A systems approach to business excellence to improve the sustainability of an organization

Business Excellence refers to a state of long-term sustained competitive success, which an organization aspires to achieve, by creating and balancing value for all of its stakeholders. Sustainability though is inherent in Business Excellence models, most of the organizations seem to treat achieving Business Excellence as a onetime event and subsequently failing to tread the path of excellence. This could be because the responsibility of implementation rests with individual units within the organization. There are no formal systems in the organization which take care of its continuity. Therefore a need is felt for such formal systems to be established in the organization. This paper outlines a systems approach based on the Viable Systems Model (VSM) developed by Stafford Beer which facilitates organizations to incorporate a system which will enable to improve their sustainability in a changing environment by creating and balancing value for its key stakeholders.