The Role of Total Quality Management in Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

All types of the businesses, be it of small or large nature, are needed to come forward to support them in performance and to achieve better result in the competitive, modern business world. Many countries around the world are economies where the small and medium enterprises are the backbone that must adopt effective management strategies if they are to survive and grow. One such strategy or strategy as it were, gaining importance in the last few years was Total Quality Management (TQM). There is one thing you must understand that majority of SME’s have used this holistic approach towards the improvement of the quality that have become turning up of the trade and customer satisfaction of their operations and even been the reason of driving your business success.With market dynamics quickly moving, moving in the fast lane, SMEs have been experiencing increasing pressure of offering high quality products and services time and again. With this setting, the capacity of TQM as a weapon against accomplishing these enterprises’ requirements in satisfying and surpassing customer demands as well as for optimizing internal processes is shown. TQM is a way in which SMEs can compete equally with the large organizations by establishing a culture of continuous improvement and employee participation.This article goes further in the role played by Total Quality Management in the performance improvement of SMEs; its origins, fundamental principles, challenges of implementation and conclusion on its advantages. We will finally invest in the philosophy and apply it to smaller enterprises the way quality management leader W. Edwards Deming describes. We desire to benefit smaller business leaders by analyzing TQM practices, causes, and effects since they can serve as reference for the little organization leader to utilize at the course of his quality administration run.