‘You can be imperfect, but be the first’
| Business Standard | NEW DELHI WEDNESDAY 11-08-1999 |
Gauri Kamath & Shishir Prasad
MUMBAI
‘You can be imperfect, but be the first’
Madhav Mehra, president World Environment Foundation and Chairman, World Quality Council, was in Mumbai last week to attend the World Congress on Total Quality.
“Quality is dead,” he pronounces, in an obvious effort to paraphrase Nietzsche. Mehra believes that the world has changed and quality is not enough to compete. “You need to innovate,” he says, “Internet has increased the pace of competition. It is not enough to be prefect each time. It is more important to be imperfect, and be the first,” says Mehra.
The need to be the first in the market is a clear departure from the way companies have done business till now. “Companies have competed on scale till now. They have succeeded through mass production of goods. That is out. People want variety al l the time, so they need to get the product quickly and try to get the product correct on all dimensions,” says Mehra.
This is a change. It threatens to reduce quality to a mere statistical concept. If it confirms it is quantity. If it doesn’t, then it cannot be of good quality “That is a one dimensional definition. Quality can be what confirms to certain parameters and it can also be something that is exceptional. And companies need to decide which market they are making their goods for, “says Mehra. So a product intended for a large number of people will include affordability as one of the parameters of quality.
On the other hand, there is always the B MW car or a Rolex watch. “In India, larger part of the market is in numbers, so affordability is a key issue,” says Mehra. He thinks Indian companies have not done enough in their quality initiative. “The US joined the Quality Congress later than India, but has 14000 companies following the quality initiatives.
In India, only 5000 companies have taken these initiatives ,” says Mehra. Mehra is also quick to agree that even the quality certification of some of the Indian companies is of uncertain origin.
“There should be a national accreditation body which can be the monitoring agency. In India, the problem is also that there has been a explosion of companies claiming that they have ISO 9000 or some such think and it is difficult for any monitoring agency to keep pace while verifying the claim,” says Mehra.
The presence of such a problem itself points out to a larger malaise. “The quality movement did not go to the grass roots. It became a piece of paper and not a tool to change the way companies manufactured and distributed products,” says Mehra.
There is some evidence to Indicate that even the top management has been found wanting. “That is why we are trying to move from TQM to innovation. Because that is here the competition will shift to, “says Mehra.
As a child, he read Gandhiji’s works. “I was deeply influenced by the Mahatma’s thought on universality of religion,” he says. He got through the civil services exam in 1961 and joined the ministry of railways Leadership, term-buildings, employee involvement, communication-such concepts fascinated him and led to a Ph.D. in Management by Objectives from London and start Quality Management International in 1974. All through his 27 years stint in the railways, he lectured (and ty at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. “I believe all of us have a duty towards improving society,” he says “At the IIMs, I see a lot of cynicism. There is no dearth of knowledge among my listeners and there is tremendous perception, but the translation of the response into action is poor. People lack role models today. They need to be guided.”
Dr Mehra took voluntary retirement from the railways in 1988. He says, “ It is tough to join the government, but it is even more difficult to quit. The government is a very staid institution. It does not encourage avant grade action. I attribute my success to my hands on approach. Since I know hat bureaucracy can be, my lectures are practical.” Quality does not figure high in India’s corporate consciousness since company managements provide little scope to employees to involve themselves on the shop floor and in the framing of policies for workers, he says. But the situation is gradually changing. At the recent World Congress on Total Quality held in India 2,600 delegates from 38 countries participated. “There has been a shift in the paradigm, an organizational transformation . Workers are held to be equally important now,” says Dr. Mehra.
Such changes in thinking encourage him to carry on. Besides, he says, “My work excites me. So I never feel tired. Of course, Ifeel overwhelmed by my responsibility at times, but that merely give me more drive. I have miles to go before I can sleep. And happiness, for me, is in.
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