Strategic Quality Management (SQM) Implementation Plan Outline Use all 20 items in your plan. You may include additional items in an appendix. I. What is the organization of which you are the CEO--Superintendent of a school district? CEO of a hospital? Plant Manager? University president? CEO of Wal-Mart, Costco, or Dollar Tree? Etc.? II. How, and to what extent is this organization involved in and impacted by globalization? How should it be involved in globalization? III. Consensus of Leadership Team to Implement SQM. Also, how will the implementation of SQM and other improvement initiatives support accountability, organizational governance, and organizational control? IV. Assessment of Culture (Conducive to SQM? Changes Needed?) V. Assessment of Existing Improvement Initiatives (ISO 9000 or other ISO standards? TQM? SPC? Lean Manufacturing? JIT Six Sigma? Other initiative? Or some initiative that is unique to your industry or organization?). VI. Use of Strategic Management Model and its elements - Also, how will you integrate your quality Initiative into the Strategic Management of the Organization? VII. Five P's Strategic Leadership Model - Use (and Alignment) of Five P'sPlan how you will use and Align 5P's? How will this ensure accountability and support organizational governance and control? VIII. How and why are the concept and application of ethics crucial to the implementation of a strategic quality management initiative? IX. Training (What training will you do? Who will do it? Who will receive the training? Examples are: Quality Theory and Tools, Six Sigma, Lean, Kaizen, Leadership, etc. You choose the type of training based on your knowledge of what you think you and your people will need.) X. Communication (How will people in the organization know you are implementing SQM, what are their respective roles, etc.?) XI. Teams (Will you have teams? What types? How will you activate them, use them, energize them for the long term, etc.?) XII. Empowerment (How will you use empowerment?) XIII. Process Documentation, Ownership, Management, and Improvement (How will you manage and streamline processes? Examples are listed.) a. List Processes and Who Owns Each on Departmental Calendar b. Develop a Checklist (Process Flowchart, Process Map, etc.) for each process c. Prioritize Processes d. Streamline Processes (e.g., Eliminate non-value-added items, etc.) e. Document Process Changes XIV. Quality Awards (How will you use Quality Award Criteria? For what quality awards will you apply? Why?) XV. Benchmarking (Which organizations will you benchmark? Why? How will you use the results?) XVI. How will you utilize ISO standards as well as Key Performance Indicators - KPI's - to measure SQM success and ensure accountability and organizational control? XVII. How will you use the quality management and related management and business theories that you included in your individual and/or team research papers? XVIII. Lessons Learned from Successes & Failures - How will you use successes and failures as the foundation for future success? XIX. Publicity/Visibility of Success - How and why will you publicize successes? XX. Conclusion - How will you ensure long-term continuous improvement in your organization? Revised 2015 Strategic Management Model Internal Strengths & Weaknesses External Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) Internal & External Assessment s Why the Organization Exists. What the Organization Wants to Be. Mission Vision Goals & Objectives High Level Desired Results. Specific, Measurable Outcomes Necessary to Make the Vision a Reality. Leadership Competencies & Core Values Use Quality Criteria for Self-Assessment and Improvement. Implement Teams Strategy Formulatio n Strategy Implementatio n (Deployment) The Plan of How & When to Achieve the Goals & Objectives. This Includes Measurement Strategies, Tactics, & Action Plans. Who Feedbac & will do what when? k Don't forget Core Competencies & Critical Success Factors. How are we doing? Are We Getting Better or Worse? What Modifications and Improvements Are Necessary? mildred.pryor@tamuc.edu Strategic Quality Management (SQM) Implementation Plan Outline Use all 20 items in your plan. You may include additional items in an appendix. I. What is the organization of which you are the CEO--Superintendent of a school district? CEO of a hospital? Plant Manager? University president? CEO of Wal-Mart, Costco, or Dollar Tree? Etc.? II. How, and to what extent is this organization involved in and impacted by globalization? How should it be involved in globalization? III. Consensus of Leadership Team to Implement SQM. Also, how will the implementation of SQM and other improvement initiatives support accountability, organizational governance, and organizational control? IV. Assessment of Culture (Conducive to SQM? Changes Needed?) V. Assessment of Existing Improvement Initiatives (ISO 9000 or other ISO standards? TQM? SPC? Lean Manufacturing? JIT Six Sigma? Other initiative? Or some initiative that is unique to your industry or organization?). VI. Use of Strategic Management Model and its elements - Also, how will you integrate your quality Initiative into the Strategic Management of the Organization? VII. Five P's Strategic Leadership Model - Use (and Alignment) of Five P'sPlan how you will use and Align 5P's? How will this ensure accountability and support organizational governance and control? VIII. How and why are the concept and application of ethics crucial to the implementation of a strategic quality management initiative? IX. Training (What training will you do? Who will do it? Who will receive the training? Examples are: Quality Theory and Tools, Six Sigma, Lean, Kaizen, Leadership, etc. You choose the type of training based on your knowledge of what you think you and your people will need.) X. Communication (How will people in the organization know you are implementing SQM, what are their respective roles, etc.?) XI. Teams (Will you have teams? What types? How will you activate them, use them, energize them for the long term, etc.?) XII. Empowerment (How will you use empowerment?) XIII. Process Documentation, Ownership, Management, and Improvement (How will you manage and streamline processes? Examples are listed.) a. List Processes and Who Owns Each on Departmental Calendar b. Develop a Checklist (Process Flowchart, Process Map, etc.) for each process c. Prioritize Processes d. Streamline Processes (e.g., Eliminate non-value-added items, etc.) e. Document Process Changes XIV. Quality Awards (How will you use Quality Award Criteria? For what quality awards will you apply? Why?) XV. Benchmarking (Which organizations will you benchmark? Why? How will you use the results?) XVI. How will you utilize ISO standards as well as Key Performance Indicators - KPI's - to measure SQM success and ensure accountability and organizational control? XVII. How will you use the quality management and related management and business theories that you included in your individual and/or team research papers? XVIII. Lessons Learned from Successes & Failures - How will you use successes and failures as the foundation for future success? XIX. Publicity/Visibility of Success - How and why will you publicize successes? XX. Conclusion - How will you ensure long-term continuous improvement in your organization? Revised 2015 Strategic Quality Management (SQM) Implementation Plan Outline Walmart Corporation Name Institution Introduction Walmart Corporation was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. The company has grown from one retail store to be the leading multinational retail store in the world today with revenue return more than the economy of Italy. The retail store has its presence in more than 36 countries. Today, more than a quarter of the retail store's revenue comes from outside the United States. Walmart Impact on Globalization Walmart, the leading retail store in the world, has impacted the world in various ways. Wal-Mart success has been made possible because of the company's philosophy to sell merchandises at the lowest price possible. Because of this strategy, the company has been able to endear itself to customers. In fact, the growth of the company and its acceptability wherever it has set foot stems from its insistence on lowest prices possible for its clients. In order to achieve its strategy of lowest prices possible, Walmart has implemented a number of initiatives all aimed at cutting costs. Walmart also works closely with is suppliers across the globe to ensure that they are able to offer the most competitive prices possible. Because of the level of success achieved by the company and the impact the company has had on customers and competitors, there is a notion of Wal-Mart effect wherever the company sets foot as it indicates lower prices to the surrounding community. Today a number of companies have embraced what is called Walmart effect. This effect usually forces existing firms to either reduce their prices or face the brink of being faced out of business. On the other hand, communities living wherever this stations are based normally rejoice. Consensus of Leadership Team to Implement SQM Strategic Quality Management is concerned with establishing long term goals that are focused at defining customer needs and how to fulfill them. In order to implement SQM, Walmart undertook a number of initiatives all meant at fulfilling the entity's promise to deliver quality products to its customer at the lowest cost possible. To achieve successful implementation of SQM, there is need to have in place consensus within a company's top leadership. Over the course of doing business, Walmart top leadership has been able to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement of the company operations starting from service to fulfilling customer needs. Walmart leadership is designed to ensure that Walmart is able to offer the lowest possible prices in areas that retail store operates without affecting quality. Assessment of Culture Conducive for SQM The first requirement that is needed for successful integration of SQM into a company operations is owning of the whole process. Taking Walmart as an example, top leadership is required to be committed into the ideals of SQM for the concept to thrive within an organization. For example, there is need for innovative culture within an organization. Market culture is the most suitable type of culture that an organization can implement to achieve SQM. Market culture advocates for competition, achievement and getting the job done. This means that everyone within the organization should be committed towards achieving total quality. For the case of Walmart, employees are required to be extremely efficient while undertaking their duties. In fact everyone, is obliged to accomplish their task towards achieving total quality management. Existing Initiatives Established by Walmart to Achieve Strategic Quality Management It is important to highlight that Walmart has more than 11,000 stores located in over 27 countries. In order to furnish these stores, the company manages an average of $32 billion inventory which are sourced from over 77 countries. Because of this, Walmart supply chain system has to be on top of its operations. To achieve SQM, the company requires that everyone in the entire organization to be committed to the driving prices down as much as possible by reducing costs incurred while conducting business. How to Integrate SQM into an organization For SQM ideal to be integrated successfully into an organization, there is need to ensure that everyone owns the idea. The best strategy to ensure that SQM succeeds is by ensuring that top management owns is and are committed to ensuring that it is actually implemented. This will help to avoid resistance of the strategy at some quarters. Apart from involvement of top leadership as well as everyone else in an organization, there is need to ensure that SQM elements are observed while coming gup with a SQM draft. Five Ps of Strategic Leadership The five Ps of Effective Leadership include purpose, Personification, Priority, Passion, and professionalism. Purpose if the first case of effective leadership. This means that leadership must have a goal or must be objectively oriented towards a certain purpose. For the case of Walmart, it can be seen that the company's leadership is actually entitled towards achieving lower priced goods but of high quality. Priority refers to the steps which must be observed while implementing strategic planning. Leaders are also supposed to have passion for what they are doing and encourage other to believe in their ideals. Lastly but equally important, personalization and professionalism are also required for development of effective leadership. Importance of Ethics is Strategic Quality Management. SQM is concerned with putting in place structures that ensure customer needs are satisfied for optimal benefits to a company. Walmart is one of the leading companies that has implemented this strategy and has seen its value rise because of the importance it attaches SQM. In implementing SQM, ethical issues are bound to emerge and therefore, considerations for ethic quality management need to be observed. Application of ethics in SQM is very instrumental in ensuring that both shareholders and community interests are taken care-off when implementing various strategies aimed at achieving optimal customer satisfaction. Although Walmart generally improves on the lives of the communities where it operates, it is also argued that the company business structure makes local and small firms to be wiped out for inability to compute. At some instance, it has been accused of procuring products from countries where forced labor is used. Because of this ethical considerations, the company has actually put in place measure to ensure ethical considerations in its business operations. Training Training is one of the most important of Human Resource Department. Through training, a company can align its employees to its strategic mission. For example, Walmart has been consistent in training and molding its workers into helping the company achieve lower prices by cutting on wastes and maximizing on various opportunities. In order to conduct successful training, it is important to state the goals and objectives of training. Thereafter, experienced personnel both middle and lower level managers to conduct the training program. For example, Kaizen production concept can be used in the training program. Kaizen which was introduced in the West by Masaki Imai in his book Kaizen: The key to Japan's Competitive Success in 1986 is based on the following principles. The first principle is the emphasis for good processes to bring good results. Others include; speak with data, to manage production operations, work as a team, and take action to contain and correct causes of problems. Toyota Corporation, is a good example of a company which has utilized this strategy to streamline its operations and achieved tremendous success. Others include Walmart which requires its employees to participate in the process of realizing the company's promise of lower prices for quality products. Communication of SQM Communication plays an integral part in ensuring that a company achieves success in its operations. Therefore, for successful implementation of SQM, there if need for proper clear communication. The communication should be both from top to bottom and bottom to top. Every individual within the organization should be made aware that a company is pursuing total quality management. In order to realize the benefits of strategic quality management, an organization should make it clear that it is focused towards achieving the objective. This should become part of day to day activities within an organization. In fact, SQM should be aligned to be part of a company's corporate strategy. Teams In order to achieve faster and objective SQM in an organization, there is need to establish teams to oversee the process. For organizations that are huge in size such at Walmart, Toyota among many more, there is need to establish multiple teams to oversee the implementation of SQM. Each specific region or manufacturing facility or location should have its own team of SQM members who are assigned the role to oversee the process. Teams will help to realize the initiative much faster as there will be specific effort directed towards the process. Empowerment Empowerment refers to actions that are designed to give incentives to persons to work hard towards achieving a certain goal. It may also refers to initiatives undertaken to help teams or employees achieve certain goals. Empowerment can be done through encouragement, through training and through award of rewards to individuals who are able to achieve their targets or surpass them. Process Documentation, Ownership, Management, and Improvement To achieve SQM, there is need to list and document processes, own the process, manage it and seek continuous improvement. Some of the process that will have to be undertaken include, writing and communication of the SQM principles, selection of a team to oversee the process, collection and analysis of current processes to determine which process requires to be updated. For success implementation of the various processes listed, there is need to come up with activity program which can be listed in form of a network diagram. From the network diagram some activates will be prioritized as they are critical while other can be delayed. Last but not least, review of the process is made on periodic basis to determine whether the various targets have been achieved and if not what correctional measures can be instituted. Quality Awards Quality awards play another important role in helping to achieve SQM within an organization. There are various awards which have been introduced to help organizational effort to achieve SQM. The Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award is one such award that a company may aspire to achieve. Benchmarking Benchmarking refers to the process of selecting a leader in a particular industry then using it as a source of guidance in implementing a certain strategy. When it comes to SQM implementation, Walmart and Toyota are some of the companies that can act as source of inspiration to a SQM team and a company as a whole. Benchmarking is critical as it provides a point of reference when the need arises. ISO Standards and Key Performance Indicators utilization to measure SQM ISO standards and Key Performance Indicators KPI should be at the forefront when developing SQM strategy. The importance of ISO standards arise from the fact that they are best on levels. One has to achieve one level before achieving another level which will, act a source of inspiration to the SQM process. Application of Quality Management and Related Management Theories Quality management will be crucial in achieving SQM in any organization. Therefore, quality management should be sort first as the organization must have well established structures in order to be able to implement the SQM process effectively. Quality management therefore acts as the basis for enrolling SQM in an organization. Lessons Learnt from Success and Unsuccessful Stories To achieve strategic quality management is not an easy process. In fact, everyone must be involved if the process has to be a success. Lack of initiative and motive in any one of the key personnel may prove detrimental. From Walmart success story, it can be seen that the process can be applied to achieve success and drive a company forward. Publicity/Visibility of Success Publicity refers to communication of the various success stories or important milestone achieved a by a company. It acts a source of motivation as it tells the company and other stakeholders of the progress made. In addition, it also encourages organizational members to put more effort as they come to know of the progress achieved so far. Conclusion From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that Strategic Quality Management is an important ingredient of successful operations. The ability to implement SQM depends to all members of an organization as it is made of the little efforts undertaken to achieve quality management. The process may prove difficult to achieve if enough effort, resources, time and expertise is not devoted towards the process. Strategic Quality Management (SQM) Implementation Plan Outline Use all 20 items in your plan. You may include additional items in an appendix. I. What is the organization of which you are the CEO--Superintendent of a school district? CEO of a hospital? Plant Manager? University president? CEO of Wal-Mart, Costco, or Dollar Tree? Etc.? II. How, and to what extent is this organization involved in and impacted by globalization? How should it be involved in globalization? III. Consensus of Leadership Team to Implement SQM. Also, how will the implementation of SQM and other improvement initiatives support accountability, organizational governance, and organizational control? IV. Assessment of Culture (Conducive to SQM? Changes Needed?) V. Assessment of Existing Improvement Initiatives (ISO 9000 or other ISO standards? TQM? SPC? Lean Manufacturing? JIT Six Sigma? Other initiative? Or some initiative that is unique to your industry or organization?). VI. Use of Strategic Management Model and its elements - Also, how will you integrate your quality Initiative into the Strategic Management of the Organization? VII. Five P's Strategic Leadership Model - Use (and Alignment) of Five P'sPlan how you will use and Align 5P's? How will this ensure accountability and support organizational governance and control? VIII. How and why are the concept and application of ethics crucial to the implementation of a strategic quality management initiative? IX. Training (What training will you do? Who will do it? Who will receive the training? Examples are: Quality Theory and Tools, Six Sigma, Lean, Kaizen, Leadership, etc. You choose the type of training based on your knowledge of what you think you and your people will need.) X. Communication (How will people in the organization know you are implementing SQM, what are their respective roles, etc.?) XI. Teams (Will you have teams? What types? How will you activate them, use them, energize them for the long term, etc.?) XII. Empowerment (How will you use empowerment?) XIII. Process Documentation, Ownership, Management, and Improvement (How will you manage and streamline processes? Examples are listed.) a. List Processes and Who Owns Each on Departmental Calendar b. Develop a Checklist (Process Flowchart, Process Map, etc.) for each process c. Prioritize Processes d. Streamline Processes (e.g., Eliminate non-value-added items, etc.) e. Document Process Changes XIV. Quality Awards (How will you use Quality Award Criteria? For what quality awards will you apply? Why?) XV. Benchmarking (Which organizations will you benchmark? Why? How will you use the results?) XVI. How will you utilize ISO standards as well as Key Performance Indicators - KPI's - to measure SQM success and ensure accountability and organizational control? XVII. How will you use the quality management and related management and business theories that you included in your individual and/or team research papers? XVIII. Lessons Learned from Successes & Failures - How will you use successes and failures as the foundation for future success? XIX. Publicity/Visibility of Success - How and why will you publicize successes? XX. Conclusion - How will you ensure long-term continuous improvement in your organization? Revised 2015 Strategic Quality Management (SQM) Implementation Plan Outline Walmart Corporation Name Institution Introduction Walmart Corporation was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. The company has grown from one retail store to be the leading multinational retail store in the world today with revenue return more than the economy of Italy. The retail store has its presence in more than 36 countries. Today, more than a quarter of the retail store's revenue comes from outside the United States. Walmart Impact on Globalization Walmart, the leading retail store in the world, has impacted the world in various ways. Wal-Mart success has been made possible because of the company's philosophy to sell merchandises at the lowest price possible. Because of this strategy, the company has been able to endear itself to customers. In fact, the growth of the company and its acceptability wherever it has set foot stems from its insistence on lowest prices possible for its clients. In order to achieve its strategy of lowest prices possible, Walmart has implemented a number of initiatives all aimed at cutting costs. Walmart also works closely with is suppliers across the globe to ensure that they are able to offer the most competitive prices possible. Because of the level of success achieved by the company and the impact the company has had on customers and competitors, there is a notion of Wal-Mart effect wherever the company sets foot as it indicates lower prices to the surrounding community. Today a number of companies have embraced what is called Walmart effect. This effect usually forces existing firms to either reduce their prices or face the brink of being faced out of business. On the other hand, communities living wherever this stations are based normally rejoice. Consensus of Leadership Team to Implement SQM Strategic Quality Management is concerned with establishing long term goals that are focused at defining customer needs and how to fulfill them. In order to implement SQM, Walmart undertook a number of initiatives all meant at fulfilling the entity's promise to deliver quality products to its customer at the lowest cost possible. To achieve successful implementation of SQM, there is need to have in place consensus within a company's top leadership. Over the course of doing business, Walmart top leadership has been able to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement of the company operations starting from service to fulfilling customer needs. Walmart leadership is designed to ensure that Walmart is able to offer the lowest possible prices in areas that retail store operates without affecting quality. Assessment of Culture Conducive for SQM The first requirement that is needed for successful integration of SQM into a company operations is owning of the whole process. Taking Walmart as an example, top leadership is required to be committed into the ideals of SQM for the concept to thrive within an organization. For example, there is need for innovative culture within an organization. Market culture is the most suitable type of culture that an organization can implement to achieve SQM. Market culture advocates for competition, achievement and getting the job done. This means that everyone within the organization should be committed towards achieving total quality. For the case of Walmart, employees are required to be extremely efficient while undertaking their duties. In fact everyone, is obliged to accomplish their task towards achieving total quality management. Existing Initiatives Established by Walmart to Achieve Strategic Quality Management It is important to highlight that Walmart has more than 11,000 stores located in over 27 countries. In order to furnish these stores, the company manages an average of $32 billion inventory which are sourced from over 77 countries. Because of this, Walmart supply chain system has to be on top of its operations. To achieve SQM, the company requires that everyone in the entire organization to be committed to the driving prices down as much as possible by reducing costs incurred while conducting business. How to Integrate SQM into an organization For SQM ideal to be integrated successfully into an organization, there is need to ensure that everyone owns the idea. The best strategy to ensure that SQM succeeds is by ensuring that top management owns is and are committed to ensuring that it is actually implemented. This will help to avoid resistance of the strategy at some quarters. Apart from involvement of top leadership as well as everyone else in an organization, there is need to ensure that SQM elements are observed while coming gup with a SQM draft. Five Ps of Strategic Leadership The five Ps of Effective Leadership include purpose, Personification, Priority, Passion, and professionalism. Purpose if the first case of effective leadership. This means that leadership must have a goal or must be objectively oriented towards a certain purpose. For the case of Walmart, it can be seen that the company's leadership is actually entitled towards achieving lower priced goods but of high quality. Priority refers to the steps which must be observed while implementing strategic planning. Leaders are also supposed to have passion for what they are doing and encourage other to believe in their ideals. Lastly but equally important, personalization and professionalism are also required for development of effective leadership. Importance of Ethics is Strategic Quality Management. SQM is concerned with putting in place structures that ensure customer needs are satisfied for optimal benefits to a company. Walmart is one of the leading companies that has implemented this strategy and has seen its value rise because of the importance it attaches SQM. In implementing SQM, ethical issues are bound to emerge and therefore, considerations for ethic quality management need to be observed. Application of ethics in SQM is very instrumental in ensuring that both shareholders and community interests are taken care-off when implementing various strategies aimed at achieving optimal customer satisfaction. Although Walmart generally improves on the lives of the communities where it operates, it is also argued that the company business structure makes local and small firms to be wiped out for inability to compute. At some instance, it has been accused of procuring products from countries where forced labor is used. Because of this ethical considerations, the company has actually put in place measure to ensure ethical considerations in its business operations. Training Training is one of the most important of Human Resource Department. Through training, a company can align its employees to its strategic mission. For example, Walmart has been consistent in training and molding its workers into helping the company achieve lower prices by cutting on wastes and maximizing on various opportunities. In order to conduct successful training, it is important to state the goals and objectives of training. Thereafter, experienced personnel both middle and lower level managers to conduct the training program. For example, Kaizen production concept can be used in the training program. Kaizen which was introduced in the West by Masaki Imai in his book Kaizen: The key to Japan's Competitive Success in 1986 is based on the following principles. The first principle is the emphasis for good processes to bring good results. Others include; speak with data, to manage production operations, work as a team, and take action to contain and correct causes of problems. Toyota Corporation, is a good example of a company which has utilized this strategy to streamline its operations and achieved tremendous success. Others include Walmart which requires its employees to participate in the process of realizing the company's promise of lower prices for quality products. Communication of SQM Communication plays an integral part in ensuring that a company achieves success in its operations. Therefore, for successful implementation of SQM, there if need for proper clear communication. The communication should be both from top to bottom and bottom to top. Every individual within the organization should be made aware that a company is pursuing total quality management. In order to realize the benefits of strategic quality management, an organization should make it clear that it is focused towards achieving the objective. This should become part of day to day activities within an organization. In fact, SQM should be aligned to be part of a company's corporate strategy. Teams In order to achieve faster and objective SQM in an organization, there is need to establish teams to oversee the process. For organizations that are huge in size such at Walmart, Toyota among many more, there is need to establish multiple teams to oversee the implementation of SQM. Each specific region or manufacturing facility or location should have its own team of SQM members who are assigned the role to oversee the process. Teams will help to realize the initiative much faster as there will be specific effort directed towards the process. Empowerment Empowerment refers to actions that are designed to give incentives to persons to work hard towards achieving a certain goal. It may also refers to initiatives undertaken to help teams or employees achieve certain goals. Empowerment can be done through encouragement, through training and through award of rewards to individuals who are able to achieve their targets or surpass them. Process Documentation, Ownership, Management, and Improvement To achieve SQM, there is need to list and document processes, own the process, manage it and seek continuous improvement. Some of the process that will have to be undertaken include, writing and communication of the SQM principles, selection of a team to oversee the process, collection and analysis of current processes to determine which process requires to be updated. For success implementation of the various processes listed, there is need to come up with activity program which can be listed in form of a network diagram. From the network diagram some activates will be prioritized as they are critical while other can be delayed. Last but not least, review of the process is made on periodic basis to determine whether the various targets have been achieved and if not what correctional measures can be instituted. Quality Awards Quality awards play another important role in helping to achieve SQM within an organization. There are various awards which have been introduced to help organizational effort to achieve SQM. The Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award is one such award that a company may aspire to achieve. Benchmarking Benchmarking refers to the process of selecting a leader in a particular industry then using it as a source of guidance in implementing a certain strategy. When it comes to SQM implementation, Walmart and Toyota are some of the companies that can act as source of inspiration to a SQM team and a company as a whole. Benchmarking is critical as it provides a point of reference when the need arises. ISO Standards and Key Performance Indicators utilization to measure SQM ISO standards and Key Performance Indicators KPI should be at the forefront when developing SQM strategy. The importance of ISO standards arise from the fact that they are best on levels. One has to achieve one level before achieving another level which will, act a source of inspiration to the SQM process. Application of Quality Management and Related Management Theories Quality management will be crucial in achieving SQM in any organization. Therefore, quality management should be sort first as the organization must have well established structures in order to be able to implement the SQM process effectively. Quality management therefore acts as the basis for enrolling SQM in an organization. Lessons Learnt from Success and Unsuccessful Stories To achieve strategic quality management is not an easy process. In fact, everyone must be involved if the process has to be a success. Lack of initiative and motive in any one of the key personnel may prove detrimental. From Walmart success story, it can be seen that the process can be applied to achieve success and drive a company forward. Publicity/Visibility of Success Publicity refers to communication of the various success stories or important milestone achieved a by a company. It acts a source of motivation as it tells the company and other stakeholders of the progress made. In addition, it also encourages organizational members to put more effort as they come to know of the progress achieved so far. Conclusion From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that Strategic Quality Management is an important ingredient of successful operations. The ability to implement SQM depends to all members of an organization as it is made of the little efforts undertaken to achieve quality management. The process may prove difficult to achieve if enough effort, resources, time and expertise is not devoted towards the process