Quality Mix

Quality Mix is multitasking in quality culture management with the objective of surpassing the competition. In 1984, the founder of Business Initiative Directions, Jose E. Prieto, created the pioneering Quality Mix concept. In past decades, thanks to its innovative ideas, Business Initiative Directions has succeeded in becoming one of the first four world-wide organizations to implement Quality Culture in top local, national, continental or global companies.

The Quality Mix concept is made up of six groups of actions which blend to achieve a process of constant quality improvement. This process consists of a systematic analysis of the entire life cycle of a product or service, in order to obtain an advantageous position against competitors.

1. QC 100: A Model of Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management was created by necessity. In several studies, researchers like Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum and Ishikawa revealed the weak aspects of the organization of companies. To solve this weakness, the QC100 model presented a management strategy, the main objective of which was the continuous improvement of quality. This is made possible by better knowledge and control of the system, including the design of the product or service, providers, materials, distribution, information, etc. involving internal procedures, customer and provider service, delays and after-sales service. The main idea is to increase awareness of quality in all organizational processes of the company. When this is taken into consideration, it becomes totally clear that the company has an enormous capacity for improving benefits and profitability if its quality standards are improved. By doing this, the company will consistently provide its customers, internal or external, with products and services that satisfy their needs, with "things being done right the first time". High quality standards means improved productivity levels at lower production costs. The company's overall costs are also reduced. This renders the company more competitive, not only due to its higher quality but also its reduced costs.

The Total Quality Management model has been widely used in manufacturing, education, government and service industries. It is considered "total" since it involves all the emloyees of the company as well as its entire organization.

The TQM model is composed of three main principles, as indicated in its name itself:

• Total: It involves all the processes and bodies.
• Quality: Excellence, innovation and technology.
• Management: Leadership, planning, taking action, supervision and implementation.

The concept of quality includes customer satisfaction and is applied to the product and to the organization. Total quality aims at obtaining benefits for all the members and areas of the company, including manufacturing, sales, working conditions and training of its employees.
Experience has shown that after the implementation of a quality system, the following results can be achieved:

• Increase in customer satisfaction
• Higher efficiency in internal work
• Increase in productivity
• Increase in profits
• Decrease in costs
• Higher quality products or services.

Quality is, therefore, a result of how a company is organized.

2. The Award

In order to transmit quality culture, the international organization Business Initiative Directions (BID) grants the Quality Award to companies or organizations from around the world which promote excellence and innovation by implementing quality.

The award aims to:

1. Recognize the leadership in quality represented by the awarded company.
2. Create company news that will be spread or broadcast through all the Quality Mix channels.

The award recognizes the commitment that the company or organization has made with quality, business results, customer satisfaction, as well as the improvement of the relations with the employees, providers or anyone linked to the company. On the one hand, the award is a way of communicating the importance of quality for the company or organization. On the other hand, BID creates news about the award, from which a political and media campaign will be established.

The jury which annually chooses the awardees is formed by the leaders of previously awarded companies.

The companies are chosen to receive the award by a jury formed by the leaders of previously awarded companies and votes made through other channels established by BID, during the annual meetings in New York, London, Paris, Geneva, Frankfurt, Madrid and Moscow. Leading companies can also vote by post, using an official ballot previously sent to them by BID, or via Internet.

The evaluation criteria are based on the following QC100 TQM principles:

• Customer satisfaction
• Respect for the environment
• Corporate social responsibility
• Benchmarking
• Information and data analysis
• Leadership
• Planning and decision-making
• Human resources
• Continuing education and training
• Processes and production
• Innovation and technology
• Communication strategies
• Business results
• ISO 9000
• TQM.

BID's Selection Committee consists of a group of international experts in business communication formed by engineers, physicists, mathematicians, economists, psychologists, sociologists, journalists, designers and architects who research a maximum of public or private resources.

BID has taken into account the selection processes and technology of the most prestigious awards of the world (the Nobel prize in Sweden, the Oscar in Hollywood, the Malcolm Baldridge Award in the USA, the Deming Award in Japan, etc.) to obtain their strong points and to improve the selection of the companies.

3. Communication and Media

In order to transmit quality culture, the Quality Mix approach uses all communication media, especially the most modern ones, including the Internet and related tools, blogs, videos, twitters and social networks. ImarPress is the main sponsor of the conventions organized by BID in London, Paris, New York, Frankfurt, Geneva, Madrid and Moscow. Thus, every time a company receives a BID international quality award, the news is spread, emphasizing the company's aim to provide its customers with products and services that satisfy their needs.

Furthermore, the press releases distributed by BID are published in all the countries of the world. ImarPress, with its publications in English, Spanish, French and Russian, offers wide media coverage of the awarded companies. Some of ImarPress' publications are 4AM (For All Markets), GPerson, InvEurope, B2People, GatewayCNet, Quality Update. In YouTube: ImarPress, ImarPressTV, BIDWorld.

The Quality Mix model has been translated into the major languages of the world and, in a few months, it will be available in more than 100 languages.

4. Marketing Boomerang

The news of the award and its graphic symbol are used by the awarded company as a strong idea. The logo of the award is present in the entire conventional marketing channel already in use by the company: containers, packaging, advertisements, signs, brochures, sales points, trade fairs, stands, commercial areas, transportation, uniforms, buildings and corporate gifts. Using the symbol of the award in the established marketing channels does not mean an increase in costs; it only supports the printing of the award.

Boomerang is a marketing action in which a small investment, in this case printing the logo of the award on all the company's marketing support, will return to the company as profits. For over 22 years, BID has been receiving information showing the increase in sales in companies which have used the logo of the award.

5. Image Endorsement

In modern communication, image endorsement is utilized more and more, especially by the world’s top companies. Image endorsement could be defined as a group of actions in which the important symbols of the world are used as support, such as cities, national symbols, sports, famous scientists, artists and celebrities. Consumers see each part separately, but perceive them as part of a whole. The most important sports events of the world are the best example of image endorsement, and are highly valued by the top companies of the world. By organizing conventions in the most emblematic places of the world, BID utilizes the image endorsement of those countries, cities and buildings.

To make the image endorsement more effective, BID offers media coverage that utilizes the most sophisticated material, recording each convention in high resolution and with multiple cameras, so that business leaders can present their success stories and obtain the maximum benefit from those meetings. In recent decades, BID has been gathering a large amount of recorded material which has become an important asset for image endorsement, allowing the constant release of news about the awarded companies, where quality is in the forefront of their performance.

6. Quality as a Political Campaign

BID's Quality Mix model constitutes a novelty in marketing and communication since it transmits quality culture by means of a political campaign.

Politics is necessary to manage the future of individual, social and business needs. Thus, communications as a political campaign is based on a format where business leaders propose solutions and the media spread them to the society which evaluates their proposals and accepts those which best address their problems for the future. BID thinks of business leaders as politicians who represent the interests of their shareholders, employees, providers and other people linked to their companies. Hence, BID's Quality Mix model transmits quality culture utilizing a visual format similar to that used by political parties. The Quality Mix model uses the following methodology as a political campaign:

• organizing conventions in emblematic places around the world (conventions)
• national and international media coverage (press, TV and the Internet)
• awarding high growth rate companies (top companies)
• discovering and reinforcing new business leaders (new faces in business)
• building a club similar to a political party, which is meant to defend quality culture as a differentiating element between the company and its competitors (BID awardees).