THE TQM CONCEPT – STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVING ORGANIZATIONS

Radka Ivanova
Chief Assistant Professor, Ph.D., University of Economics Varna, BULGARIA
r.ivanova@ue-varna.bg

Abstract

In the world today, quality and its management are of great importance for the improvement of the user level of satisfaction, as well as for increasing organisational competitiveness. Some researchers define quality also as an organisation management tool which influences every process and activity (V. Blazheva, D. Grozeva. 2010, p. 39). On the other hand quality is important for satisfying the needs of customers and as such it can be seen as an activity for achieving this. Achieving a certain level of quality depends on the skills of the personnel and their readiness to further these skills, their desire to perfect themselves and implement innovation in their work, so that better results can be reached.

TQM is a concept for comprehensive quality management within organisations, which has to cover all units, departments, stages and processes, technologies and people and lead them towards constant improvement of quality characteristics. At its base lies the idea for building an efficient system whose activities result in increased customer satisfaction. TQM includes two main mechanisms – guaranteeing and improving quality, which in its turn results in creating certain guarantees for the organisations and their non-stop improvement. This becomes possible only through the implementation of the obligatory for the concept principle of data analysis. It allows for particularising of the achieved quality level and establishing the weaknesses and discrepancies which have to be dealt with. This requires the participation of all members of the enterprise for improving the processes, products and services by building a quality creation and quality management orientated culture. The benefits of this can be expected in the long term and because of that the implementation of TQM is of strategic importance for all stakeholders.

The aim is to reveal the particulars of total quality management and the strategic opportunities which its implementation gives organisations for increasing their competitiveness.
Keywords: quality, management, strategy, organization