Article by : Prof. Pinaki Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Associate Professor, Calcutta Business School
Quality has become an important strategic tool in the
modern world as it ensures the viability of a business. Some prominent definitions include ‘conformance to requirements’
(Crosby, 1984), ‘fitness for use’ (Juran,1988) or ‘one that satisfies the
customer’ (Eiglier and Langeard, 1976). Though initial efforts have been
made to define quality in various forms, the present meaning of quality is meeting
or exceeding customers’ expectations. Service Quality definition came into
light when Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) emphasized that quality of
manufacturing industry is largely different from services industry due to its
inherent characteristics of intangibility, heterogeneity, perishability and inseparability.
They stressed that services vary
in their degree of intangibility with respect to lack of physical attributes of
the actual service (outcome) and the lack of physical evidence of the process. Higher
education is increasingly being recognised as a service industry. Therefore,
this sector is emphasizing more on meeting the expectations and needs of its
participating customers, that is, the students. Accordingly, Higher Education
Institution's (HEI’s) therefore, try to assign more time and resources to
enhance the quality of their pedagogical skills backed with industry exposure wherever
necessary and practice to make them more interesting and application oriented,
as perceived by the students. Management, as a stream of Higher
Education and training has also acquired new dimensions in the last few
decades. Since time immemorial, Indians are known to possess people, trained & well equipped
with knowledge & intellect to tackle the problems which they face in the
business world. Since B-schools are also a part of this service process,
Indian B-schools are also likely to deliver the optimum in terms of quality.
Moreover, globalization & liberalization has widened the scope and has
encouraged entrepreneurs to venture into this industry to consolidate more in
terms of business prospects rather than a social responsibility. It is in this
context that the question of service quality comes into mind as education is
primarily perceived by the stakeholders as a service sector. The challenges of
operations and maintenance of quality has brought the B-Schools to a
competitive level to showcase their ability in developing centres of
excellence. But of late, Management Education is at the crossroads in terms of
occupancy level as the number of
seats on offer has increased significantly and several institutes at
different tiers of B-Schools in India
have not been able to train their students meet the requirements of corporate world.
This is because, most of these Institutes are not focusing on Quality and
excellence to identify a niche area which will differentiate them in terms of
performance of their students at various corporate houses. A rigorous planning
and strategic effort with an innovative curriculum from the educational
institutes is the order of the day to create a brand in imparting quality
education which may successfully help the industry in overcoming this problem.
- Parasuraman A, Zeithaml V A and Berry LL
(1985). “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for
Future Research,” Journal of Marketing, 49(Fall), pp 41-50
- Eiglier
P & Langeard E (1976) ‘Principe de Politique Marketing Pour les
Enterprises de Service’, working paper of the Institute d’Administration
des Enterprises Université d’Aix-Marseille
- Three
Experts on Quality Management: Philip B. Crosby , W. Edwards Deming,
Joseph M. Juran, Total Quality Leadership Office, 1992
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