The Power Of Quality!

Organisations not only need to set-up within themselves a quality culture and systems and processes but also need to take ownership of developing the entire supply chain and service delivery channels to ensure enterprise-wide quality excellence.

- CV Raman

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him….” Golden words said by Mahatma Gandhi, so true even in this modern, digitised and ever changing world. And, there is ample evidence of organisations and economies gaining success as super powers based on their ability to focus on customers and quality.

This article explains the rising economic power of quality, it’s relevance to Indian manufacturing, and some key learnings from the Maruti Suzuki experience.

The rising economic power of Quality: A Global Perspective

According to a recently published report by Forbes Insights and ASQ — a global community of quality professionals — top executives and quality professionals see a direct connect between the success of their organisations and the continuous improvement and performance excellence initiatives. The report brings out the importance of customer experience in today’s competitive economies.

The report surveyed 1,869 senior executives and quality professionals around the world including India. There are compelling links between quality efforts and corporate performance as well as the evolving business value of quality. Thirty-six percent of enterprises surveyed said that they regard themselves as an established quality organisation while 39 percent reported that they are still developing their quality programs and 25 percent said they are struggling to implement quality in their companies.

The report finds that those industry organisations that are considered world-class and a benchmark, demonstrate the following key characteristics that set them apart from their competitors: