The Procedure for Implementing Total Quality Management in Silverline Enterprise - Research Paper Example

Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to explain the procedure of implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) in Silverline Enterprise. Thereport investigates the reasons behind the fall in sales figures over the past 2 years. It presents TQM as a possible remedial measure while furnishing futuristic recommendations. The report envisages that Silverline Enterprise after touching the zenith in terms of sales volume in the year 2005, succumbed to a setback and for the last 2 years witnessed a drastic fall in sales figures. The main reasons behind this setback are: keeping outdated products; failure to judge the consumer’s choice and preferences; inefficiencies of employees often combined with unprofessional conduct; lack of harmonization and participation on behalf of the employees; conventional sales strategy overpowered by its rivals and; added competition from shops like Eldorado, Great Eastern, Capitol Electronics, Sales Emporium (all these shops are dealers in electronic goods and a customer may find all types of such products under same roof). The report emphasizes on the implementation of TQM with strict compliance to the eight key elements. It also provides an action plan pertaining to the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of successful implementation of TQM into the organization. The recommendations undertaken are: keeping updated products; forming a realistic idea of market demand and consumer profiles; Reorientation of the sales people; Product diversification and; Encouraging greater participation of the staff in policymaking and operation of the store. Introduction: Silverline Enterprise in the year 2005 experienced a sheer rise in sales volume, well reflected in its profit that stood at a staggering 1.2 million dollar per annum. All was set for a bigger explosion when, suddenly the sales figures dropped for the next two years. A careful investigation into this strange behavior has highlighted the facts that incompetence on behalf of the employees due to their lack of appropriate skill, qualification and knowledge has turned out to be a major cause of the setback. This was combined with outdated products grasping for technological improvement, increased competition from shops providing a wider product range and almost catering to all the needs of the consumers under the same roof (Eldorado, Great Eastern, etc.), a total failure in judging the changing consumer preference as well as the level of market demand, the staffs and the management stood as two different poles, exactly opposite to each other, neither harmonization of work nor spontaneous participation on behalf of the staffs in the operation of the shop. Silverline Enterprise being one of the most reputed shops operating over more than 15 years took it for granted that their performance will be the outcome of their brand name. The management failed to realize that with the technological improvement regarding products soon the existing store would become obsolete. In the year 2005 when Eldorado and Great Eastern, two of the budding electronic goods shop opened their outlet in a nearby location of Silverline, the later suddenly found itself dropping in terms of revenues. These shops provided a wide variety of products and equipped with a far improved sales strategy that sometimes combines free gifts and a permissible discount in certain purchases. To make it sound more lucrative, they even arranged a lottery among its customers. Facing this situation, Silverline has no words in its response. Its employees have not shown any interest to change over the years through a process of learning and became stagnant and that proved to be quite costly. Further due to the gap between the management and the grass level employees, management often failed to grasp the indications of the changing market behavior that might be forwarded to them by the employees who were interacting more closely with the market. The store had always been a relief to the local shoppers who could pick up their favorite brands under a single roof. However the relationships with suppliers began to deteriorate and our store failed to secure the best quality products of the companies. With a depletion of variety, the consumers began to lose interest and it rather benefited them to incur a little traveling cost and visit some other store to access their desired brands. The relationships with customers deteriorated due to lack of proper customer care initiatives. The employees, due to lack of perks and incentives, seemed to have given up putting their best efforts to hold back the customers. Also, their lack in knowledge led to failure in explaining the different processes and demonstrating the function of the products to the potential customers. The cleanliness and furnishings of the shops was no more striking and attractive to the visitors. All this came up due to lack in proper maintenance and care on the behalf of the staff. The main gap has been in the proper motivation and lack of team spirit in the employees along with technical know-how. A this juncture, it was realized that if Silverline has to restore its golden days, then the following action plan regarding TQM has to be formulated and implemented. Action Plan – Implementation of TQM: The implementation of TQM will strictly comply with the eight key elements of TQM, namely, Ethics, Integrity, Trust, Training, Teamwork, Leadership, Recognition and Communication (Goetsch and Davis, 2006). The entire implementation process will be divided into four parts, forming the foundation, building bricks, binding mortar and roof (Bennis, Benne, & Chin, 1985). The Total Quality Management Model Forming the foundation: A proper teaching to both the management and the staff on business ethics is the first step that has to be taken. Employees have to understand their duties towards the customer as well as the company. They should be modest to the customers and tolerant while explaining anything to them. Customers are a heterogeneous group. Some of them may be more demanding than others. However, catering to their needs in a homogenous was without losing temperament is the key to win their confidence. On the other hand loyalty towards the management to form a proper coordination in actions can also be achieved through proper understanding of business ethics. A counseling of the employees or a group discussion on the above subject will definitely end up in proper understanding of the meaning and essence of business ethics (Ishikawa, 1985). However, a proper learning, especially when it happens in a group, is only possible when one feels at one with the group. Therefore, bringing back integrity within the staff members is the call of the time. Very minute and almost costless policies can bring back this integrity. Employees will be encouraged to take lunch together and if possible around a single table. It would be of great help to encourage the feeling of unity among the employees. If the management can come down at the lunch table, it would promote a feeling of equality and the workers will be encouraged to great extent. Dressing alike with a common logo of the organization or an identity card hanging around the neck can also generate integrity among the staff (the dress alike concept was actually embraced by China during the 1960s). These measures taken together will definitely bring back a feeling of integrity among the employees and build a connective bridge between the workers (sales people) and the management. Ethics and integrity once reinstalled among the employees and within the organization will automatically bring back the lost trust that Silverline was searching for over 2 years. As some additional measures, life insurance of the employees on behalf of the organization would be quite fruitful in generating trust of the employees towards the employer. The above process will take around three months to complete and deliver its results. Bringing back ethics, integrity and trust among the employees will remove the first hurdle and create a level field for the rest to follow. These three elements are very important social capital and like capital, if employed, can produce valuable results that will be reflected through increased sales volume and a far smoother operation process than what Silverline is delivering now. With all the social capital installed, unrest among the employees both in inter and intra terms will vanish and without that friction they can solely concentrate on the sales of the products. It has been observed that healthy relation within an organization ultimately leads to its growth. For a shop like Silverline, this healthy relation combined with a much better behavior towards the customers will draw them towards the shop. Building bricks: The knowledge bottleneck that Silverline is experiencing would have to be figured out through a proper training procedure. In order to sell a product like refrigerator or air conditioner, one has to be well acquainted with the technical know-how of the same. While contacting a company dealing in such products, their technologists or the officials can be of great help in imparting proper technical know-how on their products among the staff of Silverline. Therefore, demonstration on these electronic products for the employees with detailed description of the inner and outer spheres of the products will be arranged. The training procedure will not only focus on the technological aspects but in separate schedule employees will also be imparted with the knowledge on how to cut operative costs and thereby can deliver better service to the customers with reduced cost to the employer. In a shop like Silverline, performance can be improved with the same level of input by only generating a team spirit within the employees. Teamwork makes even an arduous work a lot easier to take over. Employees are a heterogeneous group working in team may lead to the complementation of one employee by another. One may be more intelligent than the rest and another may be more arduous. Teaming them together will create a system that on one hand can take up huge work at a time and on the other will ensure quality service, most likely completed before time. Three teams will be formed. Quality improvement team will deal with the improvement of service to the customers on behalf of the shop, gathering knowledge on the changing consumer behavior and the technologies regarding the products. A natural work team will consist of three to four workers and will come directly into interaction with the customers. A problem solving team will interact with the suppliers and will ensure continuous supply of technologically upgraded products. Mutual interaction between these three teams will be beneficial and will ensure proper functioning of the shop. This team approach may sound very concrete but it will seek for appropriate leadership to guide it through the challenges (Bennis, 1989). A proper monitoring on behalf of the management will definitely find some employees who are more competent, intelligent and arduous, and above all, a person with strong character and determination. In case such a person is not available, someone from the administration with more experience and a zeal for excellence will come forward and take up the onus of this work (Vroom and Yetton, 1973). In order to tap the leadership potential among its employees, some workshops will be initiated. The prime focus of these workshops will be to design a structure, which will encourage the employees to come forward and lead the way for the others. Such a workshop will comprise a mix of group discussion and mock sales. The above process (building bricks) will take around five months (Hill, 1991). Binding mortar: After implementing the above two steps it is quite necessary that everything holds together and should not start behaving erratically again. A smooth communication within the different spheres of the employees and the customers would be necessary (Beckhard and Pritchard, 1992). The proper functioning of the communication (formation, unification and implementation of downward, sideways and upward communication) within the organization will be promoted through the set of well-linked intercom, which will make possible that an employees without traveling any distance can reach another. The management often provides valuable information and suggestions to the workers and the workers also have some queries for the management and may find themselves in a dilemma regarding taking decisions on certain aspects. So these intercoms will also link workers with the management. In this era of technology customer often expects to gather information about the availability of the products, their specifications, price; want to place an order, and even receive the product while sitting back at their home by just making phone calls or through the internet. Considering this aspect, 16 hours online service will be set up. In the long run even creating a personal website for the shop can be considered. This whole process due to its technical nature will take about 2 months to set up. Roof: The TQM implemented so far (in this ten months) will definitely start showing results but all the employees and even the management must be provided with a gestation period to adjust and feel familiar with the process. The organization cannot expect out and out result from its employees; rather it must be patient and always provide support to its employees (Tichey, 1983). It should be kept in mind in the period that failures are pillar to success and it is expected that with so many things to keep in mind it may initiate initial sloppiness and faulty behavior on behalf of the employees. After this period gets over employees are ready to perform and give results but as usual there would be some weaker links among employees. In order to get rid of the weakness of these weaker links and to encourage them to come forward and participate in the organization’s plan formation and implementation, recognition of good work is quite necessary. This recognition does not always mean a monetary incentive or a salary hike. Recognition in Silverline is to be given by handing over mementos to the best performer of the quarter in the quarterly staff meetings, in front of the top management. This recognition procedure shall be initiated after the gestation period of one month. Conclusion: The implementation of TQM will lead to substantial increase in the sales volume of Silverline. The cost benefit analysis of TQM also stands favorable to its implementation (Beckhard and Harris, 1987). Further in shops like Silverline that deals with products like refrigerators and Air Conditions where the rate of technical change and improvement is quite high and fast, the implemented TQM may need to be reoriented and reformulated with the changing needs of time. The future of TQM rests on the automation of the process. So in the near future Silverline may have to incorporate a lot more of technological improvement and automation into the system. References: Beckhard, R. & Harris, (1987). Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change. (2nd ed.) Reading, MA: Addison­Wesley. Beckhard, R. & Pritchard, W. (1992). Changing the Essence. San Francisco: Jossey­Bass. Bennis, W. (1989) On Becoming a Leader. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Bennis, W., Benne, K, & Chin, R., Eds. (1985). The Planning of Change. 4th Ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 98­105. Goetsch D.L. and Davis S.B. (2006). Quality Management: Introduction to total quality management for production, processing, and services, fifth edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, NJ, USA. Hill Stephen, 1991. "Why Quality Circles failed but Total Quality management might succeed." British journal of industrial relations, 29(4), 541-568. Ishikawa, K, 1985.What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese way. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice- Hall. Tichey, N. (1983). Managing Strategic Change. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Vroom, V. and Yetton, P. (1973). Leadership and Decision Making. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Goetsch D.L. and Davis S.B, Quality Management: Introduction to total quality management for production, processing, and services, fifth edition, Pearson international edition. Read More