Review Article : Total Quality Management as a Competitive Weapon

Abstract

TQM as a common principle within organizational strategy has become the dominant aspect with the emphasis of continuous quality improvement in order to increase the customer satisfaction and of market competitiveness. With the evolving consumer expectations, the high quality standards that businesses need to sustain to survive in business become a strategic must. Background: Organizations use TQM as a weapon of competition by crafting quality improvement into a production, marketing as well as human resource strategy. To meet the high quality standards, dynamic goal setting, organizational involvement and strategic alignment of quality initiatives is needed. Previous studies have highlighted that TQM is a key element in competitive strategies, however, it does not explicitly reveal the precise mechanism through which quality affects cost leadership and differentiation. This may give insight into quality management for achieving competitive advantage. It is the aim of this study to investigate the impact of TQM on strategies used for attaining cost leadership, product differentiation and organizational sustainability. Its focus is in identifying the major factors that help in improving quality based market positioning. Conclusion: Findings suggest that, with regard to reputation, quality improvement improves operational efficiency and enhances market share. Longterm cusomer loyalty can be achieved by organisations embarking on TQM strategy because it benefits their organisations with cost reductions, increased employee morale and product differentiation. Strategic integration: The study emphasizes strategic integration of TQM within the competitive framework for achieving the quality at par with cost efficiency. It shows ways of exploiting quality for creating a sustainable competitive advantage. The implications is that businesses need to begin to integrate quality into everything that they need to deliver. Quality enhancement should be considered as a core business strategy pursued by policymakers and industry leaders so that the long run competitiveness is maintained in dynamic markets.