Birla group sweeps quality awards

UPFRONT

Azim Premji "" no stranger to awards "" was in the news recently for yet another one. This time from Qimpro Consultants. Premji was awarded the Qimpro Platinum Standard "for a statesman for national quality." He wasn't around to receive it, but most of the rest of the awards "" recognised by the American Society for Quality and the Institute of Quality Assurance, UK "" were monopolised by the Aditya Birla group.

Among the awards bagged by this group were the Qimpro Medal for commitment to quality by an NRI, which went to Deepak Mittal, group executive president and business head (textiles), south-east Asia, the Qimpro Benchmark, an award for excellence in quality of management performance, which went to Thai Acrylic Fibre (another group company), and the Qimpro Silver Standard, which went to Anil Kumar, executive president of Hi-Tech Carbon.

The star of the show, held at the Indian Merchants' Chamber in Mumbai on March 25, was, however, Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways, who won the Qimpro Gold Standard. His award was for being a leader in adopting world-class quality models.

But how do you define quality and measure it? Suresh Lulla, managing director of Qimpro Consultants, gave an elliptical definition to underscore the point that quality is easier to notice than define. So how does one define, measure or improve quality? Lulla's one-minute definition. "Good quality is an English home, Chinese food, an American salary and an Indian wife. Bad quality is a Chinese home, English food, an
Indian salary and an American wife." Lulla wife, present for the occasion, did not blush.

(This article was published in the April 2002 issue of Indian Management).