The Hidden Part of Quality Driven Strategies

At the end of last century, the world witnessed the bankruptcy of stars such as Pan-American and Swiss-Airlines while no one had doubts in their service quality. Almost at the same time, Virgin-Atlantic Airways added millions of travelers to the list of their customers without any superiority in their quality (Virgin Atlantic basic ally has no First Class service)! The saying of Henry Ford as: "High quality and low price are the only strategies of business" was also annihilated by the bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce as the quality manifestation. Nowadays, organizations with quality as the core of their competitiveness are faced to serious questions as: "Is higher quality a guarantee for more competitiveness and success"? "Does quality show a mixed signal in real business environment"? How can we put a more sensible fingerprint of quality on balance sheet of the companies?" This paper explores these issues and introduces a model which shows the differences between engineering initiated quality (EIQ) and market initiated quality (MIQ). This model shows that the only type of quality which can make an effective strategy for business is the one that has been grown on real needs (Hidden or Evident) of customers.

Keywords:

Quality , Strategy , Competitiveness