Is strategy strategic? impact of total quality management on strategy

Abstract

Executive Overview As total quality management (TQM) reshapes business practices, it tends to nudge every firm toward a few common strategic planning objectives, namely: continuous improvement in quality of goods and services, responsiveness and flexibility of internal and supplier processes, and waste and cost elimination. A slightly longer set of TQM principles provides guidance helpful in connecting daily activities and decisions with TQM's strategic objectives. While the TQM principles do not fully deal with some complex competitive issues, they do appear to greatly simplify and stabilize much of strategic management. As TQM basics become more influential, senior executives may be drawn away from formulating unique strategies, setting high-level numerical goals, and monitoring performance against the goals. As can be inferred from behaviors of some senior executives of companies winning quality awards, the executive role shifts toward facilitating changes necessary to make TQM everybody's business.