22. Jan 2026

Austria's economy needs sustainable businesses

New Excellence Model aims to strengthen austrian companies

In the photo: The nominated companies and the winner of the 2025 State Prize for Business Excellence, Geriatric Health Centers of the City of Graz.

The key players agree: dramatically boosting Austria's economy is one of the most important goals for the young year 2026. With a new, open management framework, Quality Austria supports domestic companies in remaining fit for the future. The free Excellence Framework Europe (EFE) is used, among other things, in the evaluation for the State Prize for Business Excellence.

The framework for excellence in domestic companies

The faltering economy, coupled with technological upheavals and increasing complexity, has intensified market and competitive dynamics. Under these conditions, excellence criteria are not only relevant for individual top companies, but are also a key prerequisite for the future competitiveness of all organizations. Austrian companies face the challenge of continuously proving their performance, systematically developing it further, and raising it to a new level. With the Excellence Framework Europe (EFE), Quality Austria offers a proven orientation, design, and evaluation framework that identifies the strengths, areas for development, and key levers of organizations. “Austria needs organizations and companies that are future-proof at all levels and can hold their own in global competition. This can only be achieved if they continuously develop and improve. With the EFE, companies can define their own status and maturity level, realistically assess their current situation, and develop strategic fields of action and concrete measures for the future,” says Nicole Mayer, responsible for Business Development Corporate Quality at Quality Austria.

The Excellence Framework Europe (EFE) is a comprehensive guide to further developing organizational fitness and serves to holistically evaluate organizations and their management systems: The model is characterized by particularly rapid and uncomplicated implementation. The EFE does not follow a rigid management approach, but flexibly combines proven approaches, modern methods, and practice-oriented tools in a way that best suits the individual development of the respective organization. The main goal is to strengthen the effectiveness and sustainability of the respective organization.

This can be achieved, for example, by integrating excellence into strategy and control cycles, corporate culture, and management systems, as well as by developing transformation processes. Since 2026, Quality Austria has been responsible for the Excellence Framework Europe in Austria. The free guide was developed jointly by the German initiative Ludwig Erhard Preis e. V. (ILEP), the Swiss foundation ESPRIX Excellence Suisse (ESPRIX), and the Austrian Foundation for Quality Management (AFQM) in Austria, which coordinate the awarding of prizes to excellent companies and organizations in their home countries.

Submit entries by March 15: State Prize for Business Excellence

“The winners of the State Prize for Business Excellence in recent years have one thing in common: all organizations that have strategically implemented excellence criteria and undergone assessment by Quality Austria are still successful today,” say Dr. Werner Paar and Christoph Mondl, co-managing directors of Quality Austria.

The State Prize for Business Excellence is open to all models: companies and organizations that wish to be evaluated on the basis of excellence criteria can participate, regardless of the model, approach, or concept they use. The jury uses the EFE for an objective and comparable assessment of business excellence. The winner of the 31st State Prize for Business Excellence will be announced at the official award ceremony on June 17, 2026, in Vienna. Companies and organizations can register to participate at www.staatspreis.com until March 15, 2026. All participants who exceed a certain level of maturity in their application for the State Prize for Business Excellence will receive the “Excellent Company of Austria” award.

The winner of the 2026 State Prize for Business Excellence may nominate a charitable project of their choice for the “qualityaustria Herzensprojekt” (qualityaustria project close to our hearts), which will be supported by Quality Austria Holding with a donation of €10.000.