It's Britain's best-managed business, once again

ROGER TRAPP

Fresh evidence that Britain has only a handful of world-beating companies comes with the latest Quality of Management Awards. Marks & Spencer has taken the first prize - to follow last year's victory and the year before's second place. Runner-up Glaxo Wellcome was fourth last time and, in its pre-merger guise of Glaxo, third the year before, while British Airways was third in each of the past two years.

The awards - sponsored by opinion pollsters Mori and PA Consulting Group's Sundridge Park management centre - rank companies according to their performance in 18 key areas. Rankings are based on the views of three audiences canvassed by Mori - institutional investors, business and financial press and captains of industry. Although there was some divergence on the importance of each criterion, the three groups are broadly agreed on which are the best-managed companies in Britain.

However, as Roger Stubbs, chairman of Mori Financial, points out, "there is no magic blueprint for getting it right. Much will depend on the sector a company is in."

Accordingly, while both M&S and Glaxo Wellcome score well in strategy, this is the highest scoring factor for the drugscompany and only the second highest, after brand development, for the retailer.

R&D, which comes nowhere for the stores group, is the second most important criterion for the drugs company. People development and management skills are the next highest scores for M&S -but much lower down for Glaxo Wellcome.

Mori's Mr Stubbs says that the succesful company will always be strong on strategy and/or leadership, but must also receive a similar score for the criterion on which it seeks to differentiate itself. "There is not much point in companies setting themselves vague aspirations that do not have any basis in their own experience. They must decide what they want to do and then throw their resources at it to ensure that they succeed."

And as if to demonstrate what a select band of companies this is, the same group made up the front-runners for the Quality of Governance Award presented at the same ceremony last night. The winner: Marks & Spencer, ahead of last year's winner, ICI.