Pursuit of excellence and value emphasis: study of deming prize winning companies from India

The issue of sustainable excellence is a complex one, and organizations adopt various approaches to realize it. Total quality management (TQM) - a widely accepted approach to pursuing excellence - seeks to introduce cultural changes in the organizations, improve business performance and satisfy various stakeholders. Value-based management (VBM) is said to ensure that corporations are run consistently on value, but the focus in this approach (in some corporations, mostly western) remains on maximizing shareholder value. Organizations adopt other popular approaches also, like: Benchmarking, Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Lean, Six sigma, and so on. However, the issue of sustainability of business excellence and success continues to perplex the organizations.

This paper attempts to find answer to the question of sustainable excellence i.e. maximizing stakeholder value, not just the shareholder value, on consistent basis. A comprehensive literature review and lessons from a case study are applied to deconstruct the strategy of Deming prize winning Indian companies. Critical success factors, identified in the case study, are tested through survey research and correlated with priorities of Indian leaders. It is established that quality focussed Indian companies view TQM as a value-based approach to management and harbinger of culture of excellence. The findings help unravel the focus of Indian companies in the context of sustainable business excellence, and provide some important lessons for increasing stakeholder value and business leadership.