Dive Brief:
- Results of a recent report by Forbes Insights and ASQ reveal that quality initiatives within a company have a direct impact on profit growth, Forbes reported Monday.
- Those organizations seeking continuous improvement tend to benefit from increased staff productivity. The most common areas chosen for quality initiatives include operations, customer service and production.
- A focus on quality aids in retaining continued agility and responsiveness needed to address the growing needs of customers who could become repeat buyers thanks to high quality.
Dive Insight:
Quality assurance is a pivotal piece of a resilient supply chain: Each link is responsible for delivering a product or a service, and any actor's sub-par job — be it in transport, packaging, or manufacture — can cause costly disruptions.
A glance at the Samsung Galaxy Note 7's combustible battery, problems in the healthcare supply chain, and retail sales of Egyptian cotton are cases in point. Yet, as margins and fulfillment timelines decrease, other priorities may force quality control measures to fall through the cracks. How, then, can executives build out quality initiatives?
It all starts with the culture, according to the Harvard Business Review. A company culture that continually initiates improvements tends to have a trickle-down effect on its staff and its customers. Consistently striving to build a better product is what makes a difference between positive and negative buyer reviews. At the end of the day, the product sold, how it is packaged and it's on-time performance leave lasting impressions on supply chain partners.
Responsive, sensitive reactions to customer requests and observations are likely to earn loyalty and thus reap greater profit. This holds true whether it is a supply chain is based in consumer-packaged goods or manufacturing.
Yet, the impact of poor quality is especially disastrous when consumers are directly involved in product reviews. As many of 26% of consumers admit to using social media to air grievances and share complaints about a company with poor quality products, extending bad impressions across networks. Correcting a bad impression is a lot more difficult than avoiding one in the first place; meanwhile, creating a culture of quality is a low-investment business case with a high yield potential.