The Quality Quotient or How I Made the World a Better Place, extract from Chapter 4

My main slide was headed: THE BEVILL QUOTIENT: Relative Positions of Top 100 UK Companies.

“This table,” I said, “gives the final scores for both Sandals plc and The BDG Group. The figures represent the distillation of 67 separate factors, each adjusted to achieve exact comparability and then weighted. 

You will see that The BDG Group – highlighted in red – scores 49 while Sandals plc – highlighted in blue – achieves a quite remarkable 75. Or to put it another way, the Sandals achievement represents a better than 50 per cent improvement on that of The BDG Group. I’m sure you would agree that a differential of such a scale can hardly be explained away by standard statistical probabilities.”

There was a short silence. “49 what?” said Felix Pope.

“That’s BDG’s total. 49.”
“I’ve understood that. But what does it mean?”
“It means that BDG has scored 26 less than Sandals.”
“26 less what?”
“26 less points.” I felt I could hear the audience beginning to make a slight humming noise, but perhaps it was my imagination.

“Points,” said Felix Pope. “Do you mean a percentage? Is it out of 100?”
“No,” I said. “Out of 121.” I heard Gerald snort.

“Why 121?”
“If I divulged that,” I said, “I’d be acting irresponsibly. 121 is the maximum possible score on the Bevill Quotient as currently constructed.”
“One hundred and aytee!” called a voice from the back in poor imitation of a darts referee. Poor though it was, it earned a ripple of appreciation.

“Who came top?” asked another journalist.

“I can’t reveal that.”

“Anyone get the max?”

“I should explain that the maximum is a notional maximum. No company will ever score 121.”

“So 75 is good?”

“75 is excellent. I can reveal that the 75 achieved by Sandals places them very respectably in the top half of the first quartile.”