Vero wins gold at NZ Business Excellence Awards

Vero Chief Executive - Roger Bell

When it comes to the best business practice, Vero are the best, and they've got a gold medal from the New Zealand Business Excellence Awards to prove it.

The firm, which has 850 staff across the country, has been striving for the gold for ten years.

"Our success is entirely down to the people. Our people bought into this, they realised it was an ambitious goal we set but they wanted to be part of that so the Vero people drove the whole thing," says Vero Chief Executive, Roger Bell.

The NZ Business Excellence Awards align with the US Baldridge criteria, which acts as guide for businesses. Firms have to answer hundreds of questions and it takes a huge amount of work.

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence incorporates various criterion, including - Leadership, Strategic Planning, Customer and Market Focus, Analysis and Improvement of Organisational Performance and Workforce Focus.

Vero's achievement is only the fourth gold to be awarded in 15 years, reflecting the high standard of the judging process.
 
"These are the olympics of business awards. An organisation winning an award whether it's bronze silver or gold indicates that they're significantly outperforming the rest of their industry and in general in NZ," says Mike Watson, CEO of NZ Business Excellence Foundation.

Another firm to do well this year is Kerridge and Partners. With only nine staff - it achieved a very impressive silver.

"I think hopefully it shows other firms that you don't have to be a big firm to invest in the kind of quality improvement efforts that we've done, it really is actually a part of just running a business well," says Peter kerridge of Kerridge and Partners.

The awards are not only limited to private sector firms, all areas of business including public sector firms can also enter.

Whangarei Council also achieved silver - only the third council to do so since the New Zealand awards began.