Are your customers truly happy? If you can’t confidently answer that questions with a “YES,” you need to re-evaluate your quality management system because you’re on the verge of having zero customers.
Customer satisfaction is non-negotiable if you want to be successful in business. It speaks volumes in the little and big things. Often times, organizations lack the capacity to create this satisfaction, and it’s just a matter of time before things fall apart. Quality assurance helps you to maintain high performance.
These eight (8) principles of quality management are guaranteed to boost your productivity.
1. Customer Focus
Quality Management System (QMS) reiterates the widely accepted belief that customer is king. It helps you to meet and exceed customers’ expectations in your products and/or services. Ticking this box comes with many perks such as loyalty, increased revenue, waste reduction and recommendations.
Customers are breaking every ideology that they are passive. They are no longer totally accepting of whatever is presented to them. Now, they can sieve products and services offered to them – take out the shaft, and retain useful content. In a highly competitive terrain, pressing the right buttons in customers, is an edge successful business have over others.
2. Leadership
Leaderships stirs the boat. When leadership is shaky, your business is headed in the wrong direction. The end result of every initiative is either directly or indirectly linked to the contributions of the leaders. Lion begets lion. Sound leadership impacts great skills and behaviours to its subordinates. It’s no longer sufficient for leaders to tell their followers what to do while they do something totally different.
Leading by example is increasingly becoming key in achieving productivity at the workplace. People are more likely to effectively execute what they see than what they are told. Those in the helm of affairs should have the required skills to get the job done. You need to ensure that business goals and objectives are clearly understood by leadership to effectively guide employees.
3. People Involvement
The importance of employees to the success of an organization can’t be overemphasized. To get the best out of your staff, you must acknowledge their efforts and treat them with respect. They are willing to bring their “A” game to the table when they feel valued.
No matter how skilled you are, there’s only so much you can do. As businesses begin to grow, the need for more hands becomes imperative. There’s hardly a shortage of skilled manpower in the labour market, but most organizations lack the capacity to retain highly-skilled employees due to lack of a friendly work environment. When you begin to see employees as assets and not liabilities, you get to treat them the right way.
4. Process Approach
Processes are meant to increase productivity, maintain quality standards, reduce waste and save time amongst other things. Anything short of these, needs to be re-examined.
Your overall performance is as good as your processes. When these processes cannot be replicated, it calls for an overhaul. Create standard operating procedures for your operations. With these, your output isn’t dependent on the input of any worker but the established process. Tasks can be easily executed by other employees due to their outlined instructions.
5. Systematic Approach to Management
To get the most of processes, you need to create synergy. Identify key processes, and align complementary ones to them for efficiency. It’s great that you are passionate about your business, and would love to handle everything yourself. But in order to hit the high notes you desire, you need to get past the one-man mentality, and begin to run your business as a multibillion dollar venture.
Leading world businesses operate by systematization. They have credible systems in place that keep the ball rolling even when key players aren’t physically present. Systematization allows business owners to take a break from their hectic schedules, without their business suffering.
6. Continual Improvement
Don’t create a system and then go to sleep. Improvement isn’t a destination but a journey. With technological developments on the rise, innovations of today may become obsolete tomorrow. You need to continually look out for ways to improve your business operations. Constantly ask yourself: How can we perform better? Pay close attention to identify new opportunities, and be flexible to implement changes. You need to be able to adopt to changing business policies and environments. Sticking to old ways when the world has moved on is a disservice to yourself. Move with the trends, and harness every opportunity at your disposal.
7. Factual Approach to Decision Making
Decisions made can either make or mar your business. Businesses don’t thrive on sentiments but objectivity. Liaise with industry experts to be on top of happenings in your field. Pay attention to the numbers. What are the data analyses?
Seemingly little decisions have grave implications in business. It’s either you are making profit or at a loss. Every decision made must be accountable. Observe your competitors to identify the things that they are doing right. If it’s working for them, you might want to give it a shot too. Go through your records to evaluate your performance. If any areas of your business is underperforming, troubleshoot it to identify the cause, and decide on the next line of action.
8. Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relations
Your relationship with suppliers or business partners has an impact on your business. When you build a strong relationship with them, they’ll give you their best, and that will positively reflect in your business.
Every relationship blossoms when all parties involved are truly happy. Don’t use people for your selfish gains; it always backfires in the long run. Ensure that everyone enjoys due dividends.
There’s a certain level of confidence that comes with knowing that quality can be replicated and maintained over a long period of time in business. It reaffirms your expertise in your business, and wins the trust of not just existing customers, but those that will come on board.