Midlands Excellence delivers a 1600% R.O.I

Midlands Excellence, the not-for-profit performance boosting specialists, have delivered £16.3m of added value to the region at a cost to the taxpayer of just £1.046m. That’s the conclusion of a report commissioned by Advantage West Midlands and produced for the RDA by independent regeneration consultants ekosgen.

Over the next three years this figure is expected to rise to £20.25 million, once future employment benefits have been realised, producing an expected ROI of £19.37 per £1 invested. AWM made the £1m contribution to Midlands Excellence between 2002 and 2009, in a bid to help bridge the £10bn productivity gap that exists between the region’s economy and the UK per capita average.

Midlands Excellence used the cash to launch and pilot its own unique standard of excellence, known as Investors in Excellence (IiE) and to deliver a package of best practice sharing initiatives through its West Midlands Excellence Network.

The ekosgen report says that nearly 500 businesses benefited from the charity’s interventions, ranging from SMEs with fewer than five employees to large scale businesses with 250 FTE employees or more. Midlands Excellence helped 1,103 people with skills development and delivered management and leadership skills training to a further 1,083 people.

Benefits reported by businesses were as follows:

• 41% reported that the IiE programme had made the biggest impact on their business compared to any other service they may have accessed

• the proportion of organisations reporting better customer satisfaction levels rose from 40% to 46% and employee satisfaction improvement was even higher, rising from 26% to 46%

• organisations meeting corporate social responsibility targets increased from 25% to 33%

• 66% of the sample said that their customer service had improved thanks to Midlands Excellence expertise

• Nearly 60% of the sample reported that they had reduced their costs as a result of a programme delivered by Midlands Excellence.

The majority indicated that they had made savings of up to £20k. Some reported savings of up to £60k and a handful had secured even higher cost reductions.

Midlands Excellence CEO Ian Nield commented: “To deliver £15.58 of value for every £1 invested represents an excellent ROI – well ahead of the expected average of around £7 per £1. The message from the ekosgen report is clear – investing in excellence works. It delivers measurable performance improvements and helps transform good businesses into great organisations that waste fewer resources, get more from their people, have happier customers and deliver sustainable profitability.”