Total Quality Management in Qatar Airways - Case Study Example

Inserts His/her Inserts Inserts Grade 12, TQM in Qatar Airways Introduction This paper is based on Qatar Airways and the quality initiative that was taken by the company with regards to it. Total quality management was introduced in Japan which focuses on providing the best quality products which are manufactured by the company. Many companies have implemented TQM in their systems which include Qatar Airways as well. Company Background The company known as Qatar Airways Company operates by the name of Qatar Airways and has its headquarters in Doha. The base of the company is located in Doha from where it goes to various locations all over the world. The company was awarded by Skytrax with 5 star rating and was also named as the Airline of the year in 2011. Currently, Qatar Airways is undergoing expansion and this is the reason why it has become the fastest growing airline company worldwide. More than 20,000 employees are hired by the company from which 14,000 work for the airline in a direct way while 6000 have been hired to work for the subsidiaries of the company (Qatar Airways, pp.1). Products and Market Share With regards to the statistics of June 2011, it can be said that the company serves 109 destinations worldwide while its cargo serves 19 destinations. Therefore, the market share of the company is 65% at the airport. However, its share of transfer traffic has reduced from 85% to 75%, which shows an increase in demand locally (Flottau, pp.1). Quality Initiative Qatar Airways has become more customers oriented because of which quality initiative has been taken by the company. For this purpose, Qatar Airways has adopted the concept of total quality movement and this has ensured it to provide quality service to the customers. Therefore, quality programs such as total quality management has been implemented which has enabled Qatar Airways in exceeding customer expectation. The company operates in a global arena and is performing well with regards to services as well as operations which can be reflected by the following. In this era, the consumers’ place more significance on value and the companies that succeed in this are more profitable than others. All customers want to make the most from the value that they are willing to pay in order to buy something. Therefore, they want easy access, high quality and full satisfaction with minimum or at least at a reasonable price. Other than that, the consumers require innovation. People usually get bored with the same thing for long. Therefore, Qatar Airways offers quality and innovative services to fulfill the growing demands of the existing and the prospective customers. Not doing so could do no good but would harm the firm as they would lose customers due to the existing competitors. This is the reason why quality initiative has been taken by the company to ensure to the implementation of TQM (Flood, pp.50). Supply chain management is also very important for Qatar Airways, therefore, the company ensures that the inventory system is managed well and a track is kept on the level of inventory required to provide services to avoid any delay in delivery. In this way, Qatar Airways has been able to reduce their inventory costs, and since this has reduced the cost, it has increased profits because of which the company has also reduced prices available to the customers. Accuracy of the services is enhanced by Qatar Airways by the use of wireless technology. Moreover, it has also enabled the company to reduce fraud. The company also uses radio frequency identification to keep track to inventory. Radio frequency identification technology uses radio waves for the transfer of information from a reader device and an item. Electronic commerce or e-commerce is basically about doing the business using the Internet and the World Wide Web. Other terms for e-commerce are e-business and e-tailing. Customers can book their flights online through the websites from where the customer can easily see the flights available with respective timings and other details. Customers can also compare prices of their desired flight available on the website with the other flights and can make the booking easily from home. This way of doing business is advantageous in one of the ways that the customers can make their booking at any time of the day and at any place using Internet on their computer as there is no restriction on time to place the order. Nowadays more of the rich consumers are also engaged in their own business activities so they don’t have ample time to visit a store to place an order so they might prefer to place online orders and so they will prefer those companies that provide online services to the customers Dubar & McDonald, pp. 100). Therefore, Qatar Airways has also provided the customers with this service in order to facilitate them. New computerized technologies have also been implemented by Qatar Airways at very-increasing rate. This trend has increased due to international competition from the other airlines that are competing with the company. Moreover, this has also enabled the company to focus on market segmentation because of which it has been able to choose their target market, which also plays a vital role in ensuring total quality management with regards to the service and operations of the company (Cohen & Ronald, pp. 150). Nowadays the trend of customer relationship management is increasing day by day. More and more companies are becoming aware of the fact how important customer relationship management is. As the customer is getting aware about the operations of the companies, they also have complaints about them that have to be handled carefully and patiently by the customer relationship officers. At Qatar Airways, very effective complaint handling services are available which enables in reduction of the number of complaints. Moreover, this also enables in the reduction of the waiting time that the customers have to encounter when they place complaints. Besides this, this has also allowed Qatar Airways to take these feedbacks to further bring improvements in the services that the company is offering to the customers to ensure total quality management (Cohen & Ronald, pp. 150). Staff carrying out the activities has been selected carefully before giving them duties or responsibilities. It is further ensures that the individuals who are chosen for a task are appropriate for the duty he is assigned to do so that they scarry out their duties in an effective manner. In this way, Qatar Airways has achieved competitive advantage over the other companies in the airline industry and those that compete with the company. Therefore, staff hired by Qatar Airways has suitable interpersonal skills, aptitude, and service knowledge because of which they are able to serve the customers well for what the customers are paying for. In order to ensure total quality management, Qatar Airways also provides training to the employees to ensure that they achieve the standards set by organization (Bahmanziari, pp. 1). Impact on Market Position It is because of the implementation of total quality management by Qatar Airways that the company is experiencing growth. Moreover, it is also because of TQM that the company has received a five star rating and the title of Airline of the year in 2011. Besides being awarded with these, the company has also been able to satisfy its customers. This is because focus has been laid by the company on comfort, providing fine cuisine to the travelers, and audio as well as video entertainment and by providing an award winning service. Moreover, the fleet which is use by Qatar Airways is young and modern and is not more than four years. This is also the reason the company plans to serve more than 120 destinations by 2013. Works Cited Bahmanziari, T. Is trust important in technology adoption? A policy capturing approach. The Journal of Computer Information Systems, 2003. Pp.1. December 5th, 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-software-management/946845-1.html Cohen, S. & Ronald, B. Total quality management in government: a practical guide for the real world. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993, pp. 150. Dunbar,I. & McDonald,M. Market Segmentation: How to do it, how to profit from it. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004, pp. 100. Flood, R. L. Beyond TQM. Chichester: J. Wiley & Sons, 1993, pp. 50. Flottau, J. Qatar Airways Profitable Since Day One, Says CEO. 2011, pp.1. December 5th, 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aviationdaily&id=news/avd/2011/02/03/11.xml Qatar Airways. What’s New. 2011, pp.1. December 5th, 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.qatarairways.com/global/en/whats-new.page Read More