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After a stormy week on Wall Street, companies are on edge and looking for ways to safely move forward. When we think about growth in hard times, we often think about what we can cut, ways we can get lean and mean and more efficient. Yet, in the highly competitive communications space, one area must remain off limits at all times: quality.
After speaking with customers, both service providers (cable, wireless, wired) as well as device manufactures, we know that quality remains one of their top strategic initiatives. It is an area where they cannot afford to cut corners. Competition is fierce, and slogans such as “It’s the network” reflect their belief that the quality of the experience strongly influences customer choice and loyalty.
This belief happens to be well founded. Let’s step back from carrier-class equipment to consider our own dependence on wireless devices. When using our mobile phones or our laptops, just how tolerant are we of dropped calls, service interruptions, or outages? If you are like me, after too many disruptions you start to think: “One more time, and I am going to switch carriers.”
It’s easy to see how service quality, device quality, and reliability have become the underpinnings of consumer confidence. This in turn drives buying behavior. Many of us work in companies that focus on selling products or services to other companies, but it is inarguably end users who have the (buying) power to send shockwaves though these companies—and entire markets.
While quality is clearly not negotiable for customers, companies may have one more reason to keep it high on their lists. Poor quality creates costs—more development, more testing, more customer service, remanufacturing, etc. High quality by contrast creates happy customers who then buy more, and it reduces costs by saving testing time, decreasing support calls, and preventing service calls to businesses and residences.
I do not expect executives to look at Wall Street today and say, “Let’s spend more on quality and staff up those test teams.” But I do think that those who manage quality have an opportunity to step up their game. Now is the time for test teams and organizations to make a statement, deliver even greater value to their companies, and get some much-deserved recognition.
This can be accomplished in several ways. Test organizations can simply create a report outlining the business benefits of their work—that is, how they save the company time and money, while enabling innovation and continued growth. Or they can call a meeting to discuss a strategy for becoming lean and mean, describe what they are doing to contribute to this goal, and then open up a dialogue with other groups to see what more can be done. Such interactions give test teams a chance to make their top- and bottom-line contributions more visible, particularly among executive-level management. More importantly, over time this can help change the company’s view of them—from that of a necessary evil, a cost center, to that of a cost saver and a source of critical business benefits.
Before the “cost-cutting” memos start flying, you might want to think about how your team delivers competitive advantage with your high-quality product, how your team makes customers loyal with quality products, and how your team saves your company money. This can be a time to lead a company through the storm and emerge stronger than ever.
After speaking with customers, both service providers (cable, wireless, wired) as well as device manufactures, we know that quality remains one of their top strategic initiatives. It is an area where they cannot afford to cut corners. Competition is fierce, and slogans such as “It’s the network” reflect their belief that the quality of the experience strongly influences customer choice and loyalty.
This belief happens to be well founded. Let’s step back from carrier-class equipment to consider our own dependence on wireless devices. When using our mobile phones or our laptops, just how tolerant are we of dropped calls, service interruptions, or outages? If you are like me, after too many disruptions you start to think: “One more time, and I am going to switch carriers.”
It’s easy to see how service quality, device quality, and reliability have become the underpinnings of consumer confidence. This in turn drives buying behavior. Many of us work in companies that focus on selling products or services to other companies, but it is inarguably end users who have the (buying) power to send shockwaves though these companies—and entire markets.
While quality is clearly not negotiable for customers, companies may have one more reason to keep it high on their lists. Poor quality creates costs—more development, more testing, more customer service, remanufacturing, etc. High quality by contrast creates happy customers who then buy more, and it reduces costs by saving testing time, decreasing support calls, and preventing service calls to businesses and residences.
I do not expect executives to look at Wall Street today and say, “Let’s spend more on quality and staff up those test teams.” But I do think that those who manage quality have an opportunity to step up their game. Now is the time for test teams and organizations to make a statement, deliver even greater value to their companies, and get some much-deserved recognition.
This can be accomplished in several ways. Test organizations can simply create a report outlining the business benefits of their work—that is, how they save the company time and money, while enabling innovation and continued growth. Or they can call a meeting to discuss a strategy for becoming lean and mean, describe what they are doing to contribute to this goal, and then open up a dialogue with other groups to see what more can be done. Such interactions give test teams a chance to make their top- and bottom-line contributions more visible, particularly among executive-level management. More importantly, over time this can help change the company’s view of them—from that of a necessary evil, a cost center, to that of a cost saver and a source of critical business benefits.
Before the “cost-cutting” memos start flying, you might want to think about how your team delivers competitive advantage with your high-quality product, how your team makes customers loyal with quality products, and how your team saves your company money. This can be a time to lead a company through the storm and emerge stronger than ever.
 | David Gehringer has served as Fanfare's vice president of marketing since 2006. Learn more about David >> |
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