"Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for."
Drucker's insight here is fascinating to me. The vast majority of us believe quality is what we put into something.
But, as Drucker says, it is what the customer we serve gets out of our product or service that counts. They pay for what they consider quality, not the amount of time, energy or money we put into something.
How do we know if the quality is what a customer is looking for? They'll tell us by how much they're willing to pay for it, or even if they're willing to buy it in the first place.
While developing products and services in some cases are considered artistic and of great design, it still has to be design the customer gets something out of.
If we want to create products with great design, it can't be the type of design some snobbish artists insist upon doing that cares nothing about the viewer. You know: The I've got to express myself types.
That may work in the artists world, but it doesn't work in the business world. We must create for the customers' satisfaction, not our own.
That's why products in the past, that may be of better quality and design from the point of view of the supplier, can fail miserably to an inferior product. It's the consumer and what they get out of the product that counts, not the perceived quality of the developer or supplier.
We must remember it's the customer who decides these things and votes with their money, not the developer.
Other Peter Drucker Resources:
The Man Who Invented Management
Beyond the Information Revolution
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