Business excellence as a success factor for the performance of large Croatian enterprises

Croatian companies need a new approach that will provide them with sufficient competitive strength, based on business excellence. Focusing only on financial indicators and measures is insufficient. Therefore new concepts should be introduced, especially by large companies that are traditionally inert and exposed to global competition, and situated in the countries with ongoing transition, such as Croatia. Today 75% of the source of value within a company cannot be measured by means of the standard accounting techniques anymore, and in the 21st century it is impossible to rely exclusively on measuring financial parameters. According to the authors, in addition to financial measuring, a way should be found to measure non-financial parameters within a company. The paper is therefore aimed at exploring the influence of business excellence and its values on business in the Croatian business practice. The authors carried out a research on 106 large Croatian enterprises with more than 250 employees, exploring the connection between the values of business excellence and company performance, Results show a positive correlation between applying the principles of business excellence and successful company performance in practice.