Often when people use the word “quality”, it’s usually synonymous with “good”. Several brands and businesses like to paint their products and or services as “high quality” or “superior quality” in the same way without really defining these characteristics of “quality”. In most cases, we see these kinds of promises in marketing messages rather than in integral business processes or policies.
So how then would we define quality?
What is quality?
We can define quality as a set of explicitly or implicitly defined characteristics that include:
The provision of products or services with features that customers need. These features are what lead to customer satisfaction which in turn leads to increased revenue. You can ensure quality by adding features that customers want while ensuring consistency and reliability with every iteration.
Designing features that are free from any errors and deficiencies also counts as quality. Products and services that are deficient can lead to costly recalls and customer dissatisfaction especially if they’re not fixed in the early stages of product development.
Ensuring ongoing continuous improvement (CI) is a big part of maintaining quality in your organisation. Defects will always be inherent in processes, tools and designs and that’s why it’s important to do address their root causes through CI.
Now with a better understanding of what quality means for an organisation, let’s define quality management.
What is quality management?
Quality management can be described as the process of overseeing the different activities and tasks within an organisation to ensure that its products and services, as well as the means to provide them, are consistent. It’s essentially the act of achieving and maintaining the desired level of quality within the organisation.
There’s much more to managing quality than just producing widgets without any defects or labelling any and every service you offer “good”. Although these things are still part of the picture, what qualifies as an acceptable level of quality for your organisation will ultimately be determined by its stakeholders.
Quality management is about making your organisation perform for its stakeholders. And by stakeholders, we mean anyone and everyone who has an interest in the success of your organisation. As expected, customers will be the most vital group of stakeholders for the majority of businesses. “Quality is in the eye of the beholder.” That is why customer satisfaction will take centre stage when achieving quality in your organisation.
You should also consider all other stakeholders that may influence quality in your organisation such as employees, investors, suppliers and members of the wider society you operate in. Achieving that acceptable level of quality in your organisation means you must know who your stakeholders are, understand their needs and meet those needs (or even better, exceed them) both now and in the future.
Why should your organisation care about quality?
To simply put it, prioritising quality is key for any organisation to survive and thrive. Not only can managing quality effectively enhance your organisation’s brand and reputation, but it can also protect it against risks. Quality isn’t simply a matter of ticking off a box or something to be used as lip service to your customers. Failures resulting from poor governance, ineffective assurance and resistance to change can have dire consequences for your businesses.
Take Samsung for example. Back in 2016, the multibillion-dollar company had to completely halt the production of its Galaxy Note 7 after several users had complained about their phones heating up to the point of catching fire. The phone that was supposed to rival Apple’s iPhone 7 had ended up dealing some serious damage to the company. Samsung’s stock plummeted 8% in Seoul and lost about $17 billion of its marketing value.
If such as big scandal can hit one of the leading phone manufacturers in the world, then it can happen to just about any organisation. This is why it’s extremely vital to manage the quality of your organisation’s outputs. Because quality isn’t about disaster prevention - it’s about achieving great results from the get-go and seizing every opportunity after to get better.
It doesn’t matter what kind of organisation you might have. Every business has stakeholders of one kind or another whose needs must be met, and that’s what effective quality management is really about.
What are the four key components of quality management?
Quality management can be understood through these four components:
1. Quality planning
This is where you identify the quality standards relevant to your organisation’s processes and decide how to meet them.
2. Quality improvement
This can be described as the purposeful change of a process to improve its outcome.
3. Quality control
This is the continuous effort to uphold a process’s integrity and reliability in achieving an outcome.
4. Quality assurance
This includes the systematic or planned actions needed to offer sufficient reliability so that a particular product or service will meet its specified requirements.
How can your organisation achieve quality?
There are three things that we believe can set a solid foundation for quality management in your organisation. These are:
Effective leadership and governance define your organisation’s goals and translate them into action.
Robust systems of assurance that ensure things stay on track.
A culture of continuous improvement to ensure things keep getting better.
When it comes to managing quality, there’s lots of help available including from us here at IMS Africa. With our collection of tools aimed at executing best practices within your organisation, you can reach out to us to learn more about improving and sustaining the quality of your products and services.
Management systems defined by international standards such as; ISO 9001 for quality management systems, ISO 14001 for environmental management systems, ISO 45001 for occupational health and safety systems, FSSC 22000 (or BRC, or IFS) food safety systems certifications etc. can also prove useful in helping your organisation manage quality effectively.
Comments