Executive Summary
DU Telecommunications Limited is one of the companies that have implemented the concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM). It has used all the principles of TQM in order to offer effective and quality services to its customers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and beyond. Due to TQM, the company has been able to retain its position as a leader in the provision of communication services in UAE. This report inquires about the principles of TQM, to discuss the findings of my investigations and analysis of the total quality system of DU, to explain how cultural change could be implemented and maintained within DU and to give recommendations on improvement of the total quality system of DU.
Background
DU is a local company based in UAE offering telecommunication services to its customers. Its headquarters is based in Abu Dhabi. DU offers quality telecommunication services through mobile phones, internet and television to individuals, homes, businesses and corporate organizations. DU is a reputable company leading in terms of employment and offering competitive salaries that has led to employee loyalty. Over half of the employees are from the country. The company’s success has been attributed to its ability to motivate the employees by providing career developments courses among other benefits (Subburaj 102).
Introduction
DU is among the largest telecommunication companies operating in the UAE and is the second biggest. It is listed in NASDAQ Dubai. The mission statement of the company is to be innovative in offering its services, focusing on customers’ need, ensuring excellent careers for its employees and participating in corporate social responsibility. The company has been able to achieve all this and will maintain the same standards through the application of total quality management in their operations.
Investigation and analysis of the total quality system of DU
Products and Services
The company offers different tariffs packages and a wide range of cell phones to the individual customers. The services it provides via cell phones are of contents like messaging and internet. There is also roaming services to customers traveling abroad. Sometimes they offer promotional products. For homes, it offers an integrated service comprising of internet, television broadcast distribution, fixed telephony and standby client support.
The company also provides little and mid sized enterprises, the national administration as well as multinational companies all communication services ranging from internet, mobile telephony, television as well as putting up terrestrial fiber optic network across the country. It also gives on full time demand customer support and on special occasions conducts promotional activities (Naagarazan 145).
Customers
DU provides its services to a huge market sector which is composed of customers with different needs and individualized or customized services. Some of the customers are individuals, small and medium enterprises, big corporate bodies as well as the government. To enjoy continuity of DU’s services, you have to subscribe to the kind of bouquets that suits you well by paying bills on a monthly basis or before the service are provided.
Order qualifiers and winners of the company
The company offers products and services which are order qualifiers and inners. These are strategic formulas which DU Telecommunications uses to sustain its market position. Other strategic formulas they use include defining primary task so that every employee in the company is aware of what he/she is expected of. It also assesses the core competencies of the company so that it can drop what it is not best in. Furthermore, the company has positioned itself by identifying the most important issues to focus on and maximize their efforts in those products and services. The company has been concentrating on the order qualifiers and order winners as their main strategies of serving the customers in the market.
This basically means considering what the customers are looking for and how they reach their decision on whether to subscribe or not. It incorporates those qualities which customers look for in the various products and services so that it can satisfy its customers.
The company also concentrates in order winners so that it can influence as many customers as possible in the market segment they serve. It does this after it has researched on the market and identified “quality” with the relevant characteristics. For this to be effective, it also considers the order winner, which is always measured after the qualifier has been established. In most cases the order winner is the price and in this light therefore, the customers will consider the price of services offered by DU and those by other companies (Webber and Wallace 142).
Total Quality Management
Total quality management can be defined as a system which a company uses to match the production process and delivery of services with the needs of the customers so that the cases of shortages or over productions are eliminated.
This will facilitate the quality, effectiveness and dependability of the company’s services and products. It incorporates the relevant management practical methods, the ongoing methods of improvement and the advanced tools which focus on the quality of the products and services. Total quality management is the constant process of changing the physical appearances of the products and services offered by an organization so that it can attract attention of the customers in the market. TQM covers improvement of employees through training programs in the company so that the employees will be in a position to offer quality services to the customers.
The culture of DU
The culture manifested by DU is the academy culture. This is whereby the workforce is vastly trained and likely to work in the company for a considerable period of time as they get elevated to more senior positions. DU endows its workforce with an enabling work setting that enables them to further their growth and expand their dexterities. This includes libraries, gyms, health centers, resting rooms, swimming pools, cafeterias, coffee cafes, schools and so on.
Total quality barriers faced by DU
First, the telecommunication business is nowadays trendy: it picks on fashion. Customer needs change more regularly. Secondly is that the use of information technology requires installation and testing of new versatile systems which may temporarily affect the quality of services provided and comes with a heavy cost on the company’s resources which further reduce profitability in the short term. The third barrier is concerning the staff. Sometimes a position is vacant and can only be filled with nationals who may not be available or not qualified but since the recruitment policy restricts foreigners, then the company is incapacitated especially if it is in technology field. Training the workforce could also be costly if it can translate into improved work.
Why these elements are barriers to total quality (Liebler and McConnell 120).
When customer needs keep changing the company may not be in a position to keep up. This may be as a result of actions by competitors which can get the company unaware. Customers may migrate to other firms. The company is taken aback to reconsider the customer once again. Information technology is still evolving. It is therefore challenging for companies providing and using information technology to acquire new and expensive systems.
This usually affects one of the TQM principles: the customer first. The issue of workforce capacity improvement cannot be relied on overly because some of them will retire, others are on contract modes, sick and sometimes cases of death yet the company has invested a lot in them.
Characteristics of a quality culture and the differences between DU’s culture and that of a quality culture
The first character is the idea that all the stakeholders play a role in making things happen. This in effect means that the organization, the suppliers and the clients are equally valued for their contribution. In DU, the customers receive most attention followed by the staff. Secondly is that the staff is not classified into lower or upper classes They are all considered of the same echelon but in DU, the management is hierarchically structured. The third characteristic is that communication is not closed to any of the staff. It also stresses straightforwardness. In contrast, DU communication flow and accessibility is from down up (Morgan 124).
Furthermore, all the staff has equal rights to any information regarding running of the organization but in DU, the top management has superior information. Lastly the center of attention is on methods and procedures used by the organization and that whatever the outcomes, good or bad, they are but a new chance for something new to be learned. In DU, the locus point is still the customer and the input of every staff member.
How cultural change could be implemented and maintained within DU
Several practical measures can be taken to bring a cultural change to DU. There should be more harmony within the organization regarding the ideals upheld and institution of guiding principles and methods in tandem with them. The communication should be additionally straightforward and the organization should hold habitual assemblies for updating all the staff. The regulations governing staff conduct should be reviewed. A new method of rewarding staff should also be implemented. It ought to focus on acknowledgement rather substantive.
Recommendations on improvement of the total quality system in DU
The spirit of teamwork in the company should be embraced by the staff. The human resource managers need to promote this by arranging for meetings where staff will get to interact with the top management in a friendly way and get socialized This is very essential since the staff will be free to contact their bosses in case of any difficulty. Furthermore, it should group employees into teams and appoint leaders for these teams and arrange a schedule whereby appraisal of teams’ performances is carried out say on monthly basis and rewarding the leading team (Naagarazan 85).
One concept of TQM is the continuous improvement of quality. This means that DU should continuously adopt the latest and advanced technology so that it can offer quality services. Besides, the telecommunication sector is an industry which is growing at a higher rate in terms of technology. Satisfaction of customers is another important concept of total quality management. It will benefit the company in various dimensions. First, it will help the marketing department of the company to establish the correct promotional tools to be used.
This concept will improve the marketing strategies used by the company in the future. Identification of loyal customers is very essential due to their capabilities of offering referrals to other customers concerning the quality services of the company. It helps the company to serve many customers and even cross sell their services and product to the customers.
Works cited
Liebler, Joan Gratta and Charles R. McConnell. Management principles for health professionals. 5th ed. London: Jones and Bartlett, 2008.
Morgan, Charles. Total quality management in the public sector. Berkshire: Open University Press, 2008.
Naagarazan. Total Quality Management. California: New Age International, 2005.
Subburaj. Total Quality Management. Canada: Tata McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Webber, Larry and Michael Wallace. Quality Control for Dummies. For Dummies, 2006.