Article 7.5 Quality

We will strive to make quality a basic goal of all businesses and activities.

Quality is delivery of products and services which fully meet customer requirements and expectations. All of us have customer relations who expect and deserve high quality.

We will strive to make quality a basic goal of all businesses and activities. A goal which we do not compromise.

ACTION POINT: Know and understand customer expectations and then meet them.

Innovating Internally

it is just as important to have a strategy inside the organization,

An overall innovation strategy matters if you are competing with other organizations in the marketplace. But it is just as important to have a strategy inside the organization, to help prioritize changes you make to the ways you do things -- or process innovation.

This will help you to avoid a situation where you spend your energy improving irrelevant details while leaving the really important changes undone -- a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

ACTION POINT: Look internally for innovations that really matter to your business.

Developing a Strategy

...what are you going to do, and why are you choosing that option over others?

An innovation strategy requires three key elements:

• Strategic analysis: what could you do, and why would that make a difference?
• Strategic decision-making: what are you going to do, and why are you choosing that option over others?
• Strategic action: how can you make sure the project happens, and support and review it as the innovation takes shape?

Some of the most important innovation decisions are not about starting projects, but scrapping those which looked good at the outset but which then failed to develop as expected.

ACTION POINT: Make sure all your decisions have sound strategic backing in line with the wide aims of the organization.

Planning for Innovation

Careful planning is essential for successful innovation.

Every organization needs to innovate to keep pace with a changing world. But unless you know where, what and why you want to change, your blueprint for innovation will come to nothing. Careful planning is essential for successful innovation.

Developing a road map for change, or an innovation strategy, can help your organization to stay ahead of the competition over the long term. Any innovation project involves resources - money, time, employees' skills -- and you need to spend these wisely if an innovation is to be worthwhile.

ACTION POINT: Are you keeping pace with the changing world?

Preparing For Challenges

Do you actively explore the future...

Be aware of areas in which proposed innovations could help make your organization both more vulnerable and more resistant to outside changes. The following checklist is a guide line in preparation for challenges:

• Does the organization's management create "stretch goals" that provide the direction but not the route for innovation?
• Do you actively explore the future, making use of tools and techniques like scenarios and foresight?
• Do you have the capacity to challenge your current position--do you think abut how your business could be adversely affected?
• Do you have strategic decision-making and project selection mechanisms to deal with radical proposals?
• Do you have, and make, connections across your industry to provide your organization with fresh perspectives?
• Do you have alerting mechanisms to warn you about new trends?

ACTION POINT: Identify which of the above you should begin doing.