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Demonstrating excellence at every level of their organization, Siemens UK is the winner of the BQF Gold Medal for Excellence 2008

The inaugural BQF Gold Medal for Excellence was presented to Siemens UK. This award is presented annually by the BQF board of directors to an organization that has demonstrated outstanding and sustained commitment to excellence over a number of years.

Siemens has had a presence in the UK since 1843 when its founder, William Siemens, one of the leading industrialists of the Victorian age, first arrived here with the aim of turning his concepts and inventions into practical solutions, many of which were to be world firsts.

The company is now behind much of the technology and services we take for granted in our daily lives. For example:

• They maintain one in five of all cash machines in the UK
• Every year they process more than six million new UK passports
• They install, maintain and read meters in nearly nine million UK homes and businesses
• Their medical equipment is used to screen 15,000 women in the UK for breast cancer every weekday of the year
• They are the largest supplier of hearing aids to the NHS
• A quarter of the electricity used in England and Wales passes through substations controlled by their systems

The BQF board consider that Siemens UK has demonstrated outstanding commitment to excellence over many years. As a matter of policy, self assessment against the Excellence Model is used as a basis for continuous improvement of performance in all areas of their business. No fewer than three of their businesses have won the UK Excellence Award and a further six have achieved recognition in the EFQM Levels of Excellence programme.

The company is committed to providing customer excellence through its Think Customer programme, the purpose of which is to make the company as well known for customer service excellence as it is for innovation and technology. The programme began ten years ago and is still going strong.

There is also a total commitment to corporate responsibility through initiatives such as Caring Hands, which engages employees in volunteering, social giving and disaster relief. In 2004 its employees raised nearly £100,000 for the victims of the tsunami. That figure was then matched by the company, giving a total donation of almost £200,000.

Needless to say, this is a high performing company that has been consistently profitable. In fact, over the last 20 years up to 2007 turnover has quadrupled to reach £3.6bn.