SMEs must think beyond quality certifications

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Bikky Khosla | 04 Oct, 2011
In the last few decades, the business environment has changed tremendously, thanks to emergence of cross-cultural environment, increasing influence of MNCs, and growing technology-oriented operations. With these changes, competition has become intense, and as a result, quality improvement has become one of the keys to business survival and excellence.

Do our small and medium enterprises (SMEs) really recognize the importance of quality improvement? Is the level of our exporters' quality awareness enough to survive the international competition? I feel, there is a lot to do for the SMEs in this field. Although the number of small firms achieving quality assurance certification is increasing gradually these days, still their quality awareness has hardly gone beyond these certifications. This attitude needs to be changed.

For years, India businesses have succumbed to a structure based on functions where functions are outlined, rules are developed, and policies are implemented, and as the firm grows, more and more functions are created. It leads to a comfortable work environment but with a little scope for creativity. The modern day business environment, in contrast, demands a more dynamic environment where a business can untap the brains of workers.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is one of such revolutionary quality improvement concepts that can help our SMEs a lot. First bursting on the international scene in the early 1980s, the strategy was enthusiastically applied by the Japanese companies after the World War II, and within a few decades, it resulted in turnaround of Japan's industrial fortunes. Since then, TQM has become widely popular as an ultimate weapon for quality improvement.

Another quality improvement approach that has become highly popular is Six Sigma, which, I think, also could be a potent strategy for SMEs to survive business competition by transforming the culture and actions of the entire organization. Originally developed by Motorola in 1986, this approach defines the concept of achieving approximately zero defects following a six-step method.

In today's business environment, quality movement is here to stay always. The deregulated global competition has left no choice even for the small firms but to awaken themselves to the potential of competitiveness provided by quality. SMEs must think beyond quality certifications, which, as far as marketing is concerned, have merits but hardly help when it comes to improving business leadership.