The Image Problem of Quality Management
Let’s face it, Quality Assurance, Quality Management (the Quality Profession in general) has a bit of an image problem. This is odd, since what could be more important to an organisation than the quality of its goods or services?
Image sourced from: regmedia.co.uk
Unfortunately this is often the reality. Quality rarely has a seat on the Board and perhaps because of this, often isn’t seen as integral to achieving the strategic goals of the organisation. In fact, it is often seen as a bit of an add-on, putting in place all sorts of obstacles to actually getting on with the job.
As a result, expenditure on quality is often viewed as a negative – the costs very much noted, but the benefits discounted.
So let’s examine the benefits of Quality Management.
The Benefits of Quality Management
As a Quality professional, you will of course be very clear about the benefits deriving from Quality Management. But this article isn't about that. It's more concerned with changing the narrative and changing the perspective of the rest of your organisation about Quality Management.
So let’s think about the ways to present the benefits. These can largely be summarised as follows:
- Quality Management reduces the risk of quality failure
- Quality Management enhances the business brand
- Quality Management supports new business
- Quality Management can reduce costs
Image sourced from: atadispo.com
Which argument you lead with will depend on the strategic objectives of the organisation you work for, but before we examine that in more detail, let’s explore each of these benefits in turn.
The Quality Management process reduces the risk of quality failure
This is a really powerful argument. What director wants to find their name synonymous with something going badly wrong? Also the costs of a serious quality failure can be truly eye watering, covering not only the cost of fixing the problem, but also potentially:
- Fines
- Compensation
- Reduced ongoing revenue from lost customers
- Reduced future revenue from lost potential customers
There have been plenty of quality failures in the news over the last few years, so it is easy to find examples. To read about just a few, look at this article:
3 Catastrophic Quality Failures Your Business Can Learn From
Image sourced from: thebreakingnews.co
However, although ‘Quality Management reduces the risk of quality failure’ is a powerful argument – it should be deployed with care. It can be seen as a very negative approach – almost scare mongering – and whilst sometimes scare tactics are just what’s needed, as an on-going approach this probably isn’t going to help with changing the reputation of the Quality Profession.
Quality Management enhances the business brand
This line of thinking aligns with the one above – brand reputation is a big casualty of quality failure - but looks at the whole thing much more positively. What every director absolutely wants, is their business names synonymous with Quality.
Quality relates to 'appropriate use' - how well a product does what is intended, or a service delivers as expected. So while a budget product or service isn’t expected to deliver to the same standard as a premium one, there are expectations of a quality level that both need to be set and met.
Quality Management is the mechanism for achieving this and as any organisation’s brand or name is priceless, protecting and enhancing this is extremely value adding.
Quality Management supports new business
Reputation is key to attracting new business, now more than ever.
Information on businesses, organisations and even individuals has never been easier to come by. All anyone needs is access to the internet and in a few moments, almost anything can be found out about anyone or any organisation. So this is what potential customers do and if they read good things about your organisation, they will move forward with discussions with you and if they don’t, they are likely to start looking at your competitors.
Image sourced from: thesundaytimes.co.uk
However it is more than that.
With so much information available on the internet, many of us are not sure what to trust and more and more of us ask someone we know who they would recommend. At a recent presentation I attended, it was stated that on average over half of the weight of buying decisions relates to a recommendation by someone trusted.
So now more than ever, it is crucial that your existing customers receive quality goods and services - as this is absolutely the best way to attract new customers.
Quality Management can reduce costs
This is true! Obviously there has to be an initial investment but once an effective Quality Management system has been established, cost can be substantially reduced.
How does this happen?
Well an effective Quality Management System is a way of capturing and intelligently presenting the way things should be done in your organisation to achieve a quality result. It presents a model of how your organisation should work. This both enables users to quickly find what they should be doing and the documents, forms etc to support them, as well as enabling the model to be interrogated for ways to make efficiency savings.
Image sourced from: data:image/jpeg;base64
What’s more, provided your QMS System enables this, the potential efficiencies can be modelled too, to establish that they really are improvements before they are made.
Achieving the Benefits of Quality Management
So you've just been presented with four very good arguments for Quality Management. The key to their effectiveness however, is aligning them and your quality strategy to the strategic objectives of your business.
So if you work in a well established business with a good reputation – promote Quality by protecting and enhancing the business brand.
If the business is in a high growth phase, use Quality to support new business.
And choose a great Quality Management System to enable you to do just that.
Learn more
Triaster is a BPM platform that delivers Quality Management for many organisations. We know that we won’t suit every organisation, but to learn a about how Equifax has benefitted from using Triaster, please click here:
Related Articles:
How to Achieve a Quality Strategy for your Business
Managing Risk in Business: How can I manage risk and avoid quality failure?
What is the cost of quality failure?
The Top 10 things your Quality Management System (QMS) must deliver