 VALUE
FOR MONEY
“Value for Money?” wondered David. “ But, everybody
promises that.” Naren answered. “At Wipro we deliver
it through continuous improvement in quality, cost and
speed.”
This is important to us because:
- Customers want higher Quality and Value at a lower
price. This is an absolute global reality
- A value packed product or a service makes sure
that the Customers feel that they have received
Value for Money.
- It helps in creating Customer delight and makes
them ‘brand ambassadors’.
- It enables us to concentrate more on substance
rather than style.
- This cultivates an air of ‘quiet confidence’ in
our people and in their interactions, rather than
one of brashness or showmanship.
“Let me describe the positive behaviours and negative
behaviours,” continued Naren.
Positive Behaviours:
- Predicting and understanding Customers’ current
and future needs and delivering on or before time.
- Winning Customers through quality and service
rather than through heavy discounting.
- Regularly collecting feedback on the quality of
our service. Using Customer complaints to generate
ideas for improvement.
- Understanding the reason for losing a Customer
and working to fill the gaps.
- Looking at savings for the Customer although it
might not increase our profits.
- Seeing how we can improve Customer’s profitability
and competitive advantage.
- Simplicity also means Innovation. Simplifying
without losing effectiveness reduces unproductive
time, thus increasing Value for Money.
- Constantly evaluating and eliminating the non-strategic
cost that does not impact employee or Customer satisfaction.
- Speed, productivity, efficiency, effectiveness,
cost reduction to dictate all our activities and
transactions.
- Reducing cycle time and cost of all processes
continuously.
- Recognising and rewarding people who contribute
to enhancing quality.
- Recycling and reusing all resources.
- Ruthlessly cutting down all unnecessary expenses.
- Treating company’s resources as one’s own.
- Building operating effectiveness.
- Planning travel and communication in the most
cost effective manner.
- Evaluating alternatives for saving cost whenever
and wherever possible, without compromising on requirement.
 Knowing
our Customer and determining the Customer’s Critical
to Quality (CTQ) requirements:
- Actively listen to the Customer’s CTQ parameters
and work towards improving the process.
- Measure our ‘As Is’ condition and then decide
on our ‘Should Be’ goal, the improvement we are
capable of in the present situation. Having reached
there, benchmark ourselves against what could be
the best in the class, that will be our ‘Could Be’
level.
- Continuously measure, analyse, improve and hold
the gains in meeting Customer requirements.
Constant communication with customers, both internal
and external:
- Inform Customers of our products and services
and enquire about what improvements they would like
to see.
- Regularly collect feedback on our quality of service
and the Customer’s needs and expectations from us.
- Use Customer complaints or suggestions to generate
ideas for improvement.
- Try to gauge Customer’s unstated needs so that
we may delight the Customer with what he / she never
thought possible.
- Keep all promises made to the Customer.
Constant communication to your internal team the
Cost of Poor Quality:
- Defects lead to waste. Waste results from inefficient
conversion of raw material, rework and warranty
costs, among other factors. Each time waste occurs,
we throw away a part of our bottom line. The level
of waste is the Cost of Poor Quality. We need to
contain costs by reducing defects.
- Set Customer focused standards for all and measure
performance against these standards.
Align the organisation to serve customers:
- Do things right the first time, conforming to
our specifications for products or services.
- Correct the root cause of the problems.
- Specifically recognise and reward employees who
do the best job of serving Customers.
- Stress the strengths of our products and services
rather than the deficiencies of competitors.
- Hold meetings and reviews in the field of the
action.
Negative behaviours that hinder delivering “Value
for Money”
- Under utilisation of resources.
- Reluctance to walk that extra mile.
- Compromising on quality to meet the ends.
- Not doing things right the first time.
- Over-shooting budgets.
Paradox:
“Should we offer a higher value product at a premium
price?” Iqbal asked. “Or should we offer a cheap product
at very low cost to us? Because both of them mean higher
Value for Money.”
“The answer is really simple,” replied Naren. “We must
have different products for different Customer needs.
At the same time, we should constantly add value to
our products and services. We must also manage our operations
cost efficiently so that the Customer gets the highest
bang for the buck!”
|
|
|