Kwame Nkrumah University of

Science & Technology, Kumasi,

Ghana

Designing and Assuring Quality:

The Role of Strategic Planning

Mrs. Priscilla Addo Asamany
Lecture three objectives

This lecture focuses on the role of strategic

planning in quality improvement.

By the end of the lecture, students should be

able to:

• Understand strategic planning: content

and process

• Explain how strategic planning can be

utilized to improve quality

• Explain the nature of relationship that

exists between quality improvement and
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organizational success
Strategy and Strategic planning

• Strategy is “a coherent set of analyses,

concepts, policies, arguments, and actions
that respond to a high-stakes challenge”
(Rumelt, 2011)

• Simply put, it’s a managerial game plan for

running an organization to gain competitive
advantage

• It must be aggressive, bold, and fast-moving

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Strategy and Strategic planning

• Strategic planning (SP) is an explicit process

for determining … long-range objectives,
procedures for generating and evaluating
alternative strategies, and a system for
monitoring the results of the plan when
implemented” (Armstrong 1982, p.198)

• Components of SP:
• Content (what it should capture)
• Process (steps involved)

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Strategy and Strategic planning

Strategy content: Strategic variables for quality

improvements

1. Time: speed and duration

2. Leadership

3. Generic competitive strategy/priority: cost,

differentiation, and focus

4. Order winners

5. Resources/Core competencies

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Strategy content: Strategic variables for quality
improvement

1. Time considerations (in quality management)

• Speed of quality improvement. Effective implementation
of quality improvement programs requires a gradual process

• When to reap the benefit? Quality improvement benefits

often don’t occur in the short-run (e.g. within 1-year)

Short-term goals for higher quality levels and managing

towards those goals can be detrimental to the firm.

Specifically, attaining quality conformance quickly may

not lead to cost reduction.

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Strategy content: Strategic variables for quality
improvement
Leadership (for quality)

1. Choice of leadership style (e.g.)

• Autocratic
• Supportive
• Democratic
• Servant

2. Leadership skills for quality improvement

• Vision
• Knowledge
• Communication
• Planning

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Strategy content: Strategic variables for quality
improvement
3. Generic competitive strategies

• Low cost strategy: cost reduction leadership in business

processes
• Quality costs: PAF paradigm - Prevention, Appraisal, and
Failure (internal vs. external [ethical concerns and
reputational issues]).

• Differentiation strategy: uniquely relevant product/service

features perceived by customers.
• Differentiation through quality

• Focus strategy : targeting and serving a niche market

• Focus through quality

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Strategy content: Strategic variables for quality
improvement
4. Order winners as an industry

• How does a company win orders from the market or

attract & retain customers?
• Order-winning criterion (e.g.):
• Price
• Quality
• Flexibility: product range, variety, & customization
• Delivery: speed & reliability
• Technical support/customer service

• What role does quality play in order-winning?

Note: Quality is no more a market winner, but a market
qualifier
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Strategy content: Strategic variables for quality
improvement
5. Resources & Core competency

• Quality as a firm’s resource core competency

• Search, extract, allocate, and deploy appropriate

resources for designing and implementing quality
improvement programs
• Such resources may be:
• Tangible or intangible
• input-based, transformation-based, and
output-based

• Develop core competency for managing quality:

Involves a long-term commitment to quality and
continual process improvement
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(Quality) Strategy Process

Consists of the steps for developing (quality

improvement) strategy within an organization:

A Generic Model:
1. Defining the mission and major goals of the organization

2. Analyzing the external and internal environment of the

organization (using SWOT & PESTLE tools, for example)

3. Choosing strategies that align or fit the organization's

strength and weaknesses, opportunities and threats within
the environment

4. Deploying organizational resources, structures, and control

systems to implement and control the implementation of the
organization's chosen strategy.
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(Quality) Strategy Process
Force-choice model option: simple and useful
for firms that are largely inexperienced in
Strategy Process

1. Withdraw a group of top executives to a retreat

2. They should analyze the firm’s strengths and

weaknesses (i.e. organizational assessment)

3. Next, they should analyze the opportunities and

threats in the external business environment

4. Lastly, they are to combine insights from stage 2 and

stage 3 to formulate the strategy options/alternatives
available to the firm, the requirements for
implementing each, and relevant contingency plans.
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(Quality) Strategy Process
Force-choice model:

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(Quality) Strategy Process

Catch-ball Model
“Catch-ball” comes from the concept of throwing the goals,
objectives and strategies back and forth throughout the entire
hierarchy of the management chain.

1. Top management first creates the annual company goals,

objectives and strategies. Here, quality performance or
improvement goals are considered/set.

2. Middle managers scrutinize these and provide their inputs

and suggestions. Quality control managers give their inputs
as well.

3. This refined policy is finally passed for practical

implementation.

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(Quality) Strategy Process
Catch-ball Model
There are two methods of deploying the catch-ball concept:
• Top-down
• Bottom-up

Top-Down Catch-ball
Here, top management give their take on a quality issue as
minimizing product failure costs, then it goes to a team or
tactical managers, who will then give their take on it and then
forward it to operational level before a decision is finally taken.

Bottom-Up Catch-ball
Under this approach, a quality issue such as performance
targets may be set by top management but they allow the
tactical, or operational level managers to come out with
modalities for achieving this target.

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Strategic imperatives of Quality Improvement
1. Does quality improvement always generate superior
business results (e.g. competitive advantage and
profitability)?

2. What happens if an average firm in a given industry

offers above average product quality?

3. How should top management act if customers are not

willing to pay for quality improvement but competition is
intensive?

4. How is quality improvement related to each of the

following variables?
• Cost
• Price
• Productivity
• Profitability
• Sustainability? www.knust.edu.
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