Quality of Context

Quality of Context

Quality of Context

The new ISO management system framework talks of context of the organisation. This is refreshing addition and gives primacy to business and tries to establish the connect with system. Quality of Context is therefore essential to be understood, worked upon seriously, meticulously established, revisited once a while and fine tuned. So what is context: Context is to establish the wherewithal to do business. And for the management system it means putting right words so that connected other business fundamentals, external and internal issues and interested parties can be spelt out. This will establish intention of doing right business. Once this intention is clarified with Leadership the same would pronounce (instead of incoherent noise) to respective levels in the organisation. Rather a good context is evolved in a pre-qualified key player team selected from within the organisation.

Let’s go deeper: From thinking and documenting – why are they into given business - they can write basic customer connecting statement. This then can be worked in crisp statements – let us call them critical to satisfaction or CTS.

This CTS need working not only from stated customer requirements in:

1. Drawing

2. Quality Agreement

3. Packaging, Labelling, complaint response time, complaint resolution time, at-customer correction, etc.

4. But also in long term intent and unstated customer requirements for – Design robustness, consistency in use of same machine, tool, gauges as done in initial trial, being transparent, etc.

a. these aspects are relatively easier to discern in B2B – though still many organisation miss the bus here

b. When talking of B2C – Indian organisations talk of product meeting functional need of customer so again they essentially limit to hard facts of drawing and obvious needs. For the unstated needs consultants, MNC practices, insights and plethora of such outside agencies try to help and demand their pound of flesh.

5. This results into identifying external and internal issues.

a. Most of the times internal issues are prominently listed as are easy to find out.

b. External issues listing on ISO standard specified requirement on PESTEL meaningfully (not lip service) many a times lack.

6. In case of B2C offering – The intent with which an organisation comes up to meet functional requirement is lost over years. Key is that the business organisation need to continue checking that connection, its validity, micro and macro changes and continue aligning with the same. Failing in that, organisation start working in silos, inertia in the market gives them false satisfaction of continued success where as the ground slowly becomes slippery and one fine day the game is no more in control. Cue can be taken from MNCs who put in lot of efforts in understanding customer requirement, the eco-system in which the products are used, the adaptive and adoptive practices that are to be decoded to enable them put right

communication besides product. So their advertisement, website, offers, and packaging gets designed around that. Not for nothing their brand soars so high and it is just not imagery of advertising companies or shrill noise of marketing team but persevering effort deep down in establishing connect with customer, eco-system, habits and preferences. To become more successful they then even attempt on habit changing and setting-preferences. This Indian companies seldom think of. This gamble sometimes work, sometimes not. But the confidence with which this has to be played – gives such organisation a good hit rate (>70%) and keeps their companies floating and shining in market place. 7. ISO talks of context connection with other interested parties besides customer also. So this CTS is now expanding. Consultants engaged for management systems provide tentative listing of interested parties, their obvious needs and expectations. Since this exercise is not done by concerned persons in the organisation –

a. They miss on listing exhaustively all interested parties

b. They also miss on documenting exhaustive needs and expectations of these interested parties

c. And also organisation’s expectation from them

d. Now where this result into loss: If for example –

i. an interested party i.e. calibration agency is not conveyed that NABL ISO 17025 Accreditation is must for a given testing – selected lab may provide a

certificate which does not meet requirement. Hence organisation loses the very purpose of engaging such an agency.

ii. Rules of M.D. change over years and so also permissible over-consumption sometimes. If Leadership does not engage Electricity related internal person on this, organisation continues to bleed extra M.D. charges when its consumption is lesser with a fear that any over consumption would be penalised even though even over consumption limits had increased.

e. One another area it affects – is that organisation is ignorant of such issues and many

a times unable to impress the preferred agency of its intent. When many organisations (Customers of such agencies) pronounce their requirements the

agency would improve on offering, change its pricing, etc. So a two way traffic can ensue.

We propose that Leadership must spend time in dialogue with consultant, concerned stakeholders, with Leadership team and arrive at salient takeaways and to-do points.

Yogesh Jain,

Director

Niche Quality Solutions Private Limited, Indore

9303205440, 8989573663

Yogesh@nicheqs.com and nichecon@gmail.com