Answer:

The Baldrige performance excellence criteria are a framework that any organization can use to improve overall performance. Seven categories make up the award criteria:

• Leadership – Examines how senior executives guide the organization and how the organization addresses its responsibilities to the public and practices good citizenship.
• Strategic planning – Examines how the organization sets strategic directions and how it determines key action plans.
• Customer and market focus – Examines how the organization determines requirements and expectations of customers and markets.
• Information and analysis – Examines the management, effective use, and analysis of data and information to support key organization processes and the organization's performance management system.
• Human resource focus – Examines how the organization enables its workforce to develop its full potential and how the workforce is aligned with the organization's objectives.
• Process management – Examines aspects of how key production/delivery and support processes are designed, managed, and improved.
• Business results – Examines the organization's performance and improvement in its key business areas: customer satisfaction, financial and marketplace performance, human resources, supplier and partner performance, and operational performance. The category also examines how the organization performs relative to competitors.
  
  The criteria are used by thousands of organizations of all kinds for self-assessment and training and as a tool to develop performance and business processes. Approximately 2 million copies have been distributed since the first edition in 1988, and heavy reproduction and electronic access multiply that number many times.
  
  For many organizations, using the criteria results in better employee relations, higher productivity, greater customer satisfaction, increased market share, and improved profitability. According to a report by the Conference Board, a business membership organization, “A majority of large U.S. firms have used the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for self-improvement, and the evidence suggests a long-term link between use of the Baldrige criteria and improved business performance.”