Identifying business priorities through quality function deployment : Insights from a case study

Purpose – Although important concepts and steps for strategic planning have been identified, there are few practical, systematic and powerful methodologies and tools to support an integrated and well‐managed process. This paper aims at describing in details how the quality function deployment (QFD) methodology can be applied in order to define the strategic priorities of a firm, to establish clear customer needs/expectations and to draw up a range of product and service characteristics in order to enhance customer satisfaction and thus competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach – From a methodological point of view, an exploratory case study has been taken with multiple level of analysis and multiple data collection methods. The case study refers to a small manufacturing firm operating in Italy which designs and sells geothermal heat pump systems. Findings – The proposed methodology provides an excellent mechanism for integrating the important concepts and linking major steps of strategic planning and offers a rigorous methodology for identifying business priorities and developing order winning criteria. Originality/value – In the last two decades many studies have appeared in the literature regarding the use of QFD procedure in supporting different types of planning. The main problem with these studies is that few explain the details of the process and even fewer present in‐depth case studies to demonstrate the process. Given the intrinsic characteristics of the case study, it is the authors' opinion that the analysis can give relevant indications about the feasibility and general applicability of the proposed methodology.