Best practices for quality management in the telecommunications industry

Graciela Piedras

Rowin Andruscavage

ENSE627/ENPM647 Spring 2004

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), appropriately utilized, can generate new opportunities for access to information, enhance productivity and education – in short, can facilitate progress in the creation of equal opportunity. However, the divide between those with access to ICTs and those without continues to expand. Whether that phenomenon continues or ICTs become a powerful instrument for growth will depend on how such technologies are introduced and disseminated.

Changes taking place that affect the competitive position of a high tech industry include:

New Players in the Industry

The Convergence of Technologies

Global Economies

New Customer Business Models

Customer Decision Processes

Government & Regulatory Environment

Government Politics

Consolidation of Government User Groups into State-wide/Country-wide Systems

Global Safety & Security

Personal Commitment Process – Regular formal performance review of individual measurements that are linked to the sector and corporate scorecards.

Recent times have been ones of contrast in the telecommunications sector. Although slow expansion continues in installed telecommunication infrastructure, the private sector is encountering many difficulties, such as job losses, project cancellations, and, in general, increasing skepticism in financial circles regarding the viability of the new services. The profits are being squeezed at both ends. More competition and a weakened economy are driving prices down. One size no longer fits all. Customers are demanding more customization. It’s harder than ever to stand out in the marketplace. To differentiate yourself, you’re striving for higher quality, more durable products and responding to consumer demands for safer products.

All around the world companies are using the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the European Quality Award, the Deming Application Prize, and many other national quality awards to assess their current performance against the set of guidelines for total quality of a successful company and determine gaps in the alignment and performance following a model of improvement as the one shown below.

Some of the key factors to an ongoing success are:

Early with leading technology advances,

Innovation in product design and service offering,

Continuous productivity growth allowing continuous cost reduction to support market expectations, and

Continuous growth in sales and company size to achieve economies-to-scale in this capital-intensive industry.

Competitive Pricing

Communication/Feedback Process

The paper will provide best practices so that an organization can develop meaningful and realistic action plans for improving performance practices and capabilities of a telecommunications company from a business perspective. It will strive to identify the commonality despite great outward differences. The challenge will be to establish a linkage between the situations and derive know-how.

For the purposes of this paper, the scope of the material will concern information and communication technology systems, including telephone, mobile, and packet data networks. This will include hardware, software, and protocol design, in addition to manufacturing and service providers.

Best practices for quality management in a telecommunications c

Graciela Piedras

2004-04-12T20:22:00

Rowin Andruscavage