Business
Importance of Quality
The importance of quality in business lies in its ability to enhance customer satisfaction, build brand reputation, and drive long-term success. By consistently delivering high-quality products or services, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors, foster customer loyalty, and ultimately achieve sustainable growth. Prioritizing quality also leads to cost savings by reducing rework, returns, and warranty claims.
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8 Key excerpts on "Importance of Quality"
eBook - ePub- Ray Tricker(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
The Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) have carried out extensive research on this point and have advised that the effective management of quality not only creates value for an organisation and its stakeholders but also manages its exposure to risk and can make the difference between success and failure.A properly implemented and effective business management system identifies and manages organisational risks to ensure that:• the organisation consistently delivers the products and services that customers want, when they want them and to the quality they expect;• customer satisfaction and loyalty is improved;• organisational goals and objectives are achieved;• organisational risk is identified and effectively managed;• products and services, and the processes that deliver them to customers are continually improved through innovation;• waste throughout the organisation is identified and eliminated; and• partnerships and the supply chain deliver value to the parties involved.1.2 THE Importance of Quality
First of all, what is meant by the word ‘quality’?! Basically, the quality of a products and services refers to the degree to which they meet, and continues to meet, customer expectations. In business, there are many meanings of quality, such as:• ‘A product or service free of deficiencies’ (Deming);• ‘Conformance to requirements’ (Cosby);•
eBook - ePub- Martin Christopher, Adrian Payne, David Ballantyne(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Relationship marketing involves creating bonds with members in different markets through exchanging value, where the quality of what is exchanged and the service that delivers it conform to – or even exceed – what has been promised. Quality is both the act of differentiating the offering and the way the receiver evaluates it. Quality is the receiver's perception of the offering's uniqueness and value. It is also the means by which the firm sustains its position over time among competing offerings. This notion of total quality, achieved through service, reliability and continuous improvement, reconciles marketing promises and perceived performance. Traditionally, marketing has focused on customer acquisition. Retaining customers involves delivering value through fulfilling promises. Efforts within the firm to integrate quality, customer service and marketing competencies should aim to keep valuable customers as well as win them.Delivering customer valueThe concept of interaction is essential in relationship marketing in the sense that value is created and shared through interaction. Interaction starts with any action that generates a response. This may sound simple, but it provides the basis from which to examine the value delivery process that brings quality, customer service and marketing together.Services marketers are familiar with guiding, influencing and designing the context and nature of regular customer interactions to achieve superior quality control and enhance value for the customer. For example, interaction is the basis for the so-called ‘moments of truth’ between customers and suppliers, for the role of customers as co-producers of services, for the role of a firm's customer service people, and, most importantly, for the way all these connect with the firm's internal support systems.7In services industries customer value is created, delivered and consumed simultaneously, provided it is backed up with adequate internal service support. As a consequence, in service companies the value creation process partly parallels the value delivery process. In manufacturing and distribution, on the other hand, one follows the other, end to end. Of course, the delivery process may be a composite of many processes, as in the case of multiple distribution channels.
eBook - ePubTotal Quality Management (TQM)
Principles, Methods, and Applications
- Sunil Luthra, Dixit Garg, Ashish Agarwal, Sachin K. Mangla(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
The design of quality services consists, first of all, of formulating a plan to satisfy a specific need or problem. The services are usually made to order, so it is important that the service is designed according to the specific requirements of the client. For example, the software developed for an organisation requires the complete specific program for the unique design requirements.- Quality of service delivery
The quality of delivery is important in all sectors, but services are key criteria to success. There are so many organisations that work in delivery, such as Ekart Logistics, etc. So it is better for business growth.1.4 DEFINITION OF QUALITY
- Quality is defined as degree of excellence.
- A quality process or product is fit for its purpose.
Evolution of this definition took place in quality circles. It is applicable to any process, product, or service. It thus makes this definition useful, but it is a bit difficult to measure quality according to this definition.
- In manufacturing, a measure of excellence or a state of being free from defects and deficiencies is called ‘quality.’
- Garvin (1984) divides the definition of quality into five categories, including product-based, user-based, and value-based. Further, he gave eight attributes to define quality: Performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics and perceived quality, etc.
- According to Crosby (1979) ‘Quality is conformance to requirements/specifications.’
This is an ideal definition for quality control teams that need to validate processes, systems, services, and product quality. Depending on the requirements, they can easily validate compliance and identify nonconformities. The problematic part of this definition is that it can offer a biased and subjective view of quality. In many cases, the requirements are little more than the ideas of the business stakeholders. Often there is no objective validation that these ideas give a quality result.
eBook - ePub- Pierre Maillard(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Wiley-ISTE(Publisher)
1.2. The role of quality in a company’s competitiveness
Once again, we are dealing with a concept which is not clearly defined: competitiveness. Note that everyone uses this term, but with very varied meanings attached to it. Furthermore, in order to be able to precisely link the concept of quality with that of competitiveness we feel it is crucial to give it the meaning described in the following table. This definition may seem vague to a specialist’s eyes, but nowhere in the body of literature on the subject have we found a more relevant description.Again, we take the risk of proposing the following definition.Table 1.11. A company’s competitivenessIn order to act on a company’s competitiveness, one must identify and act on its competitive factors.A company’s competitiveness is its capacity to bring its stakeholders to procure the products/services it wishes to provide them with, rather than those of its competitors, in spite of the efforts the company requires of the stakeholders in order to procure, appropriate and use these products/services.For instance, obtaining greater profit margins than those of competitors is a competitive edge in the eyes of the investors, the employees and even the suppliers, because these profit margins mean the company has a greater capacity for investment on equity, which enables it to adapt to changes in its environment. The competitive factor attracts the investors, employees and suppliers because it increases their confidence in the company’s capacity to fulfill their need. It enables the company to be more demanding in terms of the resources that it asks of them in return.The more intense the competition, the more the company must capitalize on its competitive edges.Competitiveness is born out of competition. It enables the company to continue to sustain itself by drawing resources from its environment in spite of the attraction exerted by other companies on the entities which supply these resources.
- Joanna Rosak-Szyrocka, Justyna Żywiołek, Muhammad Shahbaz, Joanna Rosak-Szyrocka, Muhammad Shahbaz, Justyna Żywiołek(Authors)
- 2023(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Ruiz-Delatorre & Sanchez-Bote, 2021 ) are product knowledge, customer behavioral loyalty, and perceived product value. At the same time, customer satisfaction was defined as an indicator composed of five sub-factors: image, customer expectations, perceived product quality, perceived product value, and complaints. Also, loyalty can be considered as a two-dimensional variable, with a component of behavioral (relating to behavior) and an attitudinal component.8.4 Assure the Customer Value
Trends in markets are leading to target Industry 4.0 and Economy 4.0, especially in terms of new technologies, gradual transformation, and digitalization of enterprises, including automation. An appropriate organizational structure coupled with functional operations will lead to a stronger market position for the business. These are not the only key aspects for the success of a business but the key aspect is a satisfied customer. It can therefore be concluded that in recent years, an increasing trend toward focusing on the customer and their needs has prevailed.A very important aspect of any company’s operation, apart from financial health, is a satisfied customer, which, among other things, also helps to fill the company’s revenue component, and therefore their loyalty and repeat purchase are desirable. Businesses should address the requirements and what is expected by their customers so that they can meet these. In fact, a satisfied customer is one of the possible elements of achieving competitiveness and also one of the paths to growth and expansion of a company. It is therefore essential that businesses analyze their customers’ requirements, meet them, and strive for continual improvement of quality. Quality management is an integral component of a company’s operations and should be continuously improved. With the help of proper customer fulfillment, customers are satisfied, return, profits increase, and customer loyalty increases referrals and reduces some of the company’s expenses (Štverková, 2014 ).Segmenting customers is essential to properly maintain customer value. Marketing management is essential for proper business management, and one of the methods is just market segmentation, especially business environment analysis. The business environment is split into homogeneous groups of customers according to some aspects. Market segmentation is the inclusion of customers into segments with similar characteristics, where an effort is made to identify customer needs according to individual specifics. For those organizations that are able to determine unserved market segments, they can achieve a leading position in that market provided they find them first and provide them with their services. Understanding the specific needs of each segment forces companies to develop and offer product or marketing programs to groups of customers who have similar buying criteria. To make segmentation effective, it is necessary to focus on the company’s portfolio, to specify the offer for the given customer segments. And focus on the profitability and shift to where the company has a competitive advantage. A company can use customer segmentation as a basic way to allocate resources in terms of further product development, marketing, services, and distribution programs (Pohludka & Štverková, 2019
eBook - ePubBusiness Planning for New Ventures
A guide for start-ups and new innovations
- David Butler(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
● Ensuring regular contact with the customer, ideally through a named individual who can get to know the customer and their individual needs. Using a specific contact person such as an account manager or regular telesales caller makes the interaction much more personal, as the customer can deal with someone they know will be able to help them. One-to-one communication is good for relationship building and it makes the customers feel they are valued and important to the supplier. It also provides a route through which the company can communicate its quality policies and standards to customers.● Establishing specific and measurable quality standards for the products or services and for the interaction of staff with customers defines the levels of performance for the managers and staff, and exactly what the customers can expect from their dealings with the business. It also enables all parties to identify when standards are not being met as well as when they are being exceeded.● Honesty between suppliers and customers is a key element of maintaining strong relationships, and that includes always being open and honest with customers and not promising what cannot be delivered. Customers do not like to be let down by suppliers but as long as that is a one-off event it can probably be resolved. What they really dislike most of all is being lied to and let down, and that can lead to a loss of business, so if a delivery deadline cannot be met it is better to notify the customer in advance so they can make other plans and not waste time and money possibly keeping staff and resources on standby for a delivery that is not going to happen.●
eBook - PDFManaging Quality
Integrating the Supply Chain
- S. Thomas Foster, John W. Gardner(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Later we provide a means for recognizing and resolving differences in perception. Finally, we introduce the contingency view of quality management that we emphasize throughout this book. 4 DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES ON QUALITY What Is Quality? If you ask 10 people to define quality, you will probably get 10 different definitions. Product Quality Dimensions There are several definitions of quality, or quality dimensions. One of the most respected col- lections of quality dimensions was compiled by David Garvin 2 of the Harvard Business School (see Table 1-1). Garvin developed a list of eight quality dimensions (see Table 1-1). These dimensions describe product quality specifically in the following paragraphs. Performance refers to the efficiency with which a product achieves its intended purpose. This might be the return on a mutual fund investment, the distance an electric automobile can travel on a single charge, or the acoustic range of a pair of stereo speakers. Better performance is usually synonymous with better quality. Features are attributes of a product that supplement the product’s basic performance. They include many of the “bells and whistles” contained in products. A visit to any television or com- puter retail store will reveal that features such as surround sound, HDTV capability, 3-D, and size are powerful marketing tools for which customers will pay a premium. A full-line television retail store may carry televisions priced from $200 to $12,000. This range represents a 6000% price premium for additional features! Reliability refers to the propensity for a product to perform consistently over its useful design life. A subfield in quality management has emerged, called reliability management, based on the application of probability theory to quality. A product is considered reliable if the chance that it will fail during its designed life is very low.
eBook - PDFThe American Samurai
Blending American and Japanese Managerial Practices
- Jon P. Alston(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
8.2 Definitions of Quality Quality has two general definitions. The first meaning of the term is what Philip B. Crosby, former vice president of the ITT Corporation, calls con-formance to requirements. Crosby means by this phrase that a product should be built according to formally-stated specifications (Crosby, 1980:15). Quality is achieved when a product is produced the way it's supposed to be. Quality management guarantees that work will be done the way planned. In this context, quality performance depends on good communication. Orders (re-quirements) must be clear to those who are expected to carry them out. This is a problem not always understood by those who give directions. The extent directions are understood should never taken for granted. What is clear to an engineer may not be clear (or possible) to the machinist who actually does the work. Two other points dealing with how high-quality is achieved need to be made here. First, knowing what should be done is meaningless if workers cannot 8.2 Definitions of Quality 263 react quickly. As Philip B. Crosby (1984) emphasizes in another book, Quality Without Tears, production problems are often uncorrected until an expert arrives or after a shift shuts down. The problem of idled workers is eliminated by giving workers the permission and responsibility to make corrections. Workers are often able to make production changes to solve problems. The question is whether or not they are encouraged and trained to do so instead of expecting to wait for an expert. The second point I wish to make here is one often ignored. Management is in charge, and quality production is the responsibility of those in charge. When quality production is low or below specifications, the search for the origin of this problem should begin with managers and supervisors, not the workers themselves.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
