By Joe McKendrick
When businesses were forced, overnight, to start operating remotely in response to the Covid-19 crisis, no one knew what to expect. There simply was no playbook that predicted such a massive dispersal of workforces and workplaces across the globe, for an indefinite period of time.
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As a result, organizations are increasingly recognizing the value of a committed quality-driven culture to carry them through the ups and downs of a fast-changing economy. Forbes Insights explored this new reality in its recent study Insights On Excellence: Navigating The Road To Quality In Today’s Technology-Driven Companies, conducted in partnership with ASQExcellence, a trade association whose mission is to set the standard for quality-driven offerings and insights worldwide, empowering the member organizations it serves to achieve excellence.
Read on for key survey takeaways and actionable insights from industry leaders about cultivating a culture of quality at your organization.
RAPID RESPONSES
In response to the advancing pandemic and mandated shutdowns, businesses had to quickly reorganize, with little time or resources to reflect on the implications of stalled or delayed quality improvement initiatives. Product and service quality to consumers continued to be a top priority, of course, but organizational processes and commitments had to temporarily take a back seat within many enterprises.
Even the most prepared organizations found themselves caught off guard. “We had many plans in place, from local floods, to shutdowns of essential technology, and even had something for a pandemic," says Alan Bell, Senior QA Manager at Pfizer and Treasurer and member of the ASQE Board of Directors. Bell, who was part of his organization's business continuity team for more than a decade, says there were plans for a major flu outbreak on the books, but the scale and intensity of the Covid crisis was off the charts, requiring new adaptations as things progressed.
Still, organizations with deeply ingrained cultures of quality and excellence found these foundations helped them navigate this unexpected crisis. "Despite the suddenness of the situation, our quality culture prevailed, and we didn’t miss a step," Bell relates. "We always focused on developing a strong quality culture. We engage our people to make quality and safety the first thing they think about before starting any activity. This guided us through the pandemic." In addition, he adds, a follow-up audit of workplace practices found "very few things slipped through the cracks."
LESSONS LEARNED
While the crisis tested organizations and their processes to the extreme, the lessons learned provide a blueprint going forward, as a highly interconnected world will continue to see new types of unprecedented challenges that threaten to disrupt normal business.
A quality-driven organization can remain focused on the long-term adaptability, resiliency, and—perhaps most of all—empathy needed to successfully navigate the uncertain world ahead.
As the Covid crisis struck, the reflexive reaction for many organizations was to put quality initiatives on hold as they scrambled to maintain continuity—misguided thinking that is detrimental in the long run, says Allen Wong, President of AKW Consulting and member of the ASQ and ASQE Boards of Directors. "It's an easy tendency for corporate leaders to put quality on the back burner," he says. "Because in a lot of organizations, quality is viewed as a bit of an overhead function, which is old-fashioned thinking. In reality, quality assurance is more than just overhead, it’s a new way of doing business. It’s a way of demonstrating the value you can bring to customers."
SUPPLY-SIDE QUALITY
The crisis put a spotlight on the importance of extending quality thinking well beyond the bounds of organizations, especially within an interdependent connected economy. Even before Covid struck, close to half of executives responding to the recent ASQE-Forbes survey on quality and excellence cite supplier issues as their leading challenge to quality, making this one of the leading issues faced. Supplier relationships were frayed during the crisis as both global and domestic supply chains suffered severe disruptions.
Managing across so many moving parts is "more than just product quality; it's systems quality," says Daniella Picciotti, President of QMS Alliance and Chair of the ASQE Board of Directors. As a result of the crisis, organizations are learning they need to be more prepared to make these sudden transitions. The crisis "had an impact on getting orders released to production, coordinating with customers, and shipping," she says.
A critical part of a quality-driven culture is "communicating and having a good relationship with your supply chain," says Wong. "For companies to be able to supply outstanding products and services, you need solid supply chains. You need to maintain them, to keep them going, to understand your needs and expectations, to be on the same page regarding your goals. Your suppliers need to be true partners. You gain more strength, you get more leverage, you get more synergy, when you can solve problems together."
TECH SUPPORT
A quality-driven culture can be supported through technology, and this proved to be the case as the Covid crisis forced the separation of employees and workplaces.
Bell notes that his company rolled out a collaboration platform before the crisis set in, which was first viewed as a nice feature to have but proved to be a vital communications link for his company. "It provided us spaces to collaborate, with focused chats and data files right there," he says. "It's been a real benefit for us." Technology also has been key for helping his company gradually move back to normal day-to-day operations. "We've developed systems that are helping us to re-open sites, and assuring that we're meeting the requirements for each site."
Technology promises to significantly advance quality and excellence to the forefront of corporate agendas, and will be instrumental in maintaining organizations through future crises. The ASQE-Forbes survey found universal agreement among executives and quality professionals that emerging technologies will strengthen quality initiatives. However, there is still work to be done, as enterprises are still struggling with aligning technology-based approaches to quality.
STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS
For leaders looking to future-proof their organizations, the following strategies will help develop quality-driven cultures that assure adaptability, resilience and empathy in the current and post-Covid world:
- Inform and enlighten organizational leadership. Business leaders need access to information and analysis from all parts of the enterprise, especially during times of crisis. Ensure that all channels of communication are clear and open, with feedback delivered through collaborative systems. Managers can benefit from data analytics that track the changes associated with new ways of working, along with associated risk analysis to help mitigate potential disruptions.
- Provide continuous support and reassurance to employees and partners. Actively engage with employees and partners, on a daily basis, to provide feedback and encourage ideas for continuous improvement—especially as they relate to new workflows and developments. Emphasize teamwork and the importance of health and safety, and foster ongoing training and coaching.
- Encourage ongoing learning and feedback loops. Develop processes and systems that ensure that data and insights on events, issues and opportunities are surfaced and captured, and new learnings are shared across the enterprise. Ensure that innovations and improvements are jointly developed and benchmarking tools are applied.
A deeply ingrained commitment to quality and excellence not only assures the continued delivery of products and services but also serves as a guiding light for executives, employees and partners. The Covid crisis drives home the need for enterprises to be led with a quality-driven mindset that focuses on the roles of people, processes and technology. "As companies move into the post-Covid era, they'll need to refocus and view quality as a way of doing business, a culture, a mindset, a way to run a company and a way to set a strategic mission," says Wong.
