Innovation + Quality

Yesterday’s post discussed how the principals that drive product & service development haven’t changed, but the means to affect your solution are rapidly evolving. So what’s the determining factor for succesful offerings? The marriage of innovation with quality. Quality of your concept and quality of its execution.

Quality in a business context is an elusive word: look it up on Wikipedia and you’ll find no less than nine different definitions (ex. Six Sigma; ISO 9000). Most of these definitions contain two aspects: first, there’s a measurement of something; and second, that “something” being measured is customer-determined, rendering it relative and subjective. A few definitions that I find most helpful are Noriaki Kano’s presentation of a two-dimensional model of "must-be quality" and "attractive quality,” where the former is near to Joseph M. Juran’s definition, "fitness for use," and the latter is what the customer would love, but has not yet thought about or expressed. This can also be summarized as “Products and services that meet or exceed customers' expectations." Then there’s Peter Drucker’s ascertion:"Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for." And Robert Pirsig’s succint: "The result of care."

(By the way, there’s also an interesting list of methods to measure, maintain, and increase quality. For a fun and time-tested one, check out Kaizen--Japanese for continuous improvement--which was adopted to great success by Toyota and other firms in the fifties.)

The lack of quality in most businesses these days is horrific, particularly within young industries. Too often they’re all innovation and no real substance. It’s like that famous '80s line: where’s the beef? On the other hand, mature industries like publishing tend to provide quality (in content) but lack innovative means to deliver it. I find this particularly true with religious publishers. So today’s holy grail for business is a balanced marriage of the two: quality and innovation.