Integration of quality management and strategic management towards customers: A strategic approach

Abstract

Emergence of newer and better technologies, mergers and acquisitions, trade policies, globalize competition has
made the ground full of strategic competition among different organization. The endeavor to capture the market
has seen a lot change in years and is shifting towards retaining customer. From the years down the line the
market has seen a shift from Agricultural revolution to industrial revolution to information revolution which is to
be followed by customer revolution. The urgent need is to understand the broad term of customer and aligning the
resources towards the upgraded demands of customer. The traditional definition of organization can be viewed in
a broader perspective with including those for whom organization is in existence. This includes all the
stakeholders such as shareholders, customers and regulatory bodies etc. The organization will excel if it includes
the customers at all the levels of the organization. The definition of internal and external customer is known to
everyone; more important is to address potential customers, dormant customers and hidden customers. All the
efforts of the companies should be aimed at customers. Apart from retaining the existing customers, they should
strive to attract potential customers and dormant customers and at the same time alert from the threat posed by
hidden customer to avoid any infiltration. The success of organization rests upon how rapidly and efficiently
organization sets a rapport with the customer. The paradigm of strategic management is shifting towards
customer and quality. The cutting edge competition is to develop quality products and services at the optimized
cost. The concept of built in quality products can be a novel solution for creating a value for quality products. The
organization should streamline all the operations for developing such built in quality products and also effectively
propagating it. The organization need to understand that they got a ready source of ideas in the form of
customers, so why to wait time in brainstorming for ideas. More crucial is identifying and measuring ideas through
a communication channel with the customers as a continuous process. Organizational excellence of any business
enterprise will depend upon its ability to envision the changing habits of above defined categories of customer
and structuring the operations in accordance.