factors for today’s business survivors. Therefore, Key Performance Indicators must be established that are aligned with this new business platform. These KPIs can include cycle time, response time, error rate, productivity, improvement efforts, etc.

Agility case study

All companies respond to changes in the business environment. In fact, some of them reacted so frequently that they lost focus on their long-term business goal. To some extent, they take it as part of the business process. Due to these unforeseen changes, crisis management seems to take over continuous improvement initiatives.

At least some of the changes are not new, even long before your annual Business Plan and Budget. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be prepared for the implications for their business when it becomes reality. To cite some popular examples are: fluctuation of foreign exchanges in USD against RM, escalation of raw material price, increase in logistics cost due to increase in oil price, a long list of them. It is not fair to say that the leaders of these companies do not know that these factors will affect their profit margin, but most are hopeful that they will not.

Agility problems

As mentioned, most companies face global challenges in terms of market share, profitability, and cost escalation. As all of these challenges are somewhat uncontrollable by the company itself, most of them spend much of their time reacting to these crises and lack focus on long-term improvement opportunities and initiatives. Therefore, the lack of focus to restructure the organization to reduce operating costs, improve processes for better productivity, make an aggressive material cost reduction program, develop employees to be more agile in their work with multiple skills. Problem solving using ad hoc teams or crisis management seems to be the solution to day-to-day operational problems …

Opportunity for improvement

Leaders must realize that most of the above scenarios are an external factor that is not their circle of influence, so it stands to reason that they take these changes for real and prepare to counter them. Developing the organization to be agile is a logical and cheaper way to receive changes. With Agility, an organization can take changes and turn them into opportunities. The organization must be agile with short cycle times, reduce errors and quality problems, improve productivity, and reduce waste. Your product and service innovation should be a focused effort to reduce your total business cost.

In today’s internet technology, you should have heard a lot about corporations joining social media like Facebook. And you should have learned that many companies have a website to build their brand image.

In summary, having understood the agility in Malcolm Baldrige’s values ​​and concepts, leaders could compare his Baldrige Winners CEO on his TQM successes at this value. My next article will articulate the following core concepts and values ​​in Focus on the Future

The source for the latest Malcolm Baldrige criteria can be obtained from the Baldrige website.