Organisations register on the programme, receive mentoring, consultancy and training supports as well as training materials and begin to work towards achieving standards in how they manage each aspect of their business.

Having achieved this, the establishment is assessed by an independent assessor.

Optimus is an innovative, multi-tiered programme to support tourism businesses in becoming more profitable, more efficient and more competitive. Based on international research, Optimus offers a practical approach to achieving excellence and boosting bottom line results.

Optimus focuses on every aspect of the business from customer service to operational management to organisational excellence.

The Optimus Programme structure comprises three distinct yet inter-related levels of recognition. This enables businesses to progress through the different levels, building their capabilities at each stage and gaining recognition as they make progress.

The three levels are the Ireland's Best Award, the Mark of Best Practice, and the Award of Excellence.

The three levels are in alignment with the EFQM Excellence Model and this is reflected in the assessment and scoring criteria.

Ireland's Best Award The Service Excellence programme is an established concept which underpins the Optimus Best Practice and Business Excellence programmes. It focuses on the development of a service excellence culture that is specific to the hospitality sector and can be adopted by individual enterprises within the sector. It also provides a solid foundation on which real progress can be made on the organisation's journey to excellence.

The Service Excellence Model is aligned with the customer service elements of the EFQM Model. It incorporates concepts such as the Service Journey, Moments of Truth, the Internal Customer Supplier and Service Recovery.

All employees in the organisation, from back of house to senior management, participate in a customised training programme. On-going training for new employees is provided by certified in-house trainers.

"The Ireland's Best Award is very much a customer focused programme", explains Failte Ireland Director of Enterprise and Skills Development, Aidan Pender. "It focuses on key elements such as exceeding customer service expectations, developing and empowering every employee to deliver the service promise, establishing and maintaining service standards, and making a positive impact on customers, employees and business performance."

Among the benefits of the programme are increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, improved employee motivation, improved communication, the creation of a service excellence culture, and the establishment of customer centred service standards and measures.

Best Practice Award Optimus Best Practice is a business process improvement programme that enables tourism operations to benchmark their businesses against the best in the industry, discover what makes them successful and apply that to their own operations. It focuses on key business processes under the headings of Management, People, Operations and Customer Service.

According to Aidan Pender this programme is focused on the operation and helps build best practice into leadership, operations, planning and people. "It focuses on productivity, resource management and operational excellence", he says. "It utilises key performance measures to drive superior business results, incorporates a comprehensive system for managing operational standards within each department and function and develops a culture of continuous improvement."

Among the benefits cited by Pender are improved profitability and professionalism, and product and service innovation. "It also helps to engender a culture of continuous improvement, improves efficiency and productivity and helps in the establishment and development of key performance measures, targets and benchmarks", he adds.

Award of Excellence The Award of Excellence is based on the best enterprises in Europe, using the standards of the European Foundation for Quality Management. To achieve it, businesses need not only demonstrate a deep commitment to continual improvement and superior performance but also a proactive attitude to the changing social, economic and market conditions in which they operate.

"Companies that achieve sustainable excellence display a strong results orientation, a passionate customer focus, a commitment to management by processes and sound performance measures and an abiding enthusiasm for continual learning and innovation based on rigorous benchmarking", says Aidan Pender. "Once the required level of excellence has been achieved by a company it is presented with the prestigious Award of Excellence, a tangible recognition of the organisation's status as both an outstanding performer within the hospitality sector and an exceptional achiever across different sectors.

"This coveted award is very much focused on the organisation", Pender continues.

"Any organisation achieving it must adopt a proactive approach to the changing social , economic and market conditions in which they operate, key processes must be systematically designed and managed, while the involvement of everyone in the organisation is actively encouraged."

This results driven programme delivers several major benefits to organisations. "It forms a basis for investment planning", Pender points out. "Key processes are systematically designed and managed, it delivers a defined approach to strategy formulation and deployment, and ultimately delivers improved overall business performance."