Businesses focus on quality

"The precautionary measures that would increase Turkey's endurance during the European Union harmonization process would help the country to walk out of this process with benefits," Arzuhan Doğan Yal?ındağ, chairwoman of Turkish Industrialists' and Businessman's Association, or T?SİAD, said at the opening ceremony of the 17th Quality Congress in Istanbul yesterday.

"We should focus on investing in the future, instead of just concentrating on solving today's problems. And investing in humans is one of the key components of investing in the future. This brings us once again to the importance of quality management," said Yal?ındağ. Quality working, quality living and the colliding paths of these two elements, is the theme of this years Quality congress.

"Today the business mediums and rules are defined by certain factors, such as developed communication facilities, global competition, enhanced competences via better education and more female labor power," she said, adding that the speed of globalization and technological developments pushes companies to seek new management methods as well as new leaders who can push the limits in an environment of high competition. "Enhancing diversity among employees is also one of the key factors that are effective for success and competitiveness," Yal?ındağ said. "Providing equal opportunities for people from different parts of the society is quite important in terms of establishing a sustainable labor power market, which is able to use the added value that it produces, efficiently."

KalDer Board Chairman Ali Rıza Kaylan said, "While the global crisis surrounds the world, quality is the last thing one should compromise. "Crises are temporary and when they end people prefer those who protected the quality of their brands," Kylan added.