Improving IT quality: the basics to boost service and cut costs

Abstract

While IT has been widely used to facilitate right‐sizing, the role of IT in the quality movement has been proven but underutilized. Companies focusing on quality to increase revenues have seen dramatic results, improving products and services severalfold, with half the number of employees. IT has helped those organizations design goods that are easier to manufacture, improve new product cycle time through cross‐functional integration of systems, and use electronic networks to speed up communications internally and with suppliers and customers. Yet most IT departments have been reactive rather than proactive, involved only peripherally in their organization′s total quality programmes. Quality improvement is vital to companies trying to thrive in an increasingly competitive environment, and IT must be a partner in an organization′s efforts to institutionalize quality. A business can begin this effort with several basic steps. Briefly explaining the evolution of the quality movement will help put those steps into context.

Citation

Nolan, R.L. (1995), "Improving IT quality: the basics to boost service and cut costs", Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 3 No. 5, pp. 3-7. https://doi.org/10.1108/09685229510104936