An Award with a National Consequence

While it may seem implausible, a little more than a decade ago consciousness of the importance of quality and customer satisfaction was relatively very low in India.  At that time, we subscribed to certain “truths” about quality, such as better quality costs more, quality requires extra time to produce, and quality programmes best fit manufacturing.

Today, thanks in considerable measure to the IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award, leaders in quality have dispelled the old myth.  New truths have emerged.  We now know that raising quality does not raise costs, it lowers, them; that quality does not take time, it saves it; and that service organizations need quality most urgently.

The recurring question in our society is “How do you become more competitive?”  A good surrogate question is “What are you doing about quality?”  The fundamental answer is that we must become competitive one person at a time.  Quality is a personal responsibility.  Quality is achieved through personal excellence, with an expectation of perfection.  Human beings can operate to that standard, and they thrill at operating to that standard.  Six Sigma standard.  And the aggregation of all of us working on quality ultimately holds the potential to substantially affect our country’s future.

The IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award process does, indeed, have a national consequence.  If every institution in India – manufacturing, service and public – were to embrace the philosophy of meeting the standards of the IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award, and were to commit to them with genuine enthusiasm, there would be a tremendous leveraging effect on our country as a whole.

My instinctive calculation is that the economic multipliers that would be engaged in for quality improvement (which include more research and development, the acquisition and employment of new equipment, and the deployment of better process) would raise the seedbed of our economy.  The gross domestic product would go up a minimum of one percentage point.  The whole economy would flourish.  We would service our customers better.  And the cycle would reinforce itself.

Our destiny is in our hands.  We have the privilege of expecting perfection.  And when we present perfection to our customers, we will do more business, increase the wealth of the nation, and improve the choices and freedom of our republic.