Quality Management in Business: Analysis of Approaches and Processes

This report provides a comprehensive overview of quality management in the context of business operations, particularly within the hospitality sector. The assignment begins by defining quality from a business perspective and explores the roles of control mechanisms and quality assurance. It then delves into different quality management approaches, such as Kaizen and Total Quality Management (TQM), comparing and contrasting their similarities and differences. The report also examines the importance of self-assessment in identifying strengths and weaknesses, alongside the significance of effective communication and record-keeping within organizations. Finally, it outlines the stages of staff consultation and offers recommendations for improving quality schemes, all while considering the challenges faced by a hypothetical hotel, Crowne Plaza Riverbank, and its need for financial recovery. The report emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement and employee engagement in achieving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN
BUSINESS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Quality from the perspective of business and services ........................................................1
1.2 Role of control mechanism and assurance in quality management .....................................2
1.3 Quality Management Approaches ........................................................................................2
1.4 Similarities with differences about the mentioned approaches.............................................3
TASKS 2 AND 3.............................................................................................................................4
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................4
4.1 Role of self – assessment .....................................................................................................4
4.2 Communication and record keeping in organizations...........................................................5
4.3 Stages for staff consultation..................................................................................................6
4.4 Recommendations.................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Quality Management is a continuous procedure to increase the business reliability and
performance for providing improved services and products. It is aimed at the improvements to
attain customers' satisfaction. It is group of techniques and approaches that has been used to
identify the problem-areas to improve the quality. For this, a strategic implementation can be
used by applying few integrated approaches. This assignment will evaluate the operational
activities in the hospitality sector. Additionally, it lays emphasis on the overall contribution by
adopting different processes, their measurement scales, use of marketing tools etc. Along with
this, satisfaction in terms of employees, personnel and customers will also be discussed to
understand the necessity. This is one of the important aspects of quality management. Lastly, it
will describe about the effectiveness of traditional approaches when applied with any new
system with respect to existing systems. It will support in bringing changes to improve services
quality efficiently.
TASK 1
1.1 Quality from the perspective of business and services
The business and service provisions aim at delivering services to their customers so that
they are satisfied with the products and services and are convinced to pay the demanded price for
it. The quality in relation to the service provisions and business is defined as the characteristic
features of the products which can meet the expectations of consumers as well as service
providers and can pursue customers to pay for it. It can also be defined as the extent up to which
it can meet the desired and predefined specifications and needs of the business target audience
(Goetsch and Davis, 2014). These definitions demonstrate the significance of the quality
management from profit perspective in business. Apart from bringing customer satisfaction the
quality is also defined as the extent of operational efficiency which makes the business activities
cost efficient.
The nature of quality in business can be considered as the perceptual, subjective or
conditional depending upon the service and consumer profile. For instance with Novotel London
City South its consumers expect that the food beverages, conference rooms and lounge services
are comfortable, healthy and safe as well as attractive. Thus, the services of organisation can be
considered as qualitative if they meet all these expectations within framework of the operational
cost of Novotel.
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1.2 Role of control mechanism and assurance in quality management
The quality control and assurance are essential element in the quality management
process of the business.
Quality control: The strategies used by Novotel to assure that all quality standards such as
hygiene, safety, appearance and performance are meet in the services and products delivered by
the organisation are known as the quality control procedures. The control strategies ensures that
all business activities are monitored and compared with the standard procedures so that if there is
a difference then improvements can be made (Mitra, 2016). Quality control makes quality
management effective and useful. Without these control mechanism Novotel hotel will not be
able to analyse that its quality is not satisfactory.
Quality assurance: The control mechanism monitors that quality standards are followed. On the
other hand quality assurance procedures accomplish inspection of all services of the organisation
and concludes that its quality of services are as per the needs of their target audience. For
instance if quality assurance team will not confirm the products and if there will be any loophole
then it will create a negative impression in minds of consumers and this is not considered as
beneficial for the hotel. Thus, quality assurance team of Novotel assures that before delivering
services to consumers the quality of product is verified.
1.3 Quality Management Approaches
Kaizen Approach: It is a continuous approach to make small modifications to bring efficient
improvements. This approach can assist Novotel management to proactively make their
employees' participate and contribute at each individual level and bring something in the name of
innovation. Additionally, coordination and cooperation must be improved at this establishment to
bring radical changes for attaining objectives by fulfilling the employees' engagement. Here, the
tools like Pareto analysis and value stream mapping can help in observing the flow of services,
products and working practices of Novotel workforce. This will help Novotel's management to
maximize their resources efficiency and cost effectiveness.
Total Quality Management: It is a structured approach to improve the quality factor in an
organization's services and goods. This can be used by Novotel to improve their employees'
engagement by applying a systematic approach in their communication so that customers' focus
can be enhanced. Here, decision making plays imperative part in the continuous improvisations'
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aspect of communication, recognition, etc (Ahmad and et.al., 2012). The management of Novotel
must chalk out a plan to develop their consultation format and make it accessible to their
employees and customer's as well. This method has holistic approach and consists of tools like
ISO 9000, Just-in-time inventory, bench-marking and more. Moreover, they can use cross
functional interactive system to improve the connectivity.
1.4 Similarities with differences about the mentioned approaches
Similarities: These are implemented by the management for employees' engagement, increased
teamwork spirit with a sense of personal discipline and responsibility. Moreover, both methods
are employed to attain the establishment's continuum incremental enhancements at regular
periods. It also brings a sense of ownership in employees' and make them feel as part of the
organizations (Ooi and et.al., 2011). However, these methodologies shed light on the cost
effectiveness with time efficiency as the staff would be motivated and committed to do their jobs
at hand in proper manner. As per Deming Cycle, such approaches are important to manage the
statistics and targets of organization in more constructive manner (Quality Gurus, 2018).
Differences: TQM concentrate on the consumer's contentment level in context of product or
service, whereas Kaizen focuses on the employee's expectations from their organization.
Moreover, TQM is based on both bottom-up and top down approach but Kaizen is based on
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Illustration 1: Components of TQM
(Source: Holder, 2017)

bottom up approach only. Along with, TQM is an expensive methodology to implement as
compared to Kaizen. Lastly, TQM is used for elimination of causes so that quality can be
improved. On the other hand, Kaizen is employed for removal of waste to improve efficiency in
quality control through standardization processes. Here, it is understandable that both Kaizen and
TQM way of working practices are different and work on different purposes. However, Kaizen is
continuous approach to bring changes in cyclic order and TQM, on the other hand, it focuses on
number of activities to transform the inputs into outputs by using the resources in the most useful
manner (Zamanis and Bohoris, 2009).
TASKS 2 AND 3
Enclosed in PPT
TASK 4
4.1 Role of self – assessment
Self-assessment is defined as the procedure which help in understanding the strengths and
weaknesses of an enterprise. This lays emphasis on the overall evaluation to know about the
current status of the company with respect to its competitors in the marketplaces. Furthermore,
there are many advantages of this assessment. It includes avoiding any accidents or finding any
discrepancies, encouraging constructive analysis of the regular sessions and meetings,
interactions among the team members for increasing the performance management at the chosen
organization. Here, types of self-assessment can be used such as summative assessment,
benchmark assessment, formative and many more. These will be proved beneficial in evaluation
of performance after providing training and guidance to employees so that they can develop them
for improving their skills and knowledge.
As per the scenario of Crowne Plaza Riverbank, which is suffering from financial losses.
It was due to the unstable economic crises at the global level. Therefore, the current status of this
hotel is not in good position and has affected in the worst manner. However, they must
implement few efforts that assure for effective improvements such as using information systems
to keep proper records, improving the communication, conducting sessions for training etc.
Along with, this organization must use training programs to strengthen their self assessment
procedures in context to their employees, staff and others. It would decrease the gaps between
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the employer-employee and enhance the work environment properly. Moreover, it assisted
Crowne Plaza to develop an outline for controlling and identifying the costing for operations by
building the competency levels in an optimum utility.
4.2 Communication and record keeping in organizations
Communication: This is significant in any organization for improving the performance metrics
of employees'. An open and transparent channel will bridge the gaps between the employer and
employees. It will also assist in conflict resolution and avoid any misinterpretations,
miscommunication and confusions. Such transparent channels of communication involves
components like listening, observing, knowing and describing. For example, use of EPOS
(Electronic point of sale) that will support the organization to link their entire data in a
centralized order. In this method, all the management systems can be connected to make
reservation process easier for accommodating guests and their billing, separate system for stock
control; events management and more. Henceforth, a good communication will support the
organization in maintaining the reputation and brand value. On the other hand, lack of proper
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Illustration 2: Frameworks used for self-assessment of an
organisation
(Source:Evaluating the Performance of an Organization, 2018)

communication will restrict the flow of work smoothly and might lead to miscommunication or
any tension or stress between employee-customer or between employee-manager. It will affect
the organization's reputation in negative manner.
Record-keeping: It is one of the important aspects in the hospitality industry. This has proved
beneficial to manage the data, information and other related details in systematic manner for easy
accessibility. Moreover, it helps in keeping the records of customers, inventory, staff and their
duties or work allocation details etc in systematic manner. This will help the organization to
avoid any confusion or mismanagement of their resources and maintain the overall quality of
work processes. Along this, it will help in managing the data in one location to make the
operations convenient for the management of the organization. In this regard, there are different
forms of records such as invoices, bookings, staff rotas, stock control sheets etc. Whereas, if this
record keeping would not be done properly then it would impact the working practices of the
organization adversely. It would increase the work pressure and time consumption. Along this,
manual labor would be required to keep the records leading to wastage of resources, energy and
time.
Therefore, both communication and record keeping, if maintained appropriately by the
administrative department of organization would manage and maintain the quality management
in better modes.
4.3 Stages for staff consultation
Staff consultation is defined as the procedure to improve the communications by
including the organization's employees and management to perform the task in proper manner.
There are many stages of consultation by the staff of Crowne Plaza to improve the quality
schemes they need to implement for better productivity at their workstations.
Planning:This step is important to know about the budget, resources etc. It includes the
formulation of concepts and ideas in context of providing better services to the customers of this
hotel. It helps in the identification of the formal consultation to draw the mapping of the
complete proposal in effective ways.
Preparation: It is one of the important steps in executing the planned activities to be completed
on time. Here, the focus is on establishing the guidelines and instructions regarding quality
parameter. This will avoid any miscommunication or doubts in the later stages of the
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consultation. Nonetheless, its reasonable opportunities must be tapped on with establishment of
objectives, measures and feedback.
Action: Here, the main purpose is to use the allocated resources in the most feasible ways. This
will enhance the viability of the situational crises. It will support by giving suitable attention to
fulfill the requirements and can also take few decisions to apply strategies in better ways.
Analysis: This step will tell about the progress of project undertaken by the organization. This
part puts light on the workings of the Crowne Plaza's quality management to attain the goals
during the planning. It includes the checking points whether every components has been
achieved or not.
4.4 Recommendations
There are few proposed recommendations to incorporate in Crown Plaza's working
practices. Such suggestions will be applied with the current processes of this hotel to maintain
the quality management in efficient and effective manner. For any hotel industry, it is important
to keep improving their services and goods to keep their customers and make them to revisit.
However, they must be careful in dealing with their employees so that such high quality can be
maintained without creating any difficult situation.
In this regard, this hotel's management must start an initiation program for improving
their induction training and orientation to their staff. This will be beneficial in handling their
customers in better manner. Thus, this change can be welcomed by the staff to improve their
working styles and additional skills that will help the organization to maintain their brand image
in customers' eyes. Along with this, some investments can be made on installing tools and
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Illustration 3: Steps for implementation of a quality scheme
(Source: Services of Convention Linkage, Inc,2018)

equipment at the existing control department for qualitative analysis. This will support in
conducting few operations effectively like tracking, up-gradation and overall assessment can be
done. Along this, Opera System can be used to solve the targeted issues by maximizing the
available resources with increasing the time efficiency. Additionally, SERVQUAL Instrument
can also be installed by the management to bring changes in the overall quality management. It
will help the employees to conduct their assigned tasks in appropriate manner.
CONCLUSION
From this report, it can be concluded that implementation of quality management
approaches is necessary for the success of business. Quality control is an integral part of the
inspection process and can help in improving quality and effectiveness of the business process.
The report has discussed the role of customer satisfaction, marketing and information available
to consumers in influencing the quality management process. It has also discussed the procedures
to measure and implement quality management strategies. Thus, it can be concluded from the
report that without application of quality assurance and measurement techniques it may be
difficult for the business processes to achieve their success goals.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmad, M.F. and et.al., 2012. Relationship of TQM and business performance with mediators of
SPC, lean production and TPM. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences.65.pp.186-191.
Armstrong, G. and et.al., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Clark, D.M., Silvester, K. and Knowles, S., 2013. Lean management systems: creating a culture
of continuous quality improvement.Journal of clinical pathology, pp.jclinpath-2013.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014.Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hill, N. and Alexander, J., 2017. The handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty
measurement. Routledge.
Mitra, A., 2016. Fundamentals of quality control and improvement. John Wiley & Sons.
Mitra, A., 2016.Fundamentals of quality control and improvement. John Wiley & Sons.
Ooi, K.B. and et.al., 2011. Are TQM practices supporting customer satisfaction and service
quality?.Journal of Services Marketing.25(6). pp.410-419.
Shipley, R. and Utz, S., 2012. Making it count: A review of the value and techniques for public
consultation.Journal of Planning Literature.27(1).pp.22-42.
Online
Evaluating the Performance of an Organization, 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/theme/organizational_performance>.
Holder,K., 2017. Total Quality Management. [Online]. Available
through:<http://skholder.com/total-quality-management-theory-tqm/>.
Quality Gurus. 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Pr-Sa/Quality-Gurus.html>.
Services of Convention Linkage, Inc,2018.[Online]. Available through:<https://www.c-
linkage.co.jp/en/services.htmlhttps://www.c-linkage.co.jp/en/services.html>.
Zamanis, D. and Bohoris,G., 2009. [pdf]. Available
through:<http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/033/037/ecp0803337.pdf>.
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