Building a Corporate Culture of Quality

Laboratories, chemical analysis, product inspections and other scientific elements are often associated with quality control, but underneath all the testing and protocol is a lifestyle, a way of doing business down to the little details and often overlooked tasks. At the root of high-quality businesses is a so-called Culture of Quality, a prevailing manner and belief that can sometimes sound like empty rhetoric, but which actually informs and guides how a company or organization is perceived.

Culture is really a mindset, according to Joe Chang, Ph.D., co-founder of Pharmanex and chief scientific officer of its parent Nu Skin Enterprises. Thus, a company’s culture of quality is the approach and commitment it takes to all aspects of its business, including its personnel and entire supply chain. “A culture of quality refers to the way that everyone in the company recognizes the importance and criticality of quality in your products,” Chang continued. “The idea and concept of quality becomes institutionalized, if you will. For our purposes, it is really about making sure that when we make products, all of us in the company must be willing to recommend these products to loved ones and family members.”

By this, the culture of quality in a company becomes a guiding principle, as people within the organization understand and subscribe to the commitment and practice of the standards of business put in place by management. This mindset refers to the belief and commitment that “I must do it right.”

“A quality culture reflects a commitment from seed-to-shelf and beyond,” said Andrew Shao, Ph.D., vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). “This includes wherever your raw material is grown, how it is grown, how it is harvested, processed and extracted at the processing plant, and then how it is turned into an ingredient, brought to the manufacturer, how they formulate with it, make tablets and package the product, and how it gets to the retailer, who displays the product; even after the consumer buys it, the commitment to quality should continue. This means fielding questions and inquiries from consumers, in addition to outreach to ensure customers understand their expectations and if their needs have been met.”

George Pontiakos, president and CEO of BI Nutraceuticals, agreed quality goes beyond chemistry and production. “Quality is far more than just mold count, heavy metals and pesticides,” he said. “It’s a constant process, and you have to live it every day. By doing this, I ensure that the people who support me share my expectations, and we all execute at the same level.” He reported 18 percent of BI employees are exclusive to quality functions of the business, although 100-percent of the company is quality-minded. “We emphasize this by ensuring we are transparent to our own people,” he said. “They know what we are doing on a quarterly basis, which customers are in backlog, which vendors are performing well, up and down the line. The more you communicate good information to your people, the higher the level of execution they can perform.”

In theory, this idea of an infused attitude of quality within a company sounds good, but how does a business go about cultivating a culture of quality? The architects of such a culture are your senior management, who must show by example. This manifests itself in how management treats employees, as well as vendors and customers.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor is a quality culture. “It takes time; it is not an overnight process, not even a year-long one, but it takes multiple years,” Chang reported. “It took us 10 years to reach our current position, where each one of us in all areas of the company strives for a high-quality culture.”

Chang noted the founding credo for Pharmanex was to start a science-based, pharmaceutical-like supplement company. “Often, natural products people don’t like to hear the word ‘pharma’, but it doesn’t take them long to understand what we are about—when you aim to do science, you must do quality first,” he explained, adding, like it or not, pharma performs manufacturing to a high standard of quality. He said now, whenever new employees start at his company, they learn and understand the mission statement of science and quality, and are on board immediately.

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