Five Steps to World Class Quality
Indian enterprises — of any size or capability — that wish to become world class should undertake the following five steps to achieve world-class capabilities.

1. Enlist upper management in the transformation
   Enough evidence is available to demonstrate that senior leaders who understand that quality is a strategic asset and a competitive differentiator are better suited to transform their organisations. They lead the change process from the front, make available resources and personnel for ‘critical to quality' initiatives, and use the necessary tools to spread the gains of improvements across the enterprise. Leaders cannot delegate this responsibility.
2. Diagnose the current status and identify improvement areasManufacturers that are keen to transform themselves into world-class organisations need to assess the current status of their quality practices, metrics, procedures and standards and identify areas for improvement. Decision making will need to be more customer-centric and metrics, actions and rewards need to be aligned to promote overall business performance.
3. Measure the financial impact of quality initiatives Enterprises need to regularly and systematically measure and report the financial impact of quality improvement initiatives, customer loyalty programs, as well as remediation and the management of performance setbacks. These need to be reviewed by upper management, so that informed data-driven decisions can be made for new investments and process changes.
4. Use technology to upgrade, preserve and share skills and knowledge
   Provide the latest technologies to upgrade the capabilities of personnel and plan training and development interventions to enhance skills and keep the organisation change-ready. Simultaneously, tacit knowledge needs to be made available across the organisation with the help of platforms that can be readily accessed by all.
5. Streamline Quality Processes and Management Systems
   across the Value Chain
   Enterprises should continuously streamline their quality processes and management systems across the value chain, to ensure that any performance gaps or deficiencies are identified and quickly bridged. Gaining customer feedback in order to make improvements is an essential aspect of this process.

The article is written by Bharat Wakhlu who is President at The Wakhlu Advisory

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