HEWLETT-PACKARD

Quality- why do organisations still continue to get it wrong?

Term Paper

25th Oct, 2013

By Group 2: Apoorv Kulkarni Bhavna Moryani Sanket Pattnaik

INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, NEW DELHI

Introduction
Quality is important to businesses but can be quite hard to define. Customers want quality that matches the price that they are prepared to pay and the level of competition in the market. Key aspects of quality for the customer include: Good design looks and style Good functionality it does the job well Reliable acceptable level of breakdowns or failure Consistency Durable lasts as long as it should Good after sales service Value for money

Value for money is especially important, because in most markets there is room for products of different overall levels of quality, and the customer must be satisfied that the price fairly reflects the quality. This paper addresses few basic questions first before sharing our experiences.

Why is quality important?

Quality helps determine a firms success in a number of ways: Customer loyalty they return, make repeat purchases and recommend the product or service to others. Strong brand reputation for quality Retailers want to stock the product As the product is perceived to be better value for money, it may command a premium price and will become more price inelastic Fewer returns and replacements lead to reduced costs Attracting and retaining good staff

However, Quality is always evolving because of things like improved technology, better materials, new manufacturing techniques and fresh competitors. No firm can afford to stand still as far as quality is concerned.

Why should an organisation be interested in quality?

Every business exists not to make a profit but also but to create and retain satisfied customers. A business would have no profits if it failed to create and retain satisfied customers. Providing products and services which meet customer needs creates satisfied customers.
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Anticipating future needs and expectations retains satisfied customers. Therefore, quality is vital to the survival of every enterprise.

What does quality apply to?

It applies to every product, service, process, task, action or a decision. Hence, there is an intrinsic quality in everything that an organisation does. This paper discusses our experiences in situations where quality was not taken care of.

Apoorv Kulkarni
Carz Ltd. (Tata Motors Dealer) Carz Ltd is one of the largest and oldest dealers of Tata Motors in Indore and has both a showroom and a service centre. Our last car purchase was a TATA car and hence Carz Ltd. was chosen as the preferred dealer. On the day of delivery the car was ready before we reached the showroom and the delivery process went on smoothly. However, to our dismay during the initial days of usage, a few defects were found and the dealers response to them was even more annoying. 1. On the very first day, when we looked for the users manual of the car, it was found out that they had supplied the user manual of the diesel variant of the same car while we had bought the petrol variant. On asking the dealer about this mix up his only response was, Sir we didnt have the user manual for petrol variant in stock hence we provided you the one for diesel variant. You may use the same as there is not much difference. He was not even aware that the car care instructions given in the manuals of diesel and petrol variants are completely different. 2. In a few days time while cleaning the boot space of the car we realized that the dealer had supplied the spare wheel of wrong size. Instead of R15, he had supplied a R16 wheel which is used in the diesel variant. 3. On one of the days we identified that even on switching off the AC switch; the AC was not getting switched off. On inspection of the problem, the dealer said that the complete AC unit would have to be changed which would be free of cost. On asking him to change the unit, he said the unit is not in stock and would only arrive with the next consignment of cars. He could not give us an exact date for that too. After a long wait the unit arrived. However, when the technicians opened the dashboard panel for fitting the new unit, they were not at all careful so as to not to break the plastic fittings. Also because of their greased hands the beige dashboard got dirty. After fitting the new AC unit, the dashboard did not fit in place as snugly as it was before. On complaining to the dealer his only response was, Sir he is a new technician, Ill send another experienced technician who will solve your
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problem. However the experienced technician could also not make the dashboard fit in snugly. ON complaining about all this to the service centre manager, he also was not able to give a satisfactory response. All he said was Sir all this keeps on happening in the cars. You can however drive your car until we get the new unit. On showing him the scratches and blemishes which had come on the dashboard after fitting the new AC unit all he said was Sir it wont be visible. Ill get it cleaned the next time you give your vehicle for cleaning. However, he knew pretty well that those scratches and blemishes cannot be removed. On analyzing the series of events, we can see that the dealer was not concerned about the quality of service. All he was concerned about was selling the vehicles. However, he failed to understand that if a customer is not provided quality service, not only would the customer defect away from your organization but would also do negative publicity in his peer group which would lead to a loss of many more potential and existing customers. Few points on which the dealer should ponder over are: 1. Do we have a proper pre delivery inspection procedure? 2. Is the staff well trained on the PDI process? 3. Do they have a work instruction sheet/checklist for carrying out the pre delivery quality check? 4. Are the service centre workers properly trained for servicing the brand new cars so that they dont damage them while servicing? 5. Is the front office staff trained on customer relationship management? 6. Does the management take customer feedback seriously? 7. Is ServQual model being used to find out the gaps between expectations and perception? 8. What are the opportunities for improvement?

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