Total Quality Management In The Telecommunication Industry

At present, the universal accepted definition for quality does not exist. However, different scholars have identified quality as excellence, value, conformance to specifications, conformance to requirements, fitness for use, product desirable attributes, loss avoidance and meeting customer expectations.

Whereas, Total Quality Management (TQM) describes a management approach towards long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization (from the top of the pyramid to the bottom) participate in improving the processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

Latent Needs Are Important

Telecommunication is defined as to communicate over a distance by telegraph, telephone or broadcasting. In other words, the transmission of information is known as telecommunication. The goal of every organization is retaining and maintaining customers especially in hyper competitive market such as telecommunications. The telecommunications industry has been known for having a successful “customer first” management approach for the last decade or so.

Hidden needs are important due to the fact that it has been proven that customers cannot always adequately express their needs and asking direct questions does not help with this problem. Usually market research is conducted through the use of questionnaires that may be poorly designed and result in unreliable responses.

In recent years companies have adopted the use of an anthropologist who is specifically hired to observe customers on many levels without the limitation or controls that are attached to collecting information and ideas through specific questions that ultimately limit the level of insight that companies can gain due to the simple fact that the use of questionnaires result in receiving responses on a specific area rather than the entire product and/or service as a whole. Additionally, the use of this type of method results in the discovery of customers’ hidden needs through observing body language, spatial signals and other subtle gestures, all of which are easily missed by amateurs. Overall latent needs of customer in the telecommunication industry in order to maintain a competitive advantage in terms of service provided as well as product choices in order to remain.

Latent Needs Importance For Managing

Latent needs are important in the telecommunication industry, in order to ensure continual advancement, this is due to the fact that latent needs are requirements that customers have but which they have not yet directly recognized. As these requirements rest on a sub-conscious level, customers are sometimes unable to articulate those requests and/or suggestions.

Thus, it is important for management of companies within the telecommunication industry to be aware of these needs in order to succeed in such a competitive market. For instance managing a company within the telecommunication industry may benefit from adopting the six sigma technique which is defined as a measurement of quality that strives for near perfection. Through the use of this technique the company gains the specific information from the customer (voice of the customer) that can be turned into specific service feature. Ultimately, the implementation of this technique will result in helping management to design a product and/or service that will result in attainment of competitive advantage.

Could the results the firm realized have been achieved without these self-assessment? The term “Self-assessment” is used in refer to the continual process through which managers at all levels within an organization, evaluate the effectiveness of their performance in all areas of responsibility as well as determine what improvements are required. It is apparent that all these firms implemented the use of self-assessment (checklists) after attaining quality certification and/or achieving several quality awards.

For instance Burton-Apta stated that the use of self-assessment resulted in improvements in various areas such as management commitment, strategy and planning, human resources, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, social impact as well as identifying specific areas that require improvements.

In the case of Westel Mobile telecommunications Co Ltd., the use of an assessment and review is focused on ensuring delivery of the company’s vision and mission via policies, strategies and processes that deliver stakeholder satisfaction, in addition to meeting societal obligations through direct employment, job creation, and sponsorship amongst others. Whereas, Herend Porcelain Manufacturing states that it is driven by customer and employee satisfaction and implemented ISO 14001 that resulted in employees becoming more involved, empowered to improve professional skills, quality attitude, problem solving amongst others.

Thus, I think the same results wouldn’t be achieved without the use of self-assessment, this is due to the fact that the use of these checklists reinforced the level of quality expected as well as resulted in benefits towards both employees and stakeholders.

A National Quality Award

Due to the examination that I have conducted on these firms, I think a national quality award is an important asset towards a nation’s economic growth. It is a particularly important aspect within developing countries such as my own. For instance, the presence of a national quality award reinforces the presence of national competitiveness According to Porter (1998), the term “national competitiveness” refers to examining the capability and ability of a nation’s economy to grow. This is measured through the use of a set of factors, policies, and institutions that determine a country's level of productivity.

Therefore, in the case of Kenya for example developing a framework to improve competitiveness by using quality tools, such as quality awards (a national quality award), as well as the Six Sigma, and Human Performance Improvement (HPI) will result in establishment of new value towards quality within industries present in Kenya simply by expanding their scope to consider the national competitiveness in addition to achieve excellence.

Additionally, the presence of a framework will provides a roadmap for quality award custodians and quality practitioners that will ultimately result in improved competitiveness to the nation as a whole. The continuity of the framework, which is based on a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, will help countries both to adjust quality criteria according to the changes in competitiveness results and to meet individual needs.

To conclude, a national quality award is an important aspect towards the economic growth of a nation. This is simply due to the fact that if firms have an award they are working towards attaining, they will strive towards making their organization better in terms of management commitment, strategy and planning, human resources, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, social impact, as well as societal obligation such as job creation that will aid a nation’s economy due to unemployment going down as well as provide opportunities towards the development of structures that firms would like to create and develop in order to create a real impact towards their nation.