Essay on TQM: the Case of the Coca-Cola Company
Product quality is linked with customer satisfaction and global competitiveness of an organization (Goetsch & Davis, 2016; Sureshchandar, Rajendran, & Anantharaman, 2002), thus development of it is crucial for any organization. Total Quality Management (TQM) provides a comprehensive approach over quality management and aids organization success, especially when the scale of competition increases. Coca-Cola Company, a non-alcoholic beverage corporation, has to ensure high product quality and customer satisfaction all over the globe which presents a difficult task. In this essay, the extent to which TQM strategies and tools are applied at Coca-Cola Company will be researched.
Application of TQM at the Coca-Cola Company
According to Goetsch & Davis (2016), the eleven key characteristics of TQM are “strategically based, customer focus, obsession with quality, scientific approach, long-term commitment, teamwork, continual process improvement, bottom-up education and training, freedom through control, unity of purpose, and employee involvement and empowerment” (p.16). The presence of these eleven aspects at Coca-Cola Company will be investigated in the following paragraphs.
Based on strategy. The three of four the company’s strategic pillars are concerned with quality: customer relevance, customer preference and cost leadership as reported by integrated annual report 2015. What is more, the company vision is to become an undisputed leader in beverage markets they are presented at (Coca-Cola HBC AG, 2015). Thus, it can be concluded that quality is rooted in strategy.
Customer focus. The company vision is also presented with 6 Ps, where it addresses both internal (“People: be a great place to work”) and external customers (“Portfolio: bring beverages that anticipate and satisfy consumers preferences”)(THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, 2017).
Obsession with quality. To ensure the highest quality over various locations, Coca-Cola Company introduced KORE. KORE is a quality management system that enables sustainable performance. The framework includes not only customers and products, but also associates and partners as well as the environment (THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, 2010).
Scientific approach. KORE ensures compliancy of business and customer objectives via consistent metrics. Thus, it allows to monitor performance and take preventive action when needed (THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, 2012).
Long-term commitment and Unity of purpose. Those characteristics of the company can be deducted from the mission statement of the company “to refresh the world”. The Coca-Cola Company possesses a long term plan for doing so (THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, 2017)
Teamwork, employee involvement and empowerment, freedom through control. The company values stresses the importance of collaboration, passion, and leadership (THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, 2017).
Continual process improvement. The Coca-Cola quality system constantly monitors risk and looks for opportunities for improvement. Whereas such opportunity isnoticed, the improvement to standards of operations is made. The improvement then is to be released over relevant supply chain parts (THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, 2012)
Bottom-up education and training. The company realizes the importance of education and training, therefore there have been various initiatives and processes introduced. For example, The CCE Pathway, education initiative at the company, offers the employees a structured program of daily self-study and includes peer coaching, self-reflection and weekly assessments(Fritz, Kaestner, & Bergmann, 2010).
Thus, …
