What is the Business Excellence Framework?

"The Business Excellence Framework (BEF) is an integrated leadership and management system that describes the elements essential to sustainable organisational excellence. It can be used to assess and improve any aspect of an organisation, including leadership, strategy and planning, people, information and knowledge, safety, service delivery, product quality and bottom-line results.

Importantly, the BEF recognises the unique nature of each enterprise. When an organisation embarks on a journey for excellence, it is challenged to look within and address key questions, such as "how are we really performing as an organisation?", "what are we good at?", "what do we need to improve?". The internationally recognised Business Excellence Framework ensures that the organisational review remains holistic; that is, it encompasses all levels of the organisation and considers all factors that can influence performance. It enables any organisation to clarify the factors inhibiting or accelerating organisational advancement and provides the tools to implement targeted strategies. The BEF has proven relevance to all types and size of organisation - multinational, SME, not-for-profit ad public sector."

~ The Business Excellence Framework 2007, SAI GLOBAL