“Quality” is a word we use cheaply and complacently without embracing its full glory. It is defined from multiple perspectives and one of which calls it a “distinct ability to meet intended needs” Every twist and turn of the COVID-19 pandemic tested just 1 thing – QUALITY (i.e., the quality of brands, the quality of healthcare systems, the quality of education, the quality of leadership, the quality of organization systems, etc.) I believe that the survivors of this pandemic will not be the strongest but the ‘best quality’.
But can you afford quality? The cost of quality is not cheap but if rightly invested, IT IS. Basically, there are 3 kinds of cost – preventive (occurs before production), appraisal (happens during production) and failure (occurs after production). Personally, I think the most ignored is preventive and the most expensive is failure. But strategy is that preventive cost should avert failure cost.
Quality is cheap when you focus on the bottom-line which is Return on Investment (ROI). From our daily life activities, this is evident. How do you feel when you buy a box of nose-masks (maybe 15% below the average price) but it tears off at the slightest touch? You lose the total value of your money and time. Compare this to buying a good quality version, 15% higher than the average price or at the average price, the result is VALUE. So also, whenever labour cost is negotiated at the barest minimum, pursing price rather than quality, you incur WASTE for your company.
The issue of quality is a complicated one because if QUALITY is not your goal you would never understand the essence of making capital investment into your human resource. The quality of your business is the quality of your people. Return-on-Investment means there must be an investment first. Whenever you are stuck in decision-making, choose quality above price. In the long-run, quality is also cheap because it yields more than it costs.