FROM THE BOARD By Nancy Darst

Quality: Not A Trend, A Necessity

As a business owner, I rely on two key components tokeep the company growing: reputation and referrals. In aservice oriented business, it is critical to deliver a quality service and maintain a quality product in order to keep a good reputation and receive additional referrals. Recently, I came across a quote that read, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” I found this quote to be thought-provoking. Are we not supposed to do things “right” or correctly each and every time we set out to complete a task, deliver a service or support a product? Sure we are. Hopefully, we are able get it right the first time. However, some situations require us to perform over and over again until it is done correctly. The perseverance of performance typically pays off with the reward of self satisfaction, knowing the service was completed properly. Continuous improvement isn’t a trend. It’s simply a way to do business.

Many organizations are painfully aware of the significant cost of poor quality. In fact, leading organizations no longer treat quality of service and product as an expense to manage, but as a strategic issue that must be addressed. Regardless of the size of audience the company’s products and services serve, it is essential that the organization thoroughly understands its clients’ needs and requirements. As a company evolves and grows, its leaders must navigate challenges that accompany changes, which can rapidly throw an organization off course. If the organization does stray off course, the results reflect it. Sales flatten, employee turnover increases, quality declines, customers complain, and eventually profits shrink. Thus, adjusting to market forces isn’t optional. The business has to regularly fine-tune itself, just to keep pace as technology, regulations, competition, the economy and customer expectations constantly change. In addition, the quality of product delivery and service is vital to customer retention and the success of the company going forward.

The Association for Work Process Improvement (TAWPI)is one such association that helps companies add value to their organization with business management and process improvement practices. TAWPI educates businesses on how to simplify and stabilize specific business operations that result in members gaining a competitive edge and ultimately improving financial performance. Specifically, TAWPI’s mission is to help practitioners in the payments automation, distributed capture, and imaging and forms processing arenas in order to maximize their value as professionals, enhance operational efficiencies and effectively position their organizations for success. These specific business processes have evolved over the past several years, transforming the audience TAWPI serves and reformatting the content of the material it delivers to its members. TAWPI recognizes that it is no longer servicing a single niche of end-users with just a handful of operational concerns; rather it now serves a diverse group of industry leaders with a myriad of challenges that require quality of content and the professional delivery of information.

Any organization that is continuously focused on understanding its evolving reality and makes improvements where needed to achieve visualized objectives, gains a competitive edge. Successful firms of all sizes incorporate education as an ongoing component of their businesses. They implement solutions based on practical, proven, timeless concepts that are easy to understand and adopt.

These firms adopt these practices into their management philosophy and remain flexible so that improvement is integrated into daily processes. For them, continuous learning and improvement are simply the way they do business.