Business Excellence Global Conference
3–4 November 2009, Singapore

Welcome Remarks

by Mr. Shigeo Takenaka
APO Secretary-General

It is a great pleasure for me to participate in the opening session of the Business Excellence Global Conference held in the vibrant city of Singapore. I feel especially delighted to be here today as this year marks the 40th anniversary of Singapore’s membership in the APO since it joined in 1969. The APO was founded in 1961 by eight original members. Although Singapore was not a founding member, its contribution to the organization has been as great as any in the APO.

This year also marks the 15th anniversary of the business excellence journey of SPRING, the national productivity organization of Singapore. Singapore as one of the first among APO member countries to create a business excellence framework, SPRING Singapore has established itself as a leader in business excellence in Asia and the Pacific. According to the APO Productivity Databook 2009, Singapore’s labor productivity in 2006 was higher than that of the Republic of Korea, Republic of China, and Japan. I believe that this high performance has been helped considerably by Singapore’s business excellence framework.

In the current economic environment, adopting the business excellence framework is not the top priority of companies. In Japan, while there are still many businesspeople enthusiastic about business excellence, many more are not adapting the business excellence framework. The most frequent comment we hear is: “The business excellence approach is no doubt useful for strengthening business management, but in the current economic circumstances, there are other issues that need my urgent attention: How to borrow enough money from the bank to stay afloat in the third quarter is just one of them.” This preoccupation, and other urgent matters, demand priority.

Another comment we often hear is this: “The business excellence approach is no doubt useful, but it takes a lot of our time and precious resources to adopt it. So the question is: Do the benefits justify the cost? If this question can be resolved, I would be happy to adopt the framework.”

Japan was not the only country that showed signs of stagnation in the field of business excellence. When the quality award administrators of 15 member countries met in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, two years ago, the emerging consensus seemed to be that business excellence programs need to be further promoted. Therefore, a year ago representatives from India, Japan, the Republic of China, Singapore, and Thailand gathered in Tokyo to discuss how to recharge the batteries powering business excellence.

However, it is not fair to emphasize the negative phenomena alone. There are positive signs as well. For example, medical professionals have begun to understand the benefits that they may receive from the application of the business excellence framework in their field. When we organized a study mission to the USA to examine applications of business excellence in the healthcare sector, it attracted considerable attention from many countries. Now we are conducting a demonstration project on this subject in Thailand.

More public-sector organizations have also shown interest in this framework. In Japan, the municipal office of a very small township in Iwate prefecture attracted widespread attention when it received the Japan Quality Award in 2006. Although no township won the award after that, many Japanese cities or prefectures are now working hard to meet the award criteria.

Taking into consideration all of the above and in an attempt to revitalize the business excellence framework in the entire APO region, in 2009 the APO started a project on Centers of Excellence (or COE) and designated Singapore as the first COE in the area of business excellence. SPRING had already been sharing its know-how in business excellence. With the initiation of the COE project, I believe that the pace of that sharing will accelerate.

We at the APO Secretariat have been doing what we can to help. One expert from the USA who is related to Malcolm Baldrige and another associated with the European Quality Association were deputed last July to SPRING to help refine the assessment techniques for business excellence. An APO survey on the Impact of Business Excellence Programs on Enterprises is underway and will be finalized in time for our next project on this topic in Bangkok in December. This conference itself is a result of collaboration between SPRING and the APO. The APO has invited a number of world-renowned experts including the keynote speaker, Dr. H. James Harrington, to share their expertise with the conference. We have also invited 18 senior productivity assessors from various APO member countries to attend, who will also take part in a back-to-back APO workshop for senior assessors in which they will investigate in depth the assessment methodologies of SPRING and other best practices.

I am hopeful that our participants as well as all the conference delegates will learn as much as possible from the presentations and deliberations during the next two days.

Before closing, I would like to express my appreciation to Professor Cham Tao Soon, Chairman, Singapore Quality Award Governing Council, and Mr. Png Cheong Boon, Chief Executive, SPRING Singapore, for their support and cooperation to the APO.

I wish you all a very productive and fruitful conference.

Thank you.

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