CII conclave on quality in service sector

Bangalore, June 14: Top notch experts in various service sector industries will exchange notes and share best practices at the two-day fourth national annual service quality conclave of the Confederation of Indian Industry, to be held here from June 21.

Wockhardt Hospitals CEO and CII (IQ) Healthcare Convener Vishal Bali told newspersons here that delegates from over 11 services sectors would be participating in the meet that would discuss how companies could leverage innovation in service quality and exceed changing customer requirements and profits from it.

ICICI Bank Deputy Managing Director Chanda Kochhar, who is the Chairperson of the National Core Group on Quality, said via teleconference from Mumbai that with India increasingly becoming a major global player in the services sector, there was need for a quality enhancement to remain competitive.

She said the conclave sessions would help delegates navigate through unpredictable consumer behaviour and increasing competition to build a strong foundation for reaching superior levels of quality service.

Mr Bali, admitting that there was lack of trained manpower in the services sector, said premier management institutes and other centres of higher learning should brood over the issue and take up collaborative training with the industry to enhance skillsets. Not just communication skills need to be toned up, but a whole lot of new skills should be complemented with it, he added.

Referring to the services in banking sector, Ms Kochhar said the growing competition from multinational banks was driving the industry to provide new set of services and the sector could learn a lot from other sectors, including manufacturing, to speed up back office operations to complete transactions at a faster pace and deliver in time to customers. Mere technology and automation would not serve the purpose. Though mundane operations like cash transactions could be taken care of by ATMs, there was a need for human interface at branch levels, she added.

UNI