Understanding the Strategic Advantage of Quality Assurance

This article was revised on June 1, 2020.

By looking at the business world in the same manner as disciplines such as Science and Mathematics, certain relative truths or Critically Important Assumptions (CIAs) can be used to reasonably assure an outcome. In Science, hypothesis are tested and retested until they are deemed theorems. Similarly, in Mathematics theories are tested over and over until they are deemed to be proven formulas. In business, CIAs are tested every time a decision is made. If the outcome trends the same way after numerous decisions, then it can be assumed with a degree of certainty, or with a lessened level of risk, that said outcome will always be likely to happen. At this point a Mental Model (MM) should be recognized and based on the reoccurring confirmation of the CIAs. MMs help companies and groups keep abreast with technology and innovation as it is constantly changing the way business is conducted by eliminating the need for continually creating new processes.

In business, when learning or teaching, emphasis should be put on conveying MMs rather than specific processes or procedures. MMs should be leveraged as a more efficient means of achieving a desired goal. While MMs may not be universally correct, they can increase the speed of decision making while alleviating a significant amount of risk when doing business. Utilizing the MM up to the point where the current reality diverges from the model, will have allowed for better decisions and resource allocations through increased speed and reduced redundancy of effort. Following the model while targeting the end goal will eliminate the need for over analysis of every step and conserve those energies for the actual divergences or constraints. Since all effort put forth should have a goal, being goal oriented versus process or procedure oriented makes sense. 

               To utilize MMs to their full potential, an understanding of why things occur is essential. Teaching or being taught, the “why” of something gives a broader understanding of any process and procedure. It allows for the intuitive connection between what should happen and what is actually happening. Along with a better understanding, goes a better ability to anticipate and adapt to constantly changing environments when doing business. Since there are many different ways of achieving any goal, the “how” is not as critical as the “why.” Having a good foundation of why something happens, is needed, or done in a specific way, makes creating or improving processes and procedures much more productive. The base understanding inherent in a MM will allow for the recognition of inefficiencies in all processes and procedures. 

Once a successful MM has been recognized the priority needs to shift to capitalization of that particular opportunity. In order to reap the maximum benefit from an opportunity, a business needs to reproduce its deliverables in a consistent and predictable manner typically from multiple resources. This will allow for scalability and building the trust of its customers.  Processes and procedures are great tools to be utilized when the same end result is required while utilizing multiple resources of output. However, by not incorporating a fundamental understanding of the “why” in processes and procedures, the opportunity for sustainability is lost. It is extremely important for all efforts employed in following processes and procedures to understand the “why” behind the existence of those processes and procedures.

               Quality Assurance (QA) is the development of processes and procedures by which a company meets its customer’s expectations in a repeatable manner. The need for QA is based on three very defendable business CIAs. The first being that if the customer is given less than their expectation, then they will not be satisfied and repeated transactions are unlikely. The second being that if the customer’s expectation is met exactly as communicated, then they have no choice but to be satisfied. Lastly, if a customer is given more than was expected they might have greater gratification, however, the customer will not likely pay more than originally stipulated in the contract or agreement. Therefore, the supplier has lost potential monetization by over delivering the customer’s expectations with basically the same level of appreciation as meeting the customer’s needs exactly. Recognizing what the customer wants and delivering exactly that level of expectation is why QA efforts exist. 

               In order to exactly meet a customer’s expectations, those expectations must be clearly defined and communicated. From a QA stand point, all Key Characteristics (KC) and especially Critical Characteristics (CC) need to be identified in every contract or agreement. KCs are attributes that make a product or service desirable and are needed to make said product, or service, fulfill a need as intended. CCs may be KCs as well, but are attributes intended to ensure a certain level of safety. The result of having a viable QA program should be to have identified all of a customer’s KCs or CCs and developed a method for ensuring their delivery. Through identification of and provision for a customer’s KCs and CCs, it can be assumed that all the customer’s expectations will be met. The following CIAs can then be applied linearly: 1) if all the customer’s expectations are met, then they have no choice but to be satisfied; 2) if a customer is satisfied they are likely to be a return or repeat customer; and 3) that a sustainable MM has been established and can be capitalized.  

Every year, huge sums of money and time are spent to find new customers, while repeat customers have transitioned in perspective to be more desirable due to the lack of needing a familiarization and trust building curve. A loyal customer base is something that is highly sought after and, in most cases, essential to a company’s survival. By utilizing QA as a strategic advantage, then the foundation can be established for continuously creating customer loyalty for as long as demand for a deliverable is present, and the flexibility to change when it demand ceases. 

I hope this article has been informative and helpful. Please feel free to leave me your feedback or contact me if you would like to collaborate!