The digitalization of society during the last decade has created many opportunities for businesses and organizations. But digitalization, combined with a rapidly changing world, has also opened new threats and vulnerabilities that can cause serious damage to businesses. Every day we see headlines about different types of attacks and incidents.

How does this affect you as a quality leader? What happens to your company when customers lose trust in the quality of your products and services? One recent industry example shows how a missing screw slipped through quality control and created a global firestorm of bad publicity: News about doors falling out of the sky doesn’t inspire public confidence. It can have a devastating effect on human lives, your company’s reputation, and the bottom line. It takes only a few seconds to destroy trust, but it can take years to repair.

For seasoned and budding quality leaders, safeguarding your company’s quality in a global market should be a top strategic priority. Quality affects your brand’s reputation as well as confidence in the products and services you deliver.

This is where many of the quality leaders’ different roles—strategic thinker, problem solver, improvement driver, change agent, and compliance specialist—come into play. By being well prepared to meet dynamic global markets, you can successfully steer your company’s quality assurance and build trust from your customers.

What are your top four strategies to position yourself and your organization as a future quality leader? Here are our recommendations.

1. Apply value systems to manage global and local markets

The global marketplace is growing, driven by globalization, technology, innovations, increasing consumer demand, and emerging markets. These drivers produce pressure to consistently deliver quality in multiple jurisdictions with different standards, regulations, and customer expectations.

Cultivating your company’s values and commitment to quality is a step toward ensuring quality and earning trust from your internal and external customers. These values may seem like a hygiene factor, but they’re important across different markets. At the same time, you must understand where quality falls in your organizational value systems and those of your customers, countries, and public governments. Values such as transparency in your processes, choosing and sourcing raw materials and components, and good manufacturing practices all rely upon inherent quality control processes. Implementing robust quality control processes throughout the supply chain is critical. This includes regular inspections, testing, and monitoring to promptly identify and address any issues.

In your role as a problem solver and improvement driver, applying corrective and preventative action (CAPA) or plan-do-check-act (PDCA) methods and other tools are the keys to continuous quality improvement.

2. Walk the walk, talk the talk

Do be transparent. Withholding information about quality issues only creates mistrust in the market, so regularly communicate what you do to improve quality—and not only when there is a problem. Talk about and demonstrate to your colleagues and internal stakeholders your company’s commitment to quality.

One example would be elevating the role of a quality leader to a strategic level, such as chief quality officer. Putting quality on par with other C-suite positions signals the strategic importance of quality to stakeholders, colleagues, suppliers, and customers. This also means implementing and driving changes within all levels of your organization. Handling resistance and implementing continuous improvement projects are essential to a change agent.

3. Nurture customer and supplier relationships

All of your customers and suppliers have their own values and views of quality. Some critical techniques can strengthen your customers’ trust in the quality you deliver. Developing a robust loop of customer feedback, reviews, warranties, and complaints will capture quality issues that require corrective actions.

Encouraging feedback also ties into transparency. Responsive and effective customer service and clear communication help build credibility.

Suppliers are partners. Establishing strong relationships with suppliers and ensuring they meet quality standards is essential. This includes auditing suppliers, conducting quality checks on incoming materials, fostering open communication, and sharing best practices. Improving quality at every stage benefits the entire supply chain and builds collective trust in the marketplace. You will continue to need more integrated supplier quality-management processes and tools.

4. Implement tools to support continuous change

Reimagining and reinventing traditional quality management systems (QMS) is necessary to meet the demands of a rapidly changing global market. Throughout industries such as construction, manufacturing, and engineering, organizations are turning to modern digital tools to improve coordination and maintain consistent quality standards. From automated reporting systems to advanced contractor scheduling software, these solutions make it easier to plan, track, and adjust complex projects in real time.

By integrating such tools into their quality management processes, companies can enhance efficiency, minimize human error, and strengthen trust throughout the entire value chain. Adaptability and agility are vital. Create flexible, scalable, and adaptive future QMS frameworks that can evolve alongside your organization, processes, and customer requirements. This can strengthen trust in the quality of your products and services. Tools such as CANEA ONE can also develop customer and supplier relationships.

Overall, implementing these strategies will put you in a good position to protect your company’s quality reputation in the market.