Strategic Management within the Framework of Total Quality Service - Essay Example

Strategic management within the framework of total quality service Introduction Everyone has had experiences of poor quality while dealing with business organizations. Such experiences might have involved loss of luggage during flight, purchased product that is damaged or late delivery by pizza delivery services. The customers experience poor quality when the employees of a company are not properly empowered to quality inadequacies. There may also be a case that the employees are not fully committed towards delivering quality in the offerings. Whatever be the cause, the end result in constant, i.e. customer dissatisfaction that may be lead to loss of customers. With the rise of competition consumers have more options than ever. Therefore a dissatisfied is most likely to leave a company and move to another company. Therefore all the major companies round the globe have set customer satisfaction as the prime objective leading to evolution of total quality management. However, before discussing the concept of TQM one has to explain quality. According to experts there is no concrete definition of quality. But still quality can be defined as the fitness for use. It is conformance to requirements. Quality of a product or service can be defined as the ability to satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers. So it can be said that quality is a journey, but not a destination. The concept of TQM has existed for many years, although the meaning and perception towards TQM has evolved over the year. After the World War II the quality became more quantifiable in nature. In the early 50’s statistical sampling were used to analyze the quality of the products leading to the true evolution of TQM. By 1960 thanks to the quality gurus the concept took a broader meaning. TQM can be defined as a method to increase the customer satisfaction. It reduces defects of an organization and increases the productivity. However, TQM is not supposed to be restricted to the production department only (Kundu, 2009, p.130). TQM can be successfully implemented through an integrated approach adopted by the organization. This requires the involvement of the employees of all the departments, as well as the involvement of top management. A successfully implemented TQM system can help the organization gain strategic leverage. The study looks to explore various key elements of TQM and relationship strategic importance of TQM with respect to various organizational departments and corresponding activities. Human resource management Total quality management has deep implications on human resource management. This emphasizes on autonomy, self control and creativity among the workers rather than simple compliance. At the heart of TQM lies on the concept of intrinsic motivation of the employees. In management terms this is more commonly known as employee empowerment. Employee empowerment should not be confused with job delegation or job enrichment. Delegation refers to assigning jobs as per the merit. An employee empowerment program treats the employees as partners. Employee empowerment has become an integral part of the overall corporate strategy of many major organizations like Walmart. However, the first organization to implement the employee empowerment was Toyota. The lean (Toyota) system is still famous for more productive, smaller yet efficient output increasing the pride and involvement among the employees. To further stress on the role of the employees in achieving quality TQM differentiates between the internal and external customers. External customers are those that buy the goods and services. The internal customers are those who receive products from the company itself. Such concepts of TQM have lead to formation of quality circles in various organizations. Continuous Improvement Another important concept of the TQM philosophy is the focus on the Continuous Improvement. There are various models have invented by the quality gurus emphasizing on the Continuous Improvement. Some of the concepts are the plan-do-study-act-cycle, kaizen theory. However, in this section the Kaizen theory would be discussed. Kai stands for change and Zen stand for better. It is means step by step gradual improvement and doing little things in a better way, setting high standards and involving everyone in the process. Kaizen involves the sequenced questioning of each process for its ‘purpose, place, sequence, person and means. While formulating this theory he brought together the management, philosophies, theories and tools. Kaizen is largely responsible for the economic success of Japan. Kaizen is therefore an umbrella; which covers all the tools and techniques of continuous improvement. The Kaizen umbrella involves philosophies such as TQC, Zero defect, Quality circle, Kanban, JIT, etc. Kaizen suggested that the continuous improvement is a must in the age of global competition. The improvements made by the competitors and ever increasing expectations of the customers force any organization to ensure an increasingly better quality through Kaizen approach Customer Focus The first overriding attribute of the TQM feature is the focus on the customers. Quality can be roughly defined as meeting and if possible exceeding customer expectations. TQM advocates that the companies should first identify the needs of the customers and meet them. TQM understands that the perfectly developed produced has very little value if it does not meet the desired customer needs. Therefore according to TQM quality should always be customer demand driven. However, it is not always easy to understand the needs of the customers, as the customer needs and preferences changes from time to time. Therefore the companies need to conduct market research from time to time to understand consumer demand and deliver value in the form of quality. The customer focus concept of TQM has deep resemblance with the marketing concept that also puts meeting customer needs as prime objective (Sukhija, 2009, p. 207) EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION Employee satisfaction is one of the key performance measures of the organization. It is seen as an n important factor in business effectiveness. The negative feeling of the employees can affect the functioning of the firm. Organizations focusing on employee satisfaction enjoy low attrition rate and high level of productivity. Employee satisfaction is at the heart of the Total quality Management Model. TQM differentiates between the internal and external customers. External customers are those that buy the goods and services. The internal customers are those who receive products from the company itself. Such concepts of TQM have lead to formation of quality circles in various organizations. Ted once said that employee satisfaction is as important as customer satisfaction. Quality guru Ishikawa believed that a company whose employees are not happy does not deserve to exist. Service Scape Service industry is a lot more complex as compared to manufacturing industry. This is because services are intangible as compared to goods that are tangible. Hence ensuring quality standards are a bit more complex in service industry. The Servicescape can be defined as the environment where the service is assembled & delivered to a customer. Over the years the service marketers have realized that it plays a major role in improving the service quality. In order to do so the service marketers are looking to tangibilize the services via the physical evidence (Oakland, 1993, p. 134). The followings are the ways in which it can be used to improve the services: Facility and Design It refers to the arena of the service. It plays a major role in the improving the service quality. The customers crates an image of the organization based on the facility & design. Surveys have shown that many BPOs in India suffer from high attrition rate mainly due to the monotonous design, décor, and layout. EQUIPMENT It conveys a message of modernity & efficiency. There was a massive difference in the government & the private sector banks as far as equipments used are concerned. The Private Banks were using the LCD screens, CCTVs, ATMs, not counting machines- where as the former stuck to the old ways. SIGNAGE Signage in the form of Billboards, hoardings, posters, glow signs are a continuous communicative medium. They usually contain the company’s positioning statements, brand logo etc. They also convey a powerful message of the existence of the company EMPLOYEE DRESS It is a medium to convey the message of the existence of the company. Army, police, doctors, lawyers use this effectively. REPORTS Reports help the organization to tangibilize the service. Documented reports in the form of the annual financial report, project report, and medical reports are also a way to convey the message of transparency. STATMENTS Statements in the form of company’s vision, mission, and goal help the company to distinctively & successfully convey its philosophy. Benchmarking Benchmarking is an important is an important tool in TQM. It enhances transparency and performance. Benchmarking can be defined as a tool to improve the performance of an organization. Benchmarking should be a reference or a measurement standard for comparison. Service benchmarking is however, much more complex than benchmarking in manufacturing business. Due to the increase in the complexity & competition of the service sector it is imperative that the service organizations benchmark their service. Because the org may think that it is doing well but it may not be the case. The service org may be performing well with-in it-self; but not as compared to its competitors which may lead to customer leakage. Considering the banking industry, the bank should benchmark its process rather than other issues such as the sales, assets, etc. Any organization must benchmark itself with its competitors or a company in the same sector which is performing very well. There after it must bench-mark it with the subsidiaries, sister company etc. which may be doing better in some areas as compared to the org. itself. Benchmarking basically shows how to increase the gap between the company & the no.2 or how to decrease the gap between the company & the number one. Top management Commitment and Leadership Top management commitment is one of the most important principles of TQM. TQM assumes that employees have a very strong relationship with the customer satisfaction. Top management commitment that encourages employee empowerment is very important in the implementation of TQM. The commitment of the top management in implementing the concept of TQM can be visible in training methodology of the employees and opportunity to provide to the employees to improve the quality of the work. TQM concept supports a flattened organizational structure with shared responsibilities. Employee empowerment and increases level of job satisfaction can be achieved by the top management leadership by commitment to the objective of customer satisfaction (Crosby, 1989, p. 452). Service Culture In order to establish the relationship between the service culture and TQM the concept of flower service would be discussed. The flower of service states that the core services are surrounded by supplementary service. The supplementary services can be classified in to Facilitating services and Enhancing Services (Kotler, 2001, p. 407). The details of the Facilitating and Enhancing services are: Information: Customer must be given the right info about what to buy & how to buy. Order: Customers sometimes need to order or reserve things in advance. After the order the customers want secure commitment of delivery. Billing: Each and every customer should get clear and accurate billing and statements Payment: Customers are likely to be happy if the transactions convenient and simple. Consultation: Companies can add value to the offerings by providing consultation and advice to the customers. Hospitality: Each and every customer consumes time and effort in visiting the marketers place. Therefore the companies should be treated with respect and love. Safe keeping: Customers do not want to worry about personal belongings while coming to service site. Therefore the personal belongings of the customers should be looked after and the proper security should be ensured. Exceptions: Customers always want to see some flexibility from the business entities. Customers expect that some of the special request made would be taken care off. TQM and Social Responsibility Research has shown that both TQM and CSR tend to have positive effect on the employees. Some experts believe that CSR and TQM are like-minded. But there are some that begs to differ. TQM is based on the absolutist ethics. On the other hand CSR is mainly ambiguous. Therefore the strategic managers should be careful before indulging on TQM and CSR simultaneously. Information and analysis system Total quality management of an organisation helps in delivering total quality services. The underlying platform of successful implementation of total quality management in an organization is the availability of information and subsequent analysis. The total quality aspect of service is entirely information centric. Information plays a very significant role in implementation of total quality of service as total quality management is based on receiving appropriate and timely information required for decision making. An organisational database comprises of varied information on all aspects starting from its suppliers, distributors, debtors, creditors, stakeholders as well as information on its operational aspects. It should be noted here that all the information available may not be of specific use for providing quality services and ensuring total quality management. Instead relevant and pertinent information is required for decision making. In this stage, analysis of the available information becomes significant. Various analytical tools are used to obtain filtered and relevant information required for framing short term as well as long term strategies and policies of the entity related to operation cost, investments, promotional campaigns, attainment of major stake in market capitalization, etc. Thus information and analysis proves to be an important aspect of total quality management. Union intervention Total quality management emphasizes the importance of union intervention in providing total quality service by establishing direct and close relations between the employer and the employee. The total quality of service can be implemented only when the employees take greater interest in their work and find themselves in the same line with the organisational goals of primary focus in delivery of total quality service to their customers. This establishes consonance between the business and the processes of implementation of strategies. Union intervention in negative sense of putting demands of employees in cases of agitation and unrest can hamper the total quality implementation aspect of the management. In other words, maintaining a healthy relation with the union and negotiating with their interventions in a fair manner would help the company in restoring a peace work environment working towards continuous improvement and thereby leading to total quality management. Technical system The total quality management encompasses the concept of Just in Time delivery of services. The total quality of services can be ensured by developing the work culture towards result orientation, management of people of the organization, planning and leadership, monitoring and control thereby delivery a high quality service in the right time. The entire process gains momentum in the presence of a well developed technical system. The technical system encompasses knowledge based systems, management-information systems, information technologies, application of business intelligence systems, etc. The technical system focuses on maintaining the technically oriented practices of training, continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. The technical systems provide technical information by application of technical tools. The technical tools involve statistical analysis for decision making, Pareto analysis and other analytical tools. Use of all these technical tools by intelligence experts after developing a well-integrated technical system which would work in tandem with the management information systems and application of information technologies could ensure total quality management of the company. Conclusion With the rise in competition the importance of delivering quality is the main objective of the companies. Poor quality of products or services is most likely to lead to loss of customers. Therefore the firms should ensure successful implementation of TQM. TQM is not just restricted to the production department only. An ideal TQM system improves the moral of the employees through employee empowerment programs. The customer demand is at the heart of the TQM concept. Due to such reason the TQM system drives towards the achievement of highest possible quality and continuous improvement. References Crosby, P. B. (1989). Lets Talk Quality. US: McGraw-Hill. Oakland, J.S. (1993). Total Quality Management: The Route to Improving Performance. UK: Butterworth-Hienman Limited. Kundu, A. (2009). Productions and Operations Management. IND: Matrix Educare. Sukhija, R. (2009). Quality Management: An Excellence Model. IND: Global India Publications. Kotler, P. (2001). Marketing Management. IND: Prentice Hall of India Pvt. Ltd. Read More