Quality for Marketer

One of the most difficult questions for me to answer for last so many years has been: What is Quality? There are hundreds of definitions given by the various books on Quality Management; each one sounds perfect in the given context but generalizing the term is very difficult. Quality is a subjective matter, but very important for any organization to survive and make a mark in the fiercely competitive market. A producer and a customer can view quality differently.  Some of the technically best products may not be commercially successful and vice a versa. For example if you ask people about best wheeler available, you probably get as many answers the no of bikes available. It is very difficult for a marketer to decide what is quality?

Quality needs to be defined in a producer and customer context differently. Let us look at some definitions

Business has tried to define quality in a producer-consumer context, with the following variations:

1.     ISO 9000: "Degree to which a set of inherent characteristic fulfills requirements." The standard defines requirement as need or expectation.

2.     Six Sigma: "Number of defects per million opportunities." 

3.     Philip B. Corsby: "Conformance to requirements." The difficulty with this is that the requirements may not fully represent customer expectations.

4.     Noriaki Kano and others, presenting a two-dimensional model of quality: "must-be quality" and "attractive quality." The former is near to the "fitness for use" and the latter is what the customer would love, but has not yet thought about. Supporters characterize this model more succinctly as: "Products and services that meet or exceed customers' expectations."

5.     Rober Pirsig: "The result of care."

The best definition is given by Dr. Joseph Moses Juran. He was a 20th century management consultant who is principally remembered his work on Quality and Quality Management, writing several influential books on those subjects. He says quality as “fitness to use” and fitness is defined by customer.

This definition is best suited for marketer to understand the term. Here marketer needs to understand what is a best solution to the target customer problem? May not necessarily be the best in terms of technology. e.g. the immensely popular product of the past in two wheeler category  ‘Bajaj scooter’ was not the best technical product but successful as it was for fit to use for its target market. Understanding the target market and what would be suitable for the same is the key for successful launch of new quality product.