Application of policy deployment and daily management in service sector

Background: Policy Deployment and Daily Management are two critical vehicles of Total Quality Management implementation in a company. Integration of these two vehicles has been discussed and adequately addressed in a few companies that have been practicing Total Quality Management for a long time. However, most companies often face challenges and difficulties in ensuring smooth and seamless transfer of Policy Deployment plans into Daily Management activities. Case description: The challenge is even bigger in service sector which embarked on the Total Quality Management journey barely 5–6 years ago. The service sector has traditionally used Balanced Scorecard which has relatively weaker emphasis on the means to achieve the targets. The authors of this report have found a customized and unique model whose success has been demonstrated through deployment in two customer-facing processes in a large life insurance company in India. The traditional approach used in manufacturing industry has been simplified and customized for the effective application in the service sector. Discussions & Evaluation: The traditional approach used in manufacturing industry has been simplified and customised for the effective application in the service sector. A survey was done to identify the issues and the approach was modified and implemented in couple of key customer-facing processes. Conclusion: The phenomenal results have led to a big ‘pull’ from other process owners to replicate this approach across all operational and support processes. Initial ‘reluctant participants’ of the process have now become the ‘champions’ and truly the ‘change catalysts’ for this approach. The process is now being replicated in several other processes across several Industrial sectors.