Strategic managementIn the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans.
Quality (business)In business, engineering, and manufacturing, quality – or high quality – has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something (goods or services); it is also defined as being suitable for the intended purpose (fitness for purpose) while satisfying customer expectations. Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. Consumers may focus on the specification quality of a product/service, or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace.
Marketing strategyMarketing strategy is an organization's promotional efforts to allocate its resources across a wide range of platforms, channels to increase its sales and achieve sustainable competitive advantage within its corresponding market. Strategic marketing emerged in the 1970s and 80s as a distinct field of study, branching out of strategic management. Marketing strategy highlights the role of marketing as a link between the organization and its customers, leveraging the combination of resources and capabilities within an organization to achieve a competitive advantage (Cacciolatti & Lee, 2016).
Quality assuranceQuality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design, reliability, and maintainability expectations of that customer. The core purpose of Quality Assurance is to prevent mistakes and defects in the development and production of both manufactured products, such as automobiles and shoes, and delivered services, such as automotive repair and athletic shoe design.
Competitive advantageIn business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors. A competitive advantage may include access to natural resources, such as high-grade ores or a low-cost power source, highly skilled labor, geographic location, high entry barriers, and access to new technology and to proprietary information. The term competitive advantage refers to the ability gained through attributes and resources to perform at a higher level than others in the same industry or market (Christensen and Fahey 1984, Kay 1994, Porter 1980 cited by Chacarbaghi and Lynch 1999, p.
Quality managementQuality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Quality management, therefore, uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. Quality control is also part of quality management.
Quality engineeringQuality engineering is the discipline of engineering concerned with the principles and practice of product and service quality assurance and control. In software development, it is the management, development, operation and maintenance of IT systems and enterprise architectures with a high quality standard. Quality engineering is the discipline of engineering that creates and implements strategies for quality assurance in product development and production as well as software development.
Porter's five forces analysisPorter's Five Forces Framework is a method of analysing the operating environment of a competition of a business. It draws from industrial organization (IO) economics to derive five forces that determine the competitive intensity and, therefore, the attractiveness (or lack thereof) of an industry in terms of its profitability. An "unattractive" industry is one in which the effect of these five forces reduces overall profitability. The most unattractive industry would be one approaching "pure competition", in which available profits for all firms are driven to normal profit levels.
Value chainA value chain is a progression of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product (i.e., good and/or service) to the end customer. The concept comes through business management and was first described by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs.
Software qualityIn the context of software engineering, software quality refers to two related but distinct notions: Software's functional quality reflects how well it complies with or conforms to a given design, based on functional requirements or specifications. That attribute can also be described as the fitness for purpose of a piece of software or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace as a worthwhile product. It is the degree to which the correct software was produced.
Total quality managementTotal quality management (TQM) consists of organization-wide efforts to "install and make permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on demand products and services that customers will find of particular value." "Total" emphasizes that departments in addition to production (for example sales and marketing, accounting and finance, engineering and design) are obligated to improve their operations; "management" emphasizes that executives are obligated to actively manage quality through funding, training, staffing, and goal setting.
CustomerIn sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for money or some other valuable consideration. Early societies relied on a gift economy based on favours. Later, as commerce developed, less permanent human relations were formed, depending more on transitory needs rather than enduring social desires.
Economies of scaleIn microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables an increase in scale. At the basis of economies of scale, there may be technical, statistical, organizational or related factors to the degree of market control. This is just a partial description of the concept.
Customer satisfactionCustomer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals." Customers play an important role and are essential in keeping a product or service relevant; it is, therefore, in the best interest of the business to ensure customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty.
Economies of scopeEconomies of scope are "efficiencies formed by variety, not volume" (the latter concept is "economies of scale"). In economics, "economies" is synonymous with cost savings and "scope" is synonymous with broadening production/services through diversified products. Economies of scope is an economic theory stating that average total cost of production decrease as a result of increasing the number of different goods produced. For example, a gas station that sells gasoline can sell soda, milk, baked goods, etc.
Returns to scaleIn economics, the concept of returns to scale arises in the context of a firm's production function. It explains the long-run linkage of increase in output (production) relative to associated increases in the inputs (factors of production). In the long run, all factors of production are variable and subject to change in response to a given increase in production scale. In other words, returns to scale analysis is a long-term theory because a company can only change the scale of production in the long run by changing factors of production, such as building new facilities, investing in new machinery, or improving technology.
Supply chain managementIn commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement (purchasing raw materials/components), operations management (ensuring the production of high-quality products at high speed with good flexibility and low production cost), logistics and marketing channels, so that the raw materials can be converted into a finished product and delivered to the end customer.
SalesSales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale. A period during which goods are sold for a reduced price may also be referred to as a "sale". The seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in an interaction with a buyer, which may occur at the point of sale or in response to a purchase order from a customer.
Sales promotionSales promotion is one of the elements of the promotional mix. The primary elements in the promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and publicity/public relations. Sales promotion uses both media and non-media marketing communications for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve product availability. Examples include contests, coupons, freebies, loss leaders, point of purchase displays, premiums, prizes, product samples, and rebates.
Positioning (marketing)Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors and different from the concept of brand awareness. In order to position products or brands, companies may emphasize the distinguishing features of their brand (what it is, what it does and how, etc.) or they may try to create a suitable (inexpensive or premium, utilitarian or luxurious, entry-level or high-end, etc.) through the marketing mix.
