The role of quality assurance in business planning
If you’re running your own business, I expect that you have done a business plan. Here we explain the key role quality assurance can play in business planning.
What is business planning?
Business planning is essentially setting up and documenting the processes you need as a business to deliver on your mission. A business plan will define the business you are in and your purpose for being. Hopefully, it will also define how you plan to achieve these. In that process, it is important to recognise the quality required to ensure customer satisfaction.
What is quality assurance?
Peter Drucker said, “what’s measured improves”. He also says “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” meaning you can’t know whether or not you are successful unless success is defined and tracked. This is precisely what quality assurance is.
Quality assurance is a systematic process of defining your objectives, setting targets, and measuring those targets. QA also encourages using mistakes as opportunities for continual business improvement.
How do these two things go together we hear you say? Well-versed in quality assurance (QA) as we are, we know that businesses that have a good quality management system in place are more efficient, more focused and better able to adjust to the ever-changing market in which they operate. That is because quality assurance sets the framework for a cycle of continual improvement.
So, are business planning and quality assurance the same thing?
No, but there are significant benefits of doing them together.
When it comes to writing a business plan, there is a certain formula that is tried and tested, regardless of your service or product. You should aim to articulate goals, reveal weaknesses, and determine the overall trajectory of the business. So why is it worth overlaying this process with a QA plan?
QA is built on the premise of Plan-Do-Check-Act. This process-driven approach enables you to decide on your specific, measurable, achievable and realistic objectives and targets. It then requires you to periodically evaluate and modify these. This ensures that they continue to provide the desired results, that is, the goals articulated on your business plan.
Whilst business planning can have a creative approach, the QA process involves a definite series of steps that a company should follow for every product, service, or process to ensure they meet quality standards. It takes your planning journey through a series of formalised steps that include the planning, then testing, monitoring and implementation.
QA Certification is formalised by an international organisation for standardisation (ISO), founded with the goal of ensuring quality across borders. Certification to ISO AS/NZS 9001 is considered the most reliable standard today because it assists businesses to consistently meet every expectation or demand of their customers.
Businesses that make quality assurance a key part of their business planning processes and growth strategy certainly increase their competitive edge, along with many other advantages such as a positive reputation for reliability due to consistent quality.
Talk to us
If your organisation, would like to see the benefits of implementing quality assurance processes, Masula Compliance is your go-to consultant. Our wealth of knowledge and experience has been gained through supporting businesses in developing practical management systems, monitoring the implementation process, and achieving the recognition of external certification since 1997.
By supporting our clients through each step, we ensure the process adds value, minimises disruption to business operations and can be effectively implemented to result in real positive change for the organisation.
Get in touch with the team from Masula Compliance on 07 3348 3666 or email info@masulacompliance.com.au