New Zealand Defence Force
Te Ope Kaatua O Aotearoa
Media Release
Wednesday 6 December, 2006
A Ship Shape Organisation – High Scoring Navy Recognised for Business Excellence
The Royal New Zealand Navy was last night presented with a New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation Silver award in
Wellington, recognising the Navy’s performance and progress towards organisational excellence during 2006.
The Navy achieved the highest score in New Zealand since 1995. The scoring system for the NZ Business Excellence Awards
is based on the US Baldridge criteria, an internationally recognised framework for achieving and measuring
organisational performance excellence. This allows organisations to benchmark against international businesses.
Deputy Chief of Navy, Commodore Tony Parr said he was pleased to accept the award on behalf of the Navy, “The process of
using the Baldridge criteria allows us to measure progress towards the Navy’s vision - to be the best small nation Navy
in the world. With its international credibility, we can genuinely aspire to be world-class by using this process.”
The Navy adopted the Baldridge criteria in 1999, as a way of guiding a journey to organisational excellence. Since an
initial Bronze Award the Navy has continuously improved its organisational performance. Feedback from New Zealand
Business Foundation evaluators has been an invaluable tool in achieving incremental improvements.
The Chief of Navy Rear Admiral David Ledson earlier noted the benefits of descriptive criteria that could fit within an
organisational culture, “Our vision provides a head-mark and is an important guide for the future course for the Navy.
It clearly identifies that our aspirations will be achieved in a ‘Navy’ context and not in just an ‘organisational’ one.
While there are many similarities between us and other organisations, there are also important differences and we can’t
afford to lose sight of these.”
Admiral Ledson said that it was important to acknowledge that this award was also a positive reflection of the New
Zealand Defence Force as a whole. “Many of the things that contributed to our final result are also done in the Air
Force and the Army”, he said.
ENDS