Low quality service becomes custom in harsh economy

As we continue to figure out whether the Kenyan economy is in recovery, inflationary, emerging or bouncing back, one thing for sure is that every business is under pressure to watch their bottom line and ensure that investors are getting profit.

This pressure, whether it is as a result of real or imagined circumstances, has resulted in some companies taking a more than creative approach to manage their cost of doing business.

It is not surprising that most of us get a sense that the brands we consume today do not necessarily stand the test of quality that they embraced a decade ago.

To some degree, this state of affairs is described by some self acclaimed business guru as the “lowest cost formula” approach in which cost-reduction activities such as changes in product formulas become the Achilles heel of opportunistic businesses.

This short-term focus usually misdirects an organisation’s strategic plans into territory that is difficult to navigate.

It all startups with managers comparing this year’s product quality with last year’s measures.

The presumption is that reducing the product quality slightly this year, will still be at parity to last year’s quality.

This is all well and done when the product quality change is done tactically over a short period of time to reduce costs.

However, most organisations are characterised by change and over a period of years, different managers using the same approach will eventually find through comparative testing that the current product formulation is far inferior to what constitutes the original product, albeit charged to consumers at a premium.

It is for this reason that the leather shoes you wore ten years ago lasted for four good years while the shoes you bought last year as a Christmas treat are beginning to show the early signs of the effects of what we used to once call “tarmacking” – doing great mileage while looking for that ever elusive job.

The servings in your favourite restaurant are not the same portion today as they were a couple of years ago.

As a matter of fact, the size of the choice steak has been reduced and been replaced by some edible décor referred to as asparagus!

Over time, this state raises concerns on consumer acceptance and inevitably, consumer preference for these once superior quality products begins to wane.

It is in this context that counterfeit products in the local market have found relatively easy inroads into some product categories.

In the past, it was not too difficult to distinguish between a counterfeit and a genuine item.