Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Given Kudos:
Concentration: Entrepreneurship, International Business
WE:Supply Chain Management (Energy and Utilities)
Re: Analysis of an Issue - Please Review
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01 Sep 2010, 05:38
For any enterprise to succeed in the market place, it must have a quality product or service for which consumers are willing to pay. By quality, I mean the consumer must find the product or service fit for purpose. As important as this may be however, I am of the opinion that enterprises must place a higher value on the process by which the offering is made. Yes I recognise that huge investments in the process for making a ‘bad’ product will eventually be wasted. However, whilst it is first important to make the right product, enterprises must put more focus on the cost effective, streamlined, ethical approach to manufacturing depending on their consumer base.
Firstly, the key value of having a process is that it establishes the repeatability of the steps which must be taken to achieve the final product. Regardless of how excellent a product is, if it cannot be reproduced, then its value is short lived and the benefits to the enterprise compromised.
In addition, most organisations invest far more in the design of new products than the potential retail price of such products. The creating of new automobiles is a good example of this. To create a new car, and document the process often costs many millions of dollars. However, once the final product is achieved, the real financial value to the manufacturer comes from mass production of the cars which are sold at affordable prices.
Furthermore, a quality processes usually helps to reduce dependence on single points of failures. These could be single individuals, machines or locations. The ability for a company sustain production or service delivery despite undergoing disaster recovery shows the resilience of such company and will ultimately distinguish such from competitor companies without such quality processes.
Lastly, there has been more interests expressed by customers in the processes through which their products and services are packaged. Owning to people’s ethical and value systems, many more consumers seek assurance from vendors about the processes and prevailing conditions under which their products are made. Increasingly, jewellers now have to ensure that their diamonds are not from blacklisted sources. Some buyers of wooden products are keen to know that wood from heavily deforested countries were not used for making their office and home furniture. Moreover, in many cases, such users may have a legal right to know, where patents, copyrights and trade secrets are not compromised.
I submit that whilst the ‘Why’ is the most important of the three, the ‘How’ is next in line before the ‘What’.