Defining the topic:
Quality is an abstract term so to define it is bit difficult. But I will try doing that. “Quality is what satisfies the customer” (I have given this definition because you as a MBA are expected to think from customer point of view) Quality of a product made by a company is always dependant on the type of product and more importantly on type of consumers they target.
Like for example Television manufacturers will always have TV’s with different picture quality in market and as quality increases so does the price. But manufacturers of soft drinks have a price that is affordable by all and moreover they deal with health of a person so they cannot negotiate with the quality of their product.
Quality is something that gives three majors aspects to any product or services that is Reliability, maintainability and Safety. It suggests standards maintained by the company maybe high or low. If its a good quality product so is the goodwill of the company.
Now quality is not always a myth neither it’s always a reality, so in a GD do abstain from taking a stance instantly.
REALITY
Talking about India, India has set a Quality Council in 1997. QCI provides strategic direction to the quality movement in the country by establishing recognition of India conformity assessment system at the international level. QCI also has quality quality inspection bodies for regular quality assessment in any industry.
Quality helps in defining countries economy/GDP and it’s stature in global map.
Example’s GERMANY is known to manufacture it’s high quality cars which has luxurious and are one of their type in the world like Mercedes, Porsche, Smart etc.
INDIA is known for it’s services, which is of highest quality, in service sector industry which contributes more than 50% in GDP.
Companies like JUST DIAL have grown because of excellent quality of the service they provide. Whenever we call the helpline of justdial, an operator would attend to your call in less than 5 seconds which is less than most of the service providers.
JUMBO VADAPAV runs its business on the quality of vadapav they provide for which it doesn’t matter to them if their vadapav is costlier than the one found anywhere else. It now has 100 centres all over Mumbai and their major success factor is quality of their product.
In any pharma company in INDIA or abroad quality is something they cannot play with. They have to maintain the FDA recommended “Good Manufacturing Practices” even if they like it or not.
MYTH
But having said all this its not so nice everywhere. Quality remains still a myth at several places.
China is known to focus on quantity rather than quality. China mobiles in market are cheaper then you can imagine. Phones with same facilities in other brands are available at 4-5 times the cost of China mobiles. But the quality of phone and their accountability is never guaranteed. I mean if you see their sound quality its like the phone is still of ancient times.
Indian market some products that do lack quality due to following reasons: Cost, Time, Attitude, Lack of Competition etc. It takes an initial cost to renovate an existing product to bring in quality and assurance of quality. The 'chalta hai' attitude of some producers is taking its toll. For example, every year some thousands of farmers are committing suicides for fake seeds. And government than have to induce huge money like last year (25,000 crore were infused in agriculture industry as a bailout plan). We seriously lack in quality fertiliser and irrigation facilities. Many are dying due to food poisoning.
Many buildings are collapsing due to lack of quality in their planning. Example during Gujarat earthquake of 2001, in a city like Ahmedabad which has 4.6 million population as many as 50 multi storeyed buildings collapsed, and the main reason being that they were not constructed in a way where they can resisit an earthquake. For example most of the buildings there stood only on pillars at their base but if u see in Mumbai most of the buildings have large walls or some rooms at their parking place and not just pillars which makes the buildings more resistant to earthquakes.
Drastic differences:
· We have a high quality mineralised water (Bisleri) but at so many places there is lack of portable drinking water.
· Our ambulances cannot reach the destination in even an hour but we have pizzas delivered in less than half an hour.
· Our city roads are full of potholes and so called KHADAS and just connecting them would be express highway that shortens the journey time quite a bit.
Well friends do add in some points which you think are worth discussing in this topic.
I would say I had the toughest time writing this as it is not at all an easy topic to discuss on. I hope I did justice to the topic.
