Total Quality Management and Critical Success Factors for SMEs

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Total Quality Management (TQM) and its critical success factors (CSFs), specifically focusing on their impact on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The research explores how TQM, as a strategic approach, can be leveraged to enhance business performance, increase market competitiveness, and improve customer satisfaction. The report delves into the significance of CSFs, such as leadership commitment, effective communication, teamwork, employee training, and customer focus, in driving the successful implementation of TQM. The study also highlights the importance of employee job satisfaction and workplace environment in achieving organizational goals. By examining the relationship between TQM practices, CSFs, and business outcomes, this report offers valuable insights into how SMEs can overcome challenges, improve their operational efficiency, and achieve sustainable growth in a competitive market. The report also provides a brief case study of a petrochemical industry that has implemented TQM. Furthermore, it explores the barriers to TQM implementation, like lack of communication, top management commitment and change management.

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Abstract
Purpose: The aim of the research is to analyse the critical success factors affecting the functions
of an organization. The concept of CSF is used along with the total quality management process
so as to activate progress of the company by analysing the success factors and working on them
as well.
Design: Qualitative research design has been used in the paper
Findings: The evaluation of critical success factors of total quality management highlighted that
critical success factors play a lead role in successfully initiate total quality management process
in an organization. These factors play a lead role in helping the organization to achieve its
mission.
Implications: This paper focuses on the critical success factors affecting the growth of SMEs that
excludes the analysis of CSF on large-scale enterprises. So, the future research should develop an
understanding of analysing the impact of CSF on medium and large scale enterprises.
Limitations: The study is focusing on overall impact of CSF on the Small and Medium
Enterprises but it is not focusing on a particular business. So, the future research will analyse a
particular organization to acquire reliable data.
Originality: The proposed paper is useful for the SMEs starting their business or the
organizations facing losses in the current environment. This will help the businesses to recover
their losses using success factors.
Keywords: CSF, TQM, SMEs
Paper Type: Descriptive

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Research Methodology....................................................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
Findings...........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
From past decades it has been seen that companies have started using Total Quality Management
(TQM) as a tool to improve profits, increase market holding of the company and its
competitiveness as well. TQM has been proved as one of the best approach for the success in
manufacturing, service and public sector where many organizations have failed due to
inefficiency of the top management and ignoring customer responses etc. Further, Critical
Success Factors (CSF) refers to a tool used in the process of TQM that helps the business to
actively achieve its mission in the environment. Critical Success Factors is also known as Key
Result Areas or Key Success Factors. This paper presents an idea about the CSFs of TQM that
are critical in initiating success of Small and Medium Enterprise (Kumar, Singh, and Shankar
2015). The current study identifies total five success factors that are crucial for the business
process. The overall result of the research implies that CSF of company plays a huge role in
directing the workforce in the right direction for success. With the help of these factors, the
SMEs can successfully maintain their growth in long run.
Research Methodology
Many literatures of total quality management practices are available on various sources. The
literature review was conducted in a organized manner in order to explain the critical success
factors of total quality management. In order to select the relevant information about CSF and
TQM online, below mentioned database have been researched:
 Research Gate
 Emerald Management
 Elsevier’s Science Direct
 Universities Published Papers
Further, it should be noted that as it is not possible to read all the articles about TQM available in
the database, resulting in which criteria were set for including articles in the study. The criteria
are mentioned below:

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 Only the articles that were published between the times being 2010 to 2019 were
considered for the study.
 Only the papers that have covered below-mentioned requirement of Critical Success
Factors of Total Quality Management were taken for the study:
 Implementation of TQM in SMEs
 Impact of CSFs on growth of companies
 Contribution and Critics of CSF
Literature Review
According to Aarabi et al., 2012, TQM can be defined as a set of systematic organizational tools,
strategies and practices that the business use for the improving the performance of the
management. The process of total quality management is used by the companies to initiate their
business objectives in the target market. The TQM is an integrative management philosophy that
continuously aims to improve the quality and process of the business functions to achieve
satisfaction in the target market. This process includes the building of quality in the products as
well as process of making quality an important aspect and responsibility for every person in an
organization (Dedy, et. al., 2016). Additionally critical success factors refer to the activities that
business implements in order to ensure success for the company. Critical success factors are the
roadways through which a business achieves expected growth and satisfaction in the target
market. The CSF cannot be regarded as success criteria but they are the outcomes of a project
that indicates the growth of the project. Key Performance Indicators are the quantified objectives
that act as a criterion to define the success of the company. In the growing competitive
environment it has become difficult for the small and medium enterprises to grow and succeed
due to which the management have started using TQM as a tool implement growth for the
business.
In the perspective of Hietschold, Reinhardt, and Gurtner 2014, critical success factors of TQM
are underlying variables that means that these factors cannot be measured directly. Most of the
TQM success factors deals with the organizational employees and their dealings in the business.
It is most important for the SMEs to train their employees accordingly to achieve the CSFs
defined in the environment. At a common point, these critical success factors help every person

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present in the system to gain information about the aspects that are actually important for the
business and how they should deal with it. The success factors also help the employees to
perform their work in the right direction and pull together all the resources for the growth of the
business (Arumugam, Mojtahedzadeh, and Malarvizhi 2011).
The idea of CSF was presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the late 1960s, latter the theory was
identified and popularized by John F. Rockart, a decade later. Different SMEs change the
elements of CSF according the requirement of the business. This concept has been implemented
in different ways based on the areas on which the business requires to grow. Successful
completion of the CSFs present in the business indicates that company has adequately attained
competitive advantage in the target market (Zakuan, et. al., 2012). Considering an example of the
critical success factors initiated in an organization for the purpose of increasing employee
performance in a SME. Initially analysing the factors of TQM, it should be noted that aspects
like leadership, communication, top management, teamwork, training and customer focus are
critical for a business. These six elements can be considered as the critical success factors
organized to improve the performance of a SME.
Communication
Organizations in the business are completely reliable on level of communication that they initiate
in the business. Communication is initiated by the exchange of ideas, messages, information etc.
Lack of communication makes the whole organization suffer.
Commitment of Top management
According to Zakuan et. al., (2008), the top level management commitment provides motivating
aspects and resources to the organization that helps the business in increasing the efficiency and
controlling the business structure as well.
Teamwork
In SMEs teams are required to coordinate functions when important breakthroughs in the
performance are required. Teams increase the productivity of the business by implementing
collective approaches (Netland 2016).

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Training
For the purpose of implementing TQM practices in the business, it is important to implement
training so as to reinforce quality practices in the business.
Customer Focus
This is one of the most important part of production process as it aims to deliver the products and
services and satisfying the customers. This CSF also ensures to increase the expectations of
customers in order to initiate long term survival.
(Source: Dedy, et. al., 2016)
The above mentioned six CSFs are formed with an aim to improve the employee performance.
Increasing efficiency of employees subsequently increase the organizational performance as
well. Further, as discussed above that CSF are qualitative aspects that cannot be measured in
terms of figures instead CSF is based on social construct that is often blurred in use (Jamali,
Ebrahimi, and Abbaszadeh 2010). So, the performance measures in this case are job satisfaction
and workplace environment that are discussed below:
Job Satisfaction: It refers to an individual’s general attitude towards the job. The Total Quality
Management practice covers all the operation process conducted in an organization. This is an
important aspect to initiate TQM practices as it includes employee involvement and job
performance that directly affects the functioning and growth of the business.

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Workplace Environment: Sadikoglu and Zehir (2010), expressed that spatial layout,
infrastructure, noise, accessibility of documents, number of employees, employee turnover etc.
have a great impact on the employee performance and job satisfaction.
The above mentioned chart clearly explains a systematic model that explains the relationship
between the total quality management practices with the critical success factors and performance
of employees and organization. The CSFs are the variables at organize the total quality
management practice on the basis of which the growth organization is judged. All the possible
relationships between the six TQM dimensions are considered in the model for the effectiveness
of the company and achievement of employee satisfaction as well. Thus, it should be noted that
on the basis of the requirement of the SME, different CSFs are defined for the business.
Completion of these CSFs governs the growth of the SME in the target market (Fotopoulos, and
Psomas 2010). Talking about barriers to TQM practices and implementation of CSFs, it should
be noted that communication is one of the most important CSF because lack of communication
can disturb the TQM practices as well.
According to Clegg, Rees, and Titchen 2010, lack of top management commitment affects the
working of the employees that can subsequently result in ineffective TQM practices as well.
Further, it should be noted that the two issues that are communication and commitment lead to
ineffectiveness in the change management of organization. As discussed above that change is an
important part of implementing TQM practices in an organization so if the employees and the
culture will not change according to the requirement of TQM practices, then the SME will not be
able to achieve desired CSF in the target market (Aquilani, et. al., 2017).
Enerplastics LLC is a petrochemical industry dealing in the manufacturing of petro-chemical
products. They have applied Total Quality management so as to ensure that the product quality
remains on the higher side. This has helped the SME to make name in the industry. This
company also believes that manufacturing industry have to invest a lot in the research and
development. Implementation of TQM in the company has allowed the company to build the
trust and comfort and bring smoothness in the quality enhancement.

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Findings
From the above mentioned literature review it should be noted that Critical Success Factors
implied in the business act as an important tool for successful completion of the implementation
of TQM in the business. Also, successful implementation of TQM directly boosts up the growth
of SME in the market. SMEs in the current market are being placed in the same sector where
large scale organizations and other innovative start-up is present due to which they face varied
types of circumstances in the industry (Fallahnejad &, Shamsaddini Lora 2015). In order to
overcome such competition and maintain their position in the target market, it has become
important for the organizations to make use of TQM practices and effectively grow. The total
quality management practices helps an organization to find out the areas where the company is
lacking behind and work on them as well. Critical Success Factors are defined by the
organization to monitor the growth and analyse the effectiveness of the events. Critical Success
Factors for every business are defined on the basis of the initiatives that business wants to
conduct (Jha, and Kumar 2010). These success factors define the success and failure of the TQM
project conducted by the company.
The above mentioned analysis of the TQM practice initiated to improve the performance of the
employees of a SME explain that the growth of the company can only be achieved when the
employees are willing to fulfil the CSF. Further, it should also be noted that Critical Success
Factors are different from the Key Performance Indicators as they measure the growth of an
organization in qualitative terms whereas the KPIs measure the growth in quantitative term (Zu,
Robbins, and Fredendall 2010).
As CSFs that are formed to improve employee performance are teamwork, communication, top
management commitment, customer focus and training where the KPIs for the same would be
revenue per employee, average task completion rate, employee capacity, overtime per employee
etc. These KPIs can be calculated using different approaches and data of the company where
CSF cannot be measured in quantitative terms. Lastly, it was also analysed that unsuccessfully
attempt to fulfil the CSF for a SME impact the TQM practice of a business. Without completing
the CSFs defined for the project, no organization can effectively implement the TQM practice in
the business (Lande, Shrivastava, and Seth 2016). These barriers of TQM are not barriers of
implementing TQM in business but these are the barriers in completing the CSF objectives in the

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environment. Thus, it should be noted that the CSFs are the core aspects of the TQM practices in
a SME.
Conclusion
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that the paper
analysed a systematic review of the Critical Success Factors of a business. Critical Success
Factors are the qualitative measurement designed for the analysis of successful implementation
of the Total Quality Management practices. Review of different literatures have been analysed
for the paper along with an illustration of the CSF for improving employee performance in a
SME.
References
Aarabi, M., Saman. M.Z.M., Wong, K.W., Azadnia, A.H. and Zakuan, N. (2012). A comparative
study on critical success factors (CSFs) of ERP systems implementation among SMEs and large
firms in developing countries. International Journal of Advancements in Computing Technology
4(9). pp. 226-239
Aquilani, B., Silvestri, C., Ruggieri, A. and Gatti, C., 2017. A systematic literature review on
total quality management critical success factors and the identification of new avenues of
research. The TQM Journal, 29(1), pp.184-213.
Arumugam, V.C., Mojtahedzadeh, R. and Malarvizhi, C.A., 2011. Critical success factors of
total quality management and their impact on performance of Iranian Automotive Industry.
In International conference on innovation, management and service (Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 312-
316).
Clegg, B., Rees, C. and Titchen, M., 2010. A study into the effectiveness of quality management
training: a focus on tools and critical success factors. The TQM Journal, 22(2), pp.188-208.
Dedy, A.N., Zakuan, N., Bahari, A.Z., Ariff, M.S.M., Chin, T.A. and Saman, M.Z.M., 2016,
May. Identifying Critical Success Factors for TQM and Employee Performance in Malaysian
Automotive Industry: A Literature Review. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and
Engineering (Vol. 131, No. 1, p. 012016). IOP Publishing.

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Fallahnejad1 M &, Shamsaddini Lora. E. (2015). Framework for connection between Total
Quality Management and Innovation Processes. Cumhuriyet University Faculty of Science
Science Journal 36(3).
Fotopoulos, C.V. and Psomas, E.L., 2010. The structural relationships between TQM factors and
organizational performance. The TQM journal, 22(5), pp.539-552.
Hietschold, N., Reinhardt, R. and Gurtner, S., 2014. Measuring critical success factors of TQM
implementation successfully–a systematic literature review. International Journal of Production
Research, 52(21), pp.6254-6272.
Jamali, G., Ebrahimi, M. and Abbaszadeh, M.A., 2010, November. TQM implementation: an
investigation of critical success factors. In 2010 International Conference on Education and
Management Technology (pp. 112-116). IEEE.
Jha, U. and Kumar, S., 2010. Critical success factors (CSFs) of TQM: A literature review &
analysis. Training, 50, p.19.
Kumar, R., Singh, R.K. and Shankar, R., 2015. Critical success factors for implementation of
supply chain management in Indian small and medium enterprises and their impact on
performance. IIMB Management review, 27(2), pp.92-104.
Lande, M., Shrivastava, R.L. and Seth, D., 2016. Critical success factors for Lean Six Sigma in
SMEs (small and medium enterprises). The TQM Journal, 28(4), pp.613-635.
Netland, T.H., 2016. Critical success factors for implementing lean production: the effect of
contingencies. International Journal of Production Research, 54(8), pp.2433-2448.
Sadikoglu, E. and Zehir, C. (2010) Investigating the effects of innovation and employee
performance on the relationship between total quality management practices and firm
performance: An empirical study of Turkish firms. International Journal of Production
Economics, 127, 13–26.
Zakuan, N., Muniandy, S., Saman, M.Z.M., Ariff, M.S.M., Sulaiman, S. and Jalil, R.A., 2012.
Critical success factors of total quality management implementation in higher education

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institution: a review. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social
Sciences, 2(12), p.19.
Zu, X., Robbins, T.L. and Fredendall, L.D., 2010. Mapping the critical links between
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economics, 123(1), pp.86-106.