The path to excellence is a necessary and profound cultural change, a philosophy about the integral management of the organization, through those values or beliefs that must be shared by all the members.
Total quality is a process that encompasses an organization as a whole, it can be defined that the total quality of its management will be determined by the levels of satisfaction it achieves in each of the sectors that have a common interest in organizational performance called stakeholders: customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers and the community.
The company that achieves the maximum satisfaction of each one of them will have permanently achieved Excellence defined as an ideal; a horizon that advances along the path of continuous improvement. By the way, it is a trip that has a clear itinerary, but does not recognize a port of arrival, since quality is an ever-current objective, but that never reaches a final level of satisfaction.
We believe that the total quality model towards excellence in business management is a fundamental asset to increase competitiveness in small and medium-sized companies, since today competition is global and we do not believe it is possible to go back in this regard.
Following the NATIONAL QUALITY PREMIUM FOUNDATION, we must analyze three key components of the Total Quality Model in companies.
- Leadership Management system Results obtained
Leadership
This criterion refers to the conviction and energy with which the management team guides the organization towards the achievement of excellence, through its management and example. Defines the method and procedures by which the board of directors establishes the values that will guide the actions of the company, defines its vision, mission and objectives unequivocally for decision-making based on the selection and analysis of relevant information, in addition to the Directors must communicate and disseminate the values (organizational culture), vision, mission and objectives to the entire organization, trying to align it under this philosophy, seeking synergy, creativity and innovation.
Management system
The system must ensure the continuity over time of the results obtained. We can divide it into four criteria:
Strategic planning: examines how the organization develops strategies and action plans that allow to specify the strategic directions. It also analyzes how short-term (one year) and long-term (more than one year) plans are developed and how their performance is monitored.
Focus on customers and markets: it is how the organization concentrates its action on specific customers and markets. For this, it is analyzed how it determines its requirements, expectations and preferences, current and future, satisfaction, loyalty and how that knowledge is used to develop future opportunities must also be taken into account.
Process management: these are the key aspects of the design, support, production and service processes as well as those related to suppliers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and dealers, thus understanding all the processes of the organization. take into account how the company identifies, operates, evaluates, ensures and improves its processes.
Human resource management: The way the organization promotes, aligning with its business objectives the maximum development and use of its staff. For these purposes, education, training and recognition of the human factor must be analyzed.
Results
These must fully and consistently satisfy all those linked to the organization: Customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers and in general terms the entire society as a whole.
Finally, we want to add that according to a study published by THE QUALITY MANAGEMENT FORUM in 1999 and reproduced by Ing. Irace Antonio (MANAGEMENT HERALD, SEPTEMBER 2002), considered an investigation in which they wonder if companies that apply total quality systems have competitive advantages over those that do not apply this system. The sample of 600 companies that won the MALCOLM BALDRIGE award (UNITED STATES NATIONAL QUALITY AWARD), concluded that the companies that applied a model of excellence showed better results than those that did not apply it and in times of recession were the companies They enjoyed stronger positions than their competitors who did not apply the model.
