Quality Management: An overview
There exist a number of methodologies that are used in quality management by business corporations today. Each of the methodologies depicts different success measures, and is motivated by different factors; as are applicable to either the broad or narrow units of business. Quality management is in itself a complicated process that entails the integration of multiple units of the larger business.
There is also the need for complex communication among all the stakeholders of the firms. Therefore, it is important for the all the stakeholders and/or participants in in the quality management process to have the required tools that are necessary for faceting Quality Management (Rose, 2005).
In organizations today, there is an increasing need of combining quality with management. This is thought to increase business performance as well as cutting down the losses because of wasteful activities that result from low cost operations. Therefore, total quality management has been applied in prominent corporations globally, for instance the Microsoft International Corporation.
Quality management is a set of managerial activities and functions which are involved in determining the quality policy, and the implementation of the policies via a number of channels which include quality planning and quality control and assurance. Total quality management is a set of management practices which help in the improvement of performance of firm’s processes (Daft, 2012).
Customer Groups of Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation was founded in the year 1975. Its founders are Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The company is a software provider, and deals in the production of software that is used for personal computers. Some of its products are Microsoft Disc Operating System and the Windows Operating System that are used worldwide.
These products are utilized for personal computers, applications for server environments, applications related to business as well as consumer productivity, media programs of an interactive nature, and development of internet platforms and tools.
The corporation also offers online services, selling of personal computer books and other input devices, and carries out research aimed at developing modern, advanced and more sophisticated software products (Geisst, 2006).
Basing on the range of products and services that the firm deals in, it can be deduced that the company deals with a big range of customers. With the advancement in information and communication technologies, the software technology is an essential tenet of information technology.
Thus, Microsoft Corporation has its customer and clientele system across a big range of companies and or organizations and institutions whether they are for profit or not for profit making. As more hardware technologies and products are developed and advanced, so is the same with software technologies to match and/or complement development of hardware.
The major customers of Microsoft are computer manufacturing and distributing corporations for which the company sells the Microsoft computer software. The other customers include other information and communication technology firms. The company also has a secondary market. This deals with selling company’s software in stores.
There are thus two market groups for the firm which is the primary market where the company deals with other companies and corporations as customers and the secondary market where the company sells its software in stores (Geisst, 2006).
Customers always expect more from companies; more for such big and innovative companies like Microsoft. The expectations of the customers for this company are better quality of its products and services; for example invention of software that can perform more complex functions in a more quick and elaborate manner.
Cost of quality in Microsoft Corporation
The failure of a product in the market has negative implications on the overall company. For the Microsoft Corporation, the quality of its products in the market has been awesome. The company is leading in the market more so with its Products – Windows platform. The quality of these products has been better over time. Being a technological company however, defections and anomalies are inevitable.
The anomalies were seen in the Windows Vista software which had technical defects. This was one of the biggest failures of this corporation. The problem was compounded by the promise of the company that Windows Vista would be a high quality and standard product. The expectations of consumers were not made in the quality of the software.
However, Microsoft has a unique position concerning the quality of its products. The company relies on feedback from the consumers using these products. They use the feedback to assess and improve the quality of its products, and as a basis in the invention and development of new products.
Customer product quality issues come in because the customers of the company always have very high expectations of the products of the company.
They base on the god quality record that has been set by the company. Microsoft as a company also develops software that is used in testing the quality of their products. This software helps the firm in the detection of anomalies in its products before the products are released to the market (Geisst, 2006).
Microsoft Software Development and Total Quality Management
Each year, Microsoft Corporation deals in the designing of different consumer as well as enterprise software products. The development of a single and/or individual software product is separated and considered a project.
Therefore, the project has its own sets of inputs and outputs and also workflows. The process of design is distinct among the different product types which include the operation systems DTP applications, Web Services, Database applications among other project types.
Every project has several teams that comprise of 3-10 members. This is dependent on the size of the product that is being developed. The product is categorized as small, medium or large. Larger projects – those developing large products have bigger teams.
The teams could comprise of even up to hundreds of product specialists and engineers. To attain high quality products, skilled labor force is considered the main resource as for each of the project (Carrow, et al, 2010).
The design and development of software products by the Microsoft Corporation is a process that is further sub-divided into other four smaller processes – sub- processes. These are the definition of the scope, the development sub-process, the stabilization and the delivery process. The sub-processes take place in a linear manner and are based on sub-tasks.
The Microsoft Company has many methods of developing products; though the most prevalent and efficient is the Risk- Requirement method. In the process of designing and developing software products, at the juncture of designing the scope and requirement design, all the pertinent risks related to the project are singled out and associated to other requirements in the Risk-Required Matrix.
The matrix is used in the prioritization and testing of the requirements which pose highest risk; hence, mitigation of the risks. This method ensures the products that are developed are of quality and are produced at low effort and cost (Carrow, et al, 2010).
The firm focuses on three goals appertaining to quality in the software product development projects. The three goals are functionality, the performance of the product and delivery timelines. The main quality issues which the firm experiences include low reliability, high interoperation costs as well as low scalability.
These issues can be linked to the various constraints which arise from the interdependence of a number of its systems and modules. The company identifies Software Quality Gap which is the deviation that exists between the outcomes of quality that is delivered, and the combination of expectations of software developers and or producers and the customers.
The gaps are mitigated by using managed development methods for instance Joint Application Development (Carrow, et al, 2010).
In the initial development stage, the process of developing software is in the form of inputs that are coded in terms of the requirement of users. These are then transformed into software programs that can be used. The software development process has many partitions, thus numerous intermediate partitions are generated in the whole software development process.
In software development, project management is considered as one of the key aspects. Project managers more often than not utilize planning and quality tools for example the Microsoft Project Plan and the Quick Test Pro in tracking resource utilization, identification of bottlenecks and the generation of cost estimations and the track revenues (Carrow et al, 2010).
Microsoft Company uses a number of major ratios to track the efficiency of the development and quality assurance. The two ratios that are used by the company are the Defect Leakage Rate and the Defect Rejection Rate. Thus, early defect detection and resolution helps Microsoft in keeping the costs low (Carrow, et al, 2010).
Microsoft adopts the Lean Quality Control process in its project development cycle. This process commences by the allocation of severity and also priority to all the defects that are identified. Severity bases on the importance of the defects to the technical implementation. The defect’s priority signifies the importance as it is related to conformity to business requirement.
After the resolution of high severity as well as priority defects, the products are then released to the market. It is well known that Microsoft has been an elusive company in releasing products that have zero-defects. However, a number of inputs in the production process results in ‘bugs’ which have the potential of leaking into the testing cycle thereby creeping into the products.
The defects are then detected by customers. The company has of recent times been focusing on reducing its defect Leakage Rate. The effort has given birth to impressive results. The Vista Operating System had the highest Defect Leakage Rate of up to 10%. The company improved in the production of its most recent operating system, that is, the Windows 7 which was introduced in the market in the year 2010.
The new operating system has enjoyed a reduced Defect Leakage rate to 1% while the process quality has been raised to 6 due to the improvement in the control system of the firm. The adoption of best quality assurance has been behind the reduction of both the development and the maintenance costs and the lowering of the dissatisfaction levels of customers. This has in turn raised the sales of the company (Carrow et al, 2010).
The quality of employees is crucial in determination of the quality that will be put into the input process, and the outcome of process. Microsoft has for a long time ensured that it recruits highly skilled persons in the organization. Furthermore, the employees are thoroughly trained and highly motivated to ensure that they put maximum efforts in the production process.
Moreover, the organization embraces group development: employees work as teams when developing products. The quality of employees determines the quality of input and the quality of the output.
The Microsoft Corporation has a good system of management which ensures that they get and or develop quality employees and therefore this stands to help the organization achieve quality output as in the quality of its products (Carrow et al, 2010).
The Chart below shows how quality assurance is attained in Microsoft Company.
Fig 1.0 Quality Assurance Control in Microsoft Corporation
Source: Author
Application Xerox’s Leadership Survey on the Microsoft Corporation
This survey focuses on three tools in the assessment of the impact of employee communication in organizations. The three tools used are the survey of the motivation and satisfaction of the employees of the company, a leadership survey of the company and an analysis of the communication needs of the organization (Spechler, 1993).
The Microsoft Corporation is an employee centered organization, as observed from the human resource perspective. The company success bases on the efficiency and effectiveness of its workers. This is contrary to other firms which base their performance achievement and or success on the betterment of their technologies.
The company values their staff having realized the importance of their staff in the productivity process of the company (Spechler, 1993).
The company recruits employee based on the level intelligence rather that basing on experience. The company believes in the hiring of the ‘right’ employees. The company fully caters for the needs of its employees having realized that its employees are the most important assets that the company has. The company employs persons whom they are sure that they will be motivated, that is, the environment that is in the company.
The company gives its employees an environment in which they can develop. The firm has a good system of rewarding its employees. Rewards are not only based on current achievements made, but also on the stocks as these are viewed as future assets to the company. Generally, the company has good leadership which gives room to employees to grow and therefore improving their productivity.
Conclusion
Quality Management is an essential tool of success for any organization. It helps organizations in knowing the quality of its products. Being a technological company that produces technological products, the company does take a lot of caution in the production process of its products.
Quality management has aided in raising the revenues of the revenues in Microsoft. It has also been at the center of building and maintaining customer confidence in the company and in its products.
Reference List
Carrow, A, et al (2010). Software Development and Quality Management at Microsoft. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/KundanBhaduri/software-development-and-quality-management-at-microsoft
Daft, R. L. (2012). Management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Geisst, C. R. (2006). Encyclopedia of American business history: 2. New York, NY: Facts on File.
Rose, K. (2005). Project quality management: Why, what and how. Boca Raton, Fla: J. Ross Pub.
Spechler, J. W. (1993). Managing quality in America’s most admired companies. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.