Outlining the characteristics of those top-performing companies allows non-world class organsations to benchmark against and define an action plan to help advance toward world-class quality.
India's quality challenges
According to the Government of India's Ministry of Statistics, 95 percent of the manufacturers in the country consist of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and 5 percent are large manufacturers. This diversity in size and capabilities means significant variations in the application of quality practices. Many large and small companies are well ahead of their peers in the deployment and use of quality practices, while quite a few others lag far behind.
Spreading quality capabilities to organisations throughout India poses a unique challenge. Typically, smaller firms with limited resources and talent are most in need guidance and ‘hand-holding' to put them on the track to becoming worldclass. Larger firms, or those MSMEs that export their output to markets overseas, often have a greater stake in pursuing ‘world class' quality practices because their performance depends on how well their customers are serviced.
Raising the levels of quality across all enterprises in India calls for a collaborative, cluster approach, where groups of enterprises help one another to improve quality across the value chain.
The ASQ Global State of Quality study demonstrates that quality cannot be given short shrift if an enterprise is committed to offering superior products or services, providing shareholders a good return on their investments and assuring stakeholders that it is not undermining its collective value to society and the environment.
Progressive, world-class Indian organisations have to view the pressures from the market and regulators as opportunities that can be harnessed to stimulate innovations and mitigate risks in order to serve their customers and stakeholders even better. Indian enterprises consciously need to traverse towards becoming world class — or risk being overtaken by others.
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