Abstract:

EITB is an exceptional company, operating in the media management sector. From its administrative headquarters in Bilbao oversees its expanding broadcast of its signal, implementing a consistent management system and driving improvement in its business units.
The last almost ten years EITB has undergone a period of continuous progress in its key strategic outcomes achieving several awards step by step, first the silver q of Euskalit in 2004, then iberoamerican prize for quality management and then the golden Q from Euskalit. Finally, the organization European Foundation for Quality Management has awarded EITB with the European Prize for the excellence in the Entreprise model in “Continuous Learning, Innovation and Improvement" in 2009. This means that it has specially outstand in its performance in the area of innovation. EITB is the first European communication group to obtain the highest award of the European quality management area. Hence, the study of this particular case will presumably become very relevant both for the development of the rest of the sector and for the focusing of the academic research in this area.
We set the study of this case through EFQM Excellence Model as this is the model with wider range and the highest award that they have received for the moment. This is a non-prescriptive framework based on nine criteria. Five of these are ‘Enablers’ and four are ‘Results’. The ‘Enabler’ criteria cover what an organisation does. The ‘Results’ criteria cover what an organisation achieves. ‘Results’ are caused by ‘Enablers’ and ‘Enablers’ are improved using feedback from ‘Results’. The Model, which recognises there are many approaches to achieving sustainable excellence in all aspects of performance, is based on the premise that: Excellent results with respect to Performance, Customers, People and Society are achieved through Leadership driving Policy and Strategy, that is delivered through People, Partnerships and Resources, and Processes. Finally, innovation, improvement and lifelong-learning are regarded as a feed-back transversal process that should be reassessing and modifying the whole system and its different parts. This last area is the one in which we will be focusing in this paper.
EITB considers creativity as one of the key guidance points below the EFQM criterion named Policy and Strategy management, placing it at the heart of the management decisions of the company. Hence, it considers innovation which could be regarded as a part of the more general concept of creativity as a key factor for pushing the development and revitalization of the organization. This also appears in its strategy scorecard as a key driver underlying in several areas: contents, technology, organization and expansion.
The purpose of this paper is to inquire on how EITB has managed the organizations variables in order to specially nurture the creativity and innovation capabilities in the different areas of their activity to meet or exceed the stakeholders expectations. The methodology consistes in the study of the sequence of memoirs of management that have been produced in the last decade of its performance in which it has experienced the great management success recognized by the several awards that it has been given.

Keywords:

Quality management, media management, innovation, creativity, efqm.